Adapted from a blog by Christina Gwira of NOYADESIGNS
We all want to make more sales. There is so much more to having success with your online store than simply having a website. It’s very easy to think that all you need to do is hire a designer and sales will come. It just doesn’t work like that. There are certain things you can do to optimize your store for success. The best way to make more sales on your e-commerce store is to make sure that the user has a good experience on your site.
User experience is important if you want to make more sales with your store. You’d be surprised at the reasons why people don’t buy from you, and your job is to make sure that they do. Below are the top three ways to optimize your e-commerce site for better sales, from 2021 YLAI Fellow Christina Gwira of NOYADESIGNS. These tips, tricks and apps will make sure that you’re positioning yourself in the best possible way for your customers.
1. Update your product descriptions
Far too many times we see threadbare product descriptions on people’s sites, a couple of words thrown haphazardly together with little to no context. It’s important not to get lazy here. This is your time to shine. You should be thoroughly describing the benefits of your product for your customer. You want to put enough information in the description so that you can get rid of any of the doubts your customer may have about your products.
When you are writing your description, be sure to put thought into it and try not to focus on features, but on benefits. If you’re really struggling with this, hire a copywriter. You’ll be surprised at how much this one thing could increase your conversion rate.
2. Lower your page load speed
If your website is slow, you’ve lost the battle. Let me set the scene for you. You’ve got a marketing budget. You decide you want to run a Facebook ad to get more traffic and sales for your store. When it comes to Facebook ads you get charged when people see your ad and when people click on the link to go to your site. If your site takes too long to load, customers tend to get frustrated and leave the page without ever seeing your product.
This is tragic. You’ve paid for traffic but the customer didn’t even get a chance to see your product or take a look at your store because your page never loaded. This is so common in the e-commerce space. Use a tool like Google PageSpeed Insights to get recommendations on what is causing your page load speed to be high. Once you have your report from Google you can take it to your web designer to make the changes and have your site running faster in no time. Most of the time a slow site is caused by oversized images.
3. Be intentional with your images and videos
If you want to make more sales on your online store, invest in good images and videos for your site. Using video in your strategy is huge. For example, if you sell apparel, put a video or a lookbook on your products page. If you’re in the beauty industry, a tutorial video would be a great addition. A professional does not need to take all of your photos, they can even be taken on your mobile phone. While you don’t need to have a professional photo shoot, it can’t hurt to have one, either. When taking your own photos, you just need to keep some general rules in mind like lighting and positioning.
To sum it up, if you want to make more sales on your online store, you have to put in the work. Having a website is just the first requirement for success. Above all, it’s important to understand that you’ll have to consistently and routinely optimize your store. There is always something new to learn that can increase your conversion rate.