10 Ways to Boost Sales From Your Website
Why would you want to increase sales on your website? That’s probably a question you can answer. How can you increase those sales? That’s a harder question. Here are a few recommendations for your own ecommerce store, so you can make some changes and see the results.
Collect leads
Without keeping in touch with your former visitors, your sales and marketing efforts are focused on the people who just happen to land on your website. To keep repeat customers coming back, or engage visitors who are not yet customers, create a mailing list and send out periodic newsletters, coupon codes, and helpful links.
Offer something different
Your business should be selling something that sets itself apart from the competition. Is it the cheapest, smallest, or highest quality? Make sure that difference is emphasized. Even anecdotes about the development or use of a product can make impressions on the viewers. People resonate with stories, and look for ways to join into larger stories already taking place. This could be as significant as donating proceeds to a cause, and as trivial as selling a shirt or toy designed for the creator’s daughter or grandson.
Perfect the presentation
Show off your product. Sometimes this is best done in a sales letter or long pitch, helping the readers to understand a more complex offering. Experiment with photos and testimonials. Make all of the features and benefits shine so that customers will know that the product will fit their needs, instead of making them wonder.
Experiment with placement
Web pages are often too large or busy for users to focus on the whole page at once. Change the placement of the offer to make sure that the largest numbers of people possible are seeing it. For example, include a newsletter opt-in form both in the sidebar and within the copy of a sales letter. In general, the more chances people have to sign up, the more signups you will get. Just make sure you are placing it somewhere that makes sense, instead of coming off as overly pushy.
Make better offers
There are a number of different promotions to choose from – so start making different types of promotions to see what sticks. You could offer a discount off the top: a dollar amount, which is easier to understand, or a percentage, which scales more easily to larger purchases. Or include extras: free shipping, bonus materials, or a complementary gift. Find out which sales are received better by your audience.
Know your market
Who is shopping from your site? Would they rather find a bargain or get a premium product? Do they want one urgent, quickly-changing deal, or consistently good prices for a multitude of products? There is no wrong answer: these models and many more are making sales all the time. But the same people are not shopping at each of these sites, so you need to decide on your angle and attract the right customers for your site, or learn what your customers want from you.
Be different
Make sure that your customers experience their shopping experience, not just their purchase. Make sure your ecommerce site is branded well so that consumers will want to come back again or refer their friends. If the site isn’t memorable, it won’t make an impact.
Focus
Don’t concentrate on selling all of your products at once. Some online retailers even recommend only featuring one product on the homepage. And this doesn’t mean to keep it the same: change the contents of the homepage regularly to keep visitors from getting bored.
Show benefits, not features
Yes, including accurate specs and features are important for accurate representation of your products. Incorporating benefits, especially in the headline and copy, makes your sales page even more powerful. Mention what problem your customers will be solving by using your products or services.
Keep testing
Your audience is always going to be different from anyone else’s. Don’t just do research and follow instructions: try testing different formats on your own customers. Doing split-testing is the best way to do this: by showing new designs to one portion of your traffic while showing another design to the other half, you can get results without wondering if the tests are uneven. There are a number of software solutions that help you orchestrate your own split testing.
Author Info
Written by Ralph Matlack
Ralph Matlack is a Group Product Manager in Intuit’s Grow Your Business division where he leads the strategy and development of the Intuit Websites offering. Having founded and run two bootstrap startups prior to Intuit, he also has a first-hand appreciation of the challenging part-salesperson, part-accountant, part-human resources, part-janitor roles that small business owners have. He loves golf, beer, college football, and summer trips to Sweden with his family. You can follow Ralph on Twitter at @rematlack.
These tips are very useful, simple and direct.
We think that being different is the most important idea of this article, because it involves all elements. That’s why our conversion rates and sales are gaining momentum.
Nice article!
Just a bunch of small changes can collectively help increase your conversions drastically.
These are great tips, thank you. I will have to continue experimenting with my new site.
THESE ALL SOUND REALLY GOOD,HOWEVER I DONT SEEM TO BE GETTING ANY TRAFFIC TO MY SITE.THEREFORE I CANT CREATE MAILING LIST TO UPDATE NEW PRODUCTS.IM JUST UNSURE
Don:
I SO concur!!! How can one get leads when there is no way to contact the “window shopper”??! They are the very ones who won’t fill out a form if you paid them (literally)! I even try to entice by asking shoppers to comment on my site–NO DEAL. I helplessly stare at the stats and see this one from Oregon or that one from Houston and MISERABLY YET, a sporadic group of return visitors who STILL won’t engage with me or my product. I feel like someone starving staring through a huge plate-glass window into a room full of fabulous food and laughing partiers. Anyway, best of luck to you!
Hi Don,
I am having the exact problem. I am so new at this and getting so down and frustrated.
Those of you who have no traffic at your site… do you have products that can be displayed/sold at trade shows or art/craft fairs? In doing this, you get exposure for your product, get your name in the public eye and meet your customers face to face, which humanizes your business. You can also collect e-mail addresses at shows and begin to build a customer base for your e-mailing promotion.
I do saltwater fishing shows with my T-shirts and personalize my business by sharing stories about how we started and why. My web site is only two months old and traffic is slow but I expect to spend the first year just building the business and covering costs.
Don’t lose heart. People are generally sick of the big box companies and it’s not a bad time to be a small business. Get out in the public eye if you can and help your customers to make a personal connection with you. Promote the fact that you ARE a small business. And hang in there!
I have tried everything to get people to order. Giveaways, free shipping, newsletters, discountsy coupons, contact forms, incentives, etc. The market right now is at a standstill. I have redid my site several times. My items are not expensive and most of my products include shipping. Very frustrