Regardless of budget, size, and items sold, conversion can most of the time be improved for an ecommerce website. There are too many areas that can be adjusted and improved upon to increase sales for online stores.
Areas such as the layout of the home page, certain elements of the home page, landing pages, the individual store pages, or the navigation itself of a website. There are numerous elements that could be looked upon to improve. From color, to shape, to location, and call to action call outs all have to be considered for improvement.
Looking at structural, graphical, and development strategy can certainly go a long ways, but it is not the complete picture for online stores. There are other methods to increase sales online such as promotions, discounts, and packaged deals, re-order specials, holiday sales, and much more.
In order to improve an ecommerce website sales conversion, reports and statistics have to be reviewed and studied carefully. Once all the data is reviewed, a plan can be put into place, priced out, and implemented.
Consulting services are always available to companies and organizations reviewing and advising on improvements. It is one of the best ways to increase sale online, working with experts who know how. An organization can obtain temporarily the services of experts who can advice them and guide them to increase their sales online through their websites.
Expert advice or not, it all starts with reports, statistics, and analytics for a website.
Google Analytics, Webmaster Central, Keyword Ranking Reports, and more
To improve a websites sales ability and conversion, the data first has to show exactly what currently is happening to a website. When it comes to traffic, behavior of the traffic, and individual areas of the website have to be looked at first. It all starts with reports to gain a clear understanding.
These different types of reports all provide critical and valuable data to gain a better understanding of a website’s health, traffic, website visitor behavior, and pages viewed. They show how traffic is gained, referring websites, search engine traffic, and paid advertising campaign’s return on investment.
Tools by Google such as Analytics, and Webmaster Central as well as other software tools and online third party services are needed to improve a website and sales conversions.
Methods to Increase Sales for Online Stores
There are several methods to increase a website performance and sales. Some of the most common and effective methods are listed below with descriptions.
Product Reviews
Consumers love product reviews and reviews drastically improve online sales conversions. It is the reason why some third party websites were started solely around reviews such as Yelp. For ecommerce websites product reviews should be made available right of the product pages and overview pages for website visitors to read. Reviews influence the decision making of website visitors and can promote the sale. Without them, a website lacks one of the most important conversion tools for ecommerce.
Product Bundles
Products that make sense to sell together should be made available to consumers bundled for sale. This motivates consumers since they receive usually a better deal when purchasing multiple product items at the same time. On the other hand, the website sells multiple items at once driving up sales numbers. For example, when selling skin care products, a brand may decide to sell a cleanser and toner together. There are many such examples that can be followed to create multiple item sales opportunities.
Discounts & Sales
To increase sales for a website discounts and sales specials can be utilized and implement. Sales can be monthly for numerous reasons such as best sellers, product of the month, etc. Discounts can be created for shipping on order above a certain amount. Other discounts can be structured around volumes for example buy one get one half off and other types to increase sales.
Holiday Promotions
There are several holidays throughout the year that drive online sales, which ecommerce website operators can benefit from. These holidays can improve the bottom sales line for a business. Holidays such as Valentine’s Day, Thanksgiving, Memorial Day, Labor Day, and of course Christmas.
Website Performance
The website’s integrity has to be of quality for increased sales conversion. If the ecommerce website is slow, poorly architect-ed, with low quality graphics, and weak conversion tools deployed, it will not make money and the sales will be low. The performance quality of a website is critical to marketing efforts, and any other advertising budget allocated for the website. Reports and tools should be used to determine status of site and proper actions taken to improve performance.
These are some starting methods to increase the sales of an online store and website. There are many more and an online business should consider learning more about them and implementing them into their overall strategy. Consulting services can assist a business with increasing sales and website conversion. Consultants can be hired for a temporary period to aid in the improvement. Investing into methods to improve sales through conversion can yield a fast return on investment.
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