To increase conversions, brands could always double down on luring even more traffic to their websites. But by maximizing conversions among existing visitors — via conversion rate optimization — brands can accomplish the same goal with (in most cases) significantly lower investments required.
10 fast and effective conversion rate optimization tips
While e-commerce conversion rates vary greatly across industries, businesses and market segments, the average lands somewhere between 3% and 4%. So, if your brand’s is lower, it could be wise to put more focus on creating more customers with the website traffic you’re already attracting than on trying to draw in more visitors. (And even if your brand’s ecommerce conversion rate is at or above the average, there’s always room for improvement.)
Wondering how to boost conversion rates for your outdoor brand? Consider these 10 actions you can take — in most cases with a minimal monetary investment — to increase the likelihood of each visitor to your brand’s website converting:
1. Dive into the data
By implementing and employing website analytics tools like Google Analytics, your brand can gain data-driven insights into how consumers are interacting with your website. Such tools can provide you with valuable information about where users are going on your site, what they’re clicking on (and what they’re not), whether they’re most often leaving your site from certain pages or forms, plus other data about user behavior and preferences. And with this data in hand, you can identify and eliminate any consistent hurdles to conversion, plus ramp up tactics and features that are working, to crank up your site’s conversion rates.
2. Highlight your unique value proposition
On your brand’s website and on any landing pages you create for specific campaigns and initiatives, it’s imperative that you let visitors know clearly, concisely and convincingly what sets your brand apart from the competition. Also let them know how your brand’s offerings can solve their problems — aka your unique value proposition. Keep in mind that your unique value proposition shouldn’t attempt to convince everyone to buy your offerings. Rather, it should be written with your specific target audience in mind and tailored to address their specific needs, motivations, and pain points.
3. Step up your CTAs
Each of your brand’s web pages (and landing pages, online ads, etc.) should be created with a specific goal in mind. And whether that goal is to have the consumer sign up for an email newsletter, complete a form, follow your brand on Facebook or purchase a certain product, the call to action (CTA) makes it clear to consumers exactly what step you want them to take. That increases the chances that they’ll actually take the specified action and convert.
4. Eliminate page-load slowdowns
Today’s online consumers have little patience with slow page-load times. In fact, according to data from Google, over half of consumers on mobile devices will abandon a web page if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load. And obviously, when a consumer leaves your brand’s website — especially when abandoning out of frustration with slow page-load times — the likelihood of that consumer converting goes down significantly. For this reason, it’s imperative that you ensure that your web pages load quickly on all devices your visitors may be using.
5. Ensure smooth site navigation
When consumers get to your brand’s website, they have typically arrived with a purpose in mind. And your site should make it as easy as possible for visitors to find exactly what they are looking for. Whether they are seeking answers to questions about your offerings, want to make a purchase or have another goal in mind, navigating around your website to get it done should be easy, intuitive and friction-free, eliminating all hurdles to conversion. Further, by adding search functionality to your website, you can make it even easier for visitors to find what they are looking for — and in the process harness more conversions. This is because consumers who use internal site search typically know exactly what they are seeking, indicating that they likely have a higher purchase intent.
6. … and optimize your page layouts, especially on critical pages
When the data shows that any of your website’s pages continue to struggle with conversion rates despite your conversion rate optimization efforts, it may be time to take a step back and rethink the page’s overall layout. Using analytics tools like scroll maps, eye tracking, mouse tracking and click maps to gain a better understanding of how visitors are navigating your site — and to discover any important elements that they may be regularly missing — consider reworking your page layout to address any issues. Consider incorporating the proven elements of high-converting pages to encourage more user engagement with your website pages, too.
7. A/B test important website elements
Even on web pages with strong conversion rates, there’s always room for improvement. And by conducting A/B testing on important elements of your web pages such as headlines, layout, color choices, photo choices and placement, CTA copy etc., you can elevate page performance one element at a time to increase user appeal and conversions.
8. Elevate trust with reviews and testimonials
Especially among website visitors who are new to your brand, providing social proof that other consumers have had good experiences with your brand is a great way to boost trust for your outdoor brand and its offerings. It can also increase the likelihood that these visitors will convert. To make it easier for consumers to place trust in your brand, take the steps needed to get online reviews and testimonials from satisfied customers, then spotlight this social proof on your brand’s website.
9. Trim the fat on your forms
Nobody enjoys filling out long forms. And if the forms on your brand’s website currently require potential customers to provide extensive (and excessive) information before converting, this is almost certainly adding friction along the path to purchase — and lowering your conversion rates. Review your website’s forms and the details they’re asking for to identify any unnecessary information requests, then delete any form elements that aren’t vital to your brand’s goals. (Further, if you don’t need customers to create an account and/or log in to complete their purchase, don’t require it.) The easier and faster the steps to conversion on your website, the more likely consumers will complete them.
10. Address your abandoned carts
The average cart-abandonment rate for e-commerce websites is over 70%. And each time a potential customer leaves a product or service behind in his or her shopping cart, it shows an interest in your offering — and represents an opportunity to spur purchase completion. By creating automated email campaigns that urge and even incentivize consumers to complete the purchase process when they’ve abandoned their carts, you can crank up your website’s conversion rates and step up your outdoor brand’s sales.
Could your outdoor brand use expert help to boost its conversion rates? The data-driven marketing pros at TBA Outdoors are adept at moving consumers along the path to purchase — and turning prospects into paying customers.
Further, as a fully integrated marketing firm, TBA Outdoors can cover any and all of your outdoor brand’s marketing efforts — from conversion rate optimization, analytics and creative to social media, e-commerce, public relations and much more — all in one place. To explore how we can help your outdoor brand elevate its conversion rates and more, reach out to our team of marketing professionals today.
