Gaining traction for new e-commerce or web-based startups can involve a growth strategy that ensures an increase in sales, moving products, and attracting new customers. While focused on web views and marketing, as a startup founder you don’t want to neglect conversion optimization. Conversion rate optimization focuses on converting mere traffic into actual paying customers. Here are six pro tips to help you boost your customer conversion rate:

1. Lower the Number of Abandoned Carts

One way to gauge your conversion rate is to look into your abandoned cart stats. Heavy views and lack of sales could signal potential customers merely “window shopping.” A study conducted by Statista shows the average e-commerce cart abandonment is nearly 70 percent.

To avoid abandoned cart syndrome, try getting rid of hidden fees. We’ve all been there. You get to the checkout page and boom, there’s an additional fee tacked on for shipping or a pesky transaction fee. Hidden fees can be a major turn off to customers and cause them to close the browser.

2. Increase the Speed of Your Site

Frustration is sure to set in with a slow loading site. Potential customers are likely to move on if pages are not loading quickly enough. Think With Google research shows the longer it takes a page to load the more likely visitors are to bounce. If a page takes from one to ten seconds to load, the likelihood of that visitor moving on is 123 percent.

3. Place Your Leads Just Above the Fold

There are plethora of e-commerce sites to choose from so competition can be stiff. If you want to catch your visitor’s attention and convert them into a customer, consider the placement of information on your site. Most business owners place the important information at the top of the page assuming it will be the first thing users see. However, users are more likely to scroll as soon as the page loads. Chartbeat reveals that users view the section just above the page fold the most.

4. Incorporate a Live Chat

When purchasing, online customers like to be able to have access to a representative of the business if the FAQ page doesn’t answer their question. Live chats have a 73 percent customer satisfaction rate while other methods like email and phone are less preferred with a satisfaction rate of 61 percent and 44 percent respectively.

5. Add Positive Customer Reviews

Visitors are more likely to follow through with an e-commerce purchase if they have the chance to read a positive review from a previous customer. According to Zendesk, 90 percent of surveyors reported that reading a positive review impacted their buying decision.

6. Reduce the Number of Form Fields

Time is money. If the customer has to spend time filling out too many fields at checkout, it may cost you the sale. Make checkout easier by condensing the amount of required fields. A study via marketingsherpa showed that adding just one more form field led to an 11 percent decrease in conversion ratings.

conversion optimization

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