Sometimes you just can’t rely on getting more visitors to your site to do the job of Increasing ecommerce conversion ratio’s.

In fact, in one study by Fireclick, a common ratio is 10 out of 100 visitors who are really interested in purchasing; and then, only 2 % will actually stop to buy.

At first blush, you might think that by increasing the number of visitors to your website you could get a higher percentage of conversions, when in fact concentrating on doing things right for those who visit may be a more effective solution.

“8 Ways to Boost Ecommerce Shopping Cart Conversions,” a post on HubSpot, gives an overview on “shopping cart abandonment” that once heeded may bring higher conversion rates.

1. Orient your visitor to your webpage
We all know how confusing some sites can be, and we appreciate a quick, one-take based on the use of breadcrumbs: That’s a thread of components from your website that helps orient the visitor while providing a host of site options.

2. “Add to cart” button is commonly overlooked by designers

It may be such an obvious ‘must do,’ that many designers underestimate its importance; it should have an impact on the page via the “color scheme” of your page. Size? It should cry out, “Choose Me!”

3. Best Practices for that Product Page

You have about “3 seconds” for the design of your product page to invite readership, after that the viewer may be going for the ‘back’ button to re-start his orientation. One solution is to use quality images and your “add to cart button” separate from any pro duct text below it.

Whether your e-commerce site is up and running or you’re starting from scratch…contact us. We offer shopping cart software and hosting options that are tailored and scalable to maximize your growth opportunities.

As an e-commerce merchant, one of the hardest things to do is to induce a sense of urgency for your prospective customers to take action now. Many buyers will come to your site, consider what you have to offer, and then click away. Maybe they’ll come back, maybe they won’t…

Coupons are a great way for Increasing ecommerce conversion ratio’s by creating a sense of urgency for your prospective buyer and provide a measurable way to evaluate the success of your email campaigns.

Deciding Which Type of Coupon To Use

When offering a discount, consider the type of offer that will be appealing to your target market. Some of the available options include;

Flat Dollar Amount

A flat dollar amount is one type of coupon favored by consumers. It’s often useful to require a minimum purchase, such as $5 of a $25 order or $10 off a $50 order.

When creating your coupon campaign, your average order should be considered. A coupon campaign with a minimum purchase substantially greater than your average order generally will not perform as well as a coupon that targets your average order size.

E-commerce merchants with a strong email follow-up program sometimes offer codes such as $10 off a $10 order when their business is based on a substantial number of repeat orders. While not all customers who take you up on your order will convert to repeat buyers, often times, many of them will.

Percentage discount

A percentage discount will allow you to deduct a certain percentage off the entire order. With this option, usually, there is not a minimum order size like there is with the flat dollar amount coupon.

Establish A Sense of Urgency

The expiration date for your coupon code needs to be clearly visible in your marketing message. When there is a deadline, often a person will proceed to checkout rather than waiting.

Track Your Results

Assessing the effectiveness of your coupon campaign is one of the most important things you can do as a marketer. If your ideal prospect is a person who loves a bargain, you may find using coupons an effective technique for increasing your e-commerce ratios.

For more useful e-commerce ideas, please contact us.

Search engine friendly ecommerce is all about building roads on the internet that customers use to get to your site. The enabler is the search engine they choose, such as Google or Yahoo. Most Small Businesses have blogs and you should work on your blog once or twice a week for optimum results and use keywords that describe your business and what products and services you offer. This is really the simplicity of it.

In addition to that and what we are going to be talking most about today is that more and more small-business owners are using Social Media to promote their business. That’s the good news from a survey done by online-marketing firm Vertical Response. Indeed, business owners should be embracing Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. The survey results indicate there are two items that need to be addressed immediately: Tracking results from the use of Social Media and the glaring lack of use of LinkedIn.

While most business owners use Facebook and Twitter, they do so without having any idea of their effectiveness. The most important tool you can use to gauge your internet outreach is Google Analytics. It is chock full of information that will help you refine and tweak your use of Social Media and indeed, your website. In his article, 5 simple metrics to track your Social Media efforts, Jason Miller offers advice and encouragement that will benefit you today.

Jason writes, “While we all know how important it is to market through the various social networks, it is vital to track and measure your efforts for success.” This is critically true, as more time and money are being spent on Social Media by Small Business as each day passes.

The lack of use of LinkedIn is surprising. Only 6 percent of Small Business people use it, according to the Vertical Response survey. Carol Tice, writing in Forbes magazine, puts it eloquently: “My experience as a solo owner of my own freelance writing and coaching business is that LinkedIn is the online phone book for hiring solopreneurs. Heavyweight companies do searches on there every day, looking for providers to hire.

Seems foolish not to have a presence on LinkedIn, especially when the platform demands so much less of you than Facebook or Twitter. A weekly status update and maybe a few questions answered or comments made in groups, and you’re good. But only six percent of owners said they’re on LinkedIn once a week and others were there even less.”

So, it’s very important to establish and maintain both your ecommerce site as well as your Social Media presence. Effectively doing so will grow your business, perhaps in ways you’ve not thought of.

At AbleCommerce, we can assist merchants with ecommerce software and hosted sites beyond your wildest dreams. Contact us and let’s have a discussion about it today.

