While, here at Piranha Designs, we would certainly emphasise the importance of effective search engine optimisation (SEO) for attracting relevant traffic to your online store, the fact remains that it’s one thing to drive visitors, and another thing to get those visitors to become paying customers.
Don’t forget that a lot of your ecommerce store’s visitors won’t see your homepage first, but will instead land on a product page or even blog post via a Google search for a relevant term. They therefore won’t necessarily have any particular loyalty or affinity for your brand, or even recognise your brand… let alone know about your broader product range, promotions or brand values.
So, how can you transform more of those only-vaguely-interested visitors into people reaching for their debit card when on one of your product pages? Here are some proven strategies.
Don’t depend on brand recognition alone
Sure, some visitors to your e-tail site, even from the moment you set up your store, may be people familiar with your brand’s brick-and-mortar shop – if you have one – or they may know the product brands you carry.
For a very significant proportion of those people you’re trying to convert into buyers, though, none of the above will be the case. So, you can’t rely solely on customers being drawn to a particular brand, whether it’s your own or the ones of the items you stock.
A particular danger of a more brand-centric approach to the structuring and optimisation of your website, is that you might miss out on sales from those searching for specific product types or features, rather than brands.
Give the customer reasons to feel confident about you
While brands that are literally Apple or Coca-Cola might not need that many “proof points” to instil faith among prospective shoppers, we’re presuming your own store’s brand is nothing like as prominent. Imagine landing on a page of your site while not being familiar with your brand at all – would you buy from here?
The answer’s much likelier to be “yes” is you were to see immediately understandable signs of trustworthiness, such as an “about us” page to show the human face of your business, and a phone number to indicate your customers can easily contact you about anything.
A ‘live chat’ feature and the logos of any relevant industry accreditations or certifications could also really help to drum in the impression that your brand is thoroughly reputable and here to stay.
Make it easy for shoppers to choose
It’ll hopefully go without saying for you that the more barriers you can remove to someone buying from you, the likelier they will probably be to do so.
If, as we’ve covered above, a given would-be buyer doesn’t know your brand, the chances are that they might not know your specific products well, either… and that could make it difficult for them to select the item that would best suit them.
Wrong choices are bad news for both the buyer, who will likely be frustrated as a result, and the store, which will have to handle any associated returns.
So, it’s in your interests to do everything possible to make choosing easy, first time out. That might mean including size guides, product comparison charts, help icons, and all of the specification details the customer will need to make the most informed buying choice.
With our search engine marketing (SEM) services here at Piranha Designs encompassing such key elements as keyword research, page optimisation, guest blogging and more, we can leave your store well-placed to heighten the proportion of casual visitors you convert into buyers. Feel free to contact us via phone or email for further information.
