Improving online sales is the primary goal of every large and small business. Whether you run a retail business or work for a vast ecommerce store, increasing sales through online channels is a little harder than it looks like.

While you can make drastic changes to your marketing strategy or your online store, sometimes all it takes is changing and testing a few small elements on your website.

This process is called conversion optimization. The goal of conversion optimization is to increase the percentage of website visitors that become paying customers. For new online businesses, conversion optimization is crucial, as it will help you maximize each visit to your website. The more of those visits you turn into leads or customers, the better your cash flow. 

Here are ways to improve your online sales, many of which you can implement right away.

Ways to improve your online sales

You’ve got the products and your website is up and running, but your sales just aren’t quite where you expect them to be. Here is what you can do to improve your online marketing strategies and bring an increase in conversions and growth to your business.

1. Optimize your site for multiple platforms

Optimizing your website for different platforms is the main key to improve your sales. Customers view your website from different devices. and you need to be sure that each of them are having the same (positive) experience. Check that your website is functioning properly on a variety of possible devices that your target audience may be using specially mobile.

Nowadays mobile visitors are increasing rapidly, Here’s a few stats to drive home why you should do:

• Mobile now accounts for 79% of traffic and 69% of orders on Shopify stores
• Mobile visitors are 62% less likely to shop with you in the future if they have a negative experience whilst browsing
• The work Shopify has done to cater for mobile shoppers gives merchants using the platform a real advantage (make the most of it!)

Without having your online store perfectly optimized for mobile, you are not only losing potential customers but you are pushing them to your competitors. Hence consider few things, that are:

• How much content are you displaying, is it too much for a handheld device?
• Are the links and the back button easy to physically navigate (whatever the device, whosoever the hands?)
• Is it easy to access your menu and filters?
• Are you offering your mobile customers mobile-specific payment options like ApplePay?

Run your ecommerce store through Think with Google. It’ll test how mobile-friendly it’s looking, how quick it is on both mobile and desktop, and will give you some actionable advice on what you can improve to increase your online sales.

2. Create a simple path to the checkout

Make sure that your visitors aren’t having a hard time finding their way to the finish line. New site users are much more likely to give up after a few failed attempts (or worse still, never return). You don’t want too many distractions keeping your customers from clicking “buy” before they’ve wandered away from your products. Here are a few ways to do this:

• Take a minimalist approach: Limit your site design to 2-3 colors. Avoid background patterns and heavy graphics.
• Provide a simple and easy-to-spot “check-out”: Such as the classic shopping cart.
• Don’t link away from your website: If you must include links, ensure that they are set to open the link in a new tab and never redirect the customer completely away from your website. They may not come back.

Also, ask someone unfamiliar with your website to use your store for the first time, from landing page to checkout. Make note of their journey. Learn where you may be missing out on sales and discover potential bugs. Consider enabling the guest checkout option or limiting your checkout screen to one page. With Shopify, enabling the guest checkout option is painless

3. Build your trust

Many shoppers abandon their carts and the reason is lack of trust for the first time users. Customers want assurance that the product or service you’re offering will fulfil their expectations. Use trust indicators throughout your online store to nurture this:

1. An open, honest and clear returns policy
2. Social proof written by a human, not a bot (such as active social accounts)
3. Payment trust symbols from verified third-parties e.g. Visa, PayPal, Klarna
4. A checkout displaying all charges clearly before the purchase For eg: delivery, VAT etc
5. Reviews and ratings from existing customers
6. Clear contact options
7. An FAQ section

i. Social media

These days, your company’s social media presence is just as important for driving business as your web page. Doing this not only improves your visibility, but increases trust in your business and products. Be sure to set up and maintain at least the following social media platforms to help keep your client base engaged:

• Facebook Business Page
• Instagram Business Account
• Twitter for Business

ii. Gather reviews

Customer feedback is important. When potential new customers see that you’ve managed to impress your existing client base, they are more likely to trust you with their money. Work hard to resolve any issues that pop up with your shoppers to avoid negative reviews and a hit to your reputation.

iii. FAQ page

This is the most important page. Your FAQ should be easy to find. Think about the sorts of details customers commonly want to see in your product descriptions and outlined in your policies. Pre-empting generic questions not only helps cut your customer service queries and saves your customers’ time, but it also shows you have a transparent business process.