Small business owners or entrepreneurs with an e-commerce website will benefit from the updates that have been made to Google Adwords. One aspect of an e-commerce site is the tracking of your customers when they call after clicking on your Adwords ad. You may also have a mobile app for the iPhone or Android mobile phone that can be used by customers.

Maximizing Google Adwords results can be done with an understanding of the changes that your site is able to use. There is an article on the TechCrunch website that explains how small businesses can track calls coming from their ads.

“With call reporting turned on, Google will replace a business’ phone number with a toll-free Google number. Calls to this number will be automatically forwarded to the business’ local number and Google will start collecting basic analytics data for these calls.”

Their Adwords Express platform for small business provides this option for your ads. This allows your business to track and evaluate the return on investment for ads promoting your e-commerce site. If you are selling an app as an extension of your website, then your conversions can also be measured. Google announced this feature on October 24 for all iOS apps.

“While advertisers have already been able to measure their Android app downloads within AdWords, we’ve now launched the ability to track iOS downloads that were driven by in-app display ad campaigns.”

Your online marketing campaign will need feedback, such as what ads are working and ads that are not providing the best results. Maximizing Google Adwords ROI is the key to success for revenue from the purchase of apps and products being sold on your e-commerce website.

Metrics, such as conversions, that can be measured allow you to make any changes that are necessary if your business is not meeting specific sales goals or targets. If you have any questions about maximizing Google Adwords ROI, then contact us for more information.

Many online companies starting out come across the power of Google Adwords. No matter what the size of the company, many have marketers have been trying to capitalize on how to attract new customers by doing the most important thing, advertising. By maximizing Google adwords you can expect an increase in sales and traffic. However, Google Adwords, doesn’t always cut it.

That is where is social media steps in. There is more than just clicking on ads, it is about getting out information, where to put it, and how are you getting out there.

First thing first, is the What. What are you trying to share with your customers, and how is your business beneficial to them in anyway? When trying to explain your business, you have to have a target audience and use words and a message that will be relative to there ears. Talk about the aspects of your brand that will gives the potential customer information that they can get a better insight to what you are about. Know the information that you are putting out there, because now everyone has the power to do a Google and Yahoo search, and when the company pops up, you hope your internet presence is the first that they see

There in lines the where. Where is your internet presence. Once a potential customer looks you up, what social media platforms are you linked to. The more you have the more you can control the information and show that you are in the know with the latest social and business trends. By understanding the social media platforms you can lay out a clear framework that helps follow investments and trends, by following Facebook Timelines, or Twitter Feeds, LinkedIn Feeds, Google+ ,etc. When trying to reach the customer , you  have to have a consistent, and favorable presence in the online communities. Once you establish your presence the most important factor that many companies forget is to stay engaged with that customer or potential customers, always follow-up with questions that people might have, and continually monitor social activity.

The last is how can you attract these customers? It is more than just being on the online communities, many company subscribe to every platform and still don’t attract the traffic that they desire. Do campaigns to draw attention to your company, play to your target audience and become the popular kid on the block. Get into the conservation, lead the conversation to talk about your company, your brand, and your products. Get creative, change the ways your pages and your website look to become attractive to your customer. Know your audience, what appeals to them, and how can you get them hooked, by being entertaining and engaging.

Once you get all the questions out the way, don’t just stop there continue to make a bigger presence online, the more you are available the more money you will make. Each day social media grows and grows, with more users signing up, and more companies marketing to them. So enable to cut to the front of the line follow these pointers, lay out a clear framework of what information you are going to put out, increase internet presence, monitor, engage, and be creative.

As an ecommerce marketer, your two biggest challenges are driving traffic to your site and once someone is there, converting them into buyers.

Should you include customer reviews as part of your strategy  for Increasing ecommerce conversion ratio’s?

Increasingly, the trend is to add this feature to ecommerce sites.

Visitors who rely on customer reviews to make buying decisions will seek this information out, whether from your site or another site.

One concern site owners have when deciding if they should add this feature to their site is, “what if someone leaves a negative review?”

This can, and probably will happen. It’s human nature for people to want to leave reviews when they love a product or when they hate it. In large part, this is why most products fall into the highly rated category or low rated category.

This is not necessarily bad though. Suppose a shopper comes to your site looking for a toaster oven to use for making cookies. There are two reviews – one 5-star review and one 1-star review.

The 5-star review reads:

“I absolutely love this oven. I made cookies with it and they were baked incredibly fast and tasted fantastic. My kids loved them so much, they asked me to bake more the next day… and I loved how the scent of baking cookies filled the house.”

The 1-star review reads:

“I tried to make chicken in this oven and it was the worst chicken I’ve ever had. The chicken was, dry, overcooked, and not even my dog would eat it.”

The shopper on your site was looking for a toaster oven to bake cookies, not chicken.

The 5-star review offers your shopper proof that the product meets her needs, and likely will purchase the item.

It’s difficult to know if the shopper would have returned to your site if they had to go to another site to find a review.

Chances are better they would have if your price was a lot lower than competitors or if you offered free shipping and the site with the review did not. But, once they’re gone, they may not return.

Not losing shoppers to other sites, though, is one of the best ways to increase your conversion ratios.

For more useful tips on increasing your conversion ratios or the shopping cart solutions AbleCommerce offers, please contact us.