iv. Return and exchange policies

A return policy tells customers what items can be returned and for what reasons, and the timeframe over which returns are accepted. Only writing a policy is not enough, you must make sure the customer sees it before they buy. Include links to your policy in several places throughout your website. Also, a good exchange policy may help in reduction of returns and increased consumer satisfaction. Let’s discuss some advantages of return and exchange policy. Create a commonly asked questions blog post or FAQs page using the responses you gave directly to the customers. Use Google Analytics to look for what searches are most frequent within your website.

v. Payment trust symbols

These are the badges indicating that transactions on your website are private and secure. Digital marketing firm Blue Fountain Media saw a 42-percent increase in conversions by adding a security badge from VeriSign. Not all badges are created equal, however. According to a study consumers only tend to trust the badges coming from familiar brands such as Google, PayPal, and Norton.

The inclusion of trust signals can be an excellent way to improve online sales, as it creates a more favorable perception of your brand in the mind of the prospect and visitors can potentially overcome hesitations.

vi. Contact info

Your contact information mentioned on the website should be correctly and clearly written. The given contact number and address should be genuine so that people can make sure you are reliable.

vii. Clear shipping charges

Shipping charges should be clear before the checkout. If you are adding up any tax or charging for shipping it should be clearly mentioned before the customer place the order.

4. Product images

Shopping from a retail store lets a customer touch, hold, try and check the quality of a product. But when shopping online, purchase decisions rely on images. Regardless of what you sell, include high-quality images of your products. Also be sure to include a wide range of images from each and every possible angle. Try to use real photos of products instead of using stock images.

5. Offer free shipping

When it comes to shipping charges people abandon their carts. According to a research 77% of online shoppers insist on having the option to choose free shipping. You can offer free shipping (or better still, free next-day) and free returns by wrapping the costs into the price of your products. Unexpected shipping costs at checkout may result in lower conversions.

6. Increase visibility by running ads

Facebook has made major improvements lately on their ad management system. Tools like these are invaluable online marketing options. While Facebook ads may not lead directly to conversions, they are highly effective at increasing awareness of your content, and improving traffic to your website, both of which need to occur before sales take place. Here are some quick sales tips to hopefully lead to conversions while using Facebook ads:

Limit your audience to only your most valuable targets: Selling handmade wedding dresses? You can decrease the chances of your ads being delivered to less likely shoppers by limiting your audience to (for example) women only, between the ages of 18-40, who have their relationship status set to “engaged.”

Run seasonal offers: 50%-off regular priced items is the kind of thing that will help bring in new customers, who may not have clicked on your ad if it weren’t for the chance to score a deal. The more people you can get to click on and engage with your ad, the more of their friends will be able to see your content. Discounts and sales are great at attracting new customers, because they allow you to include lower-budget individuals in your customer base, without lowering the value of your product or service.

7. Improve your SEO

Read up on Search Engine Optimization, or “SEO”, if you haven’t already. This is how you are going to get Google to notice you, and help people to find you in their searches. Where should you start?

• Metadata: help Google and other search engines understand what your website is about
• Content: high-quality, relevant content across your website
• Backlinks: how many links are pointing back to your website?

8. Improve Readability

Apart from the content itself, the readability of the content also matters. If persuasive content isn’t readable in the first place, it’s not going to get opportunities to convince users to buy from you. Here’s how to make your sales copy easier to read:

Make Font Sizes Larger

If your online store’s text is sized at 10pt, then it might be too small. Though the original font size of 10pt looked better, increasing the size to 13pt and improving the spacing between the characters and lines led to better business results.

Simplify Your Language

If you want to check your site’s language for readability, you can use tools like the Readability Test Tool and Readable.io. The Readability Test Tool indicates that your homepage copy can be understood by 10 to 11 years old. The font sizes are also large, making the text legible even from far. The bullet points and the hierarchy implied by the different font sizes also add to the readability of the page.

Conclusion

There are plenty of effective ways to improve and boost your online sales. You just need to know the right sales tips to get the conversions you need. Increase your visibility and drive traffic to your business through digital ads and online marketing, utilizing SEO, and knowing your audience!

Sometimes, running simple tests on different website elements such as calls-to-action, images, and navigation can be enough to increase your profits. At the very least, run one or two tests every few months so that you know your small business is making the most out of your online store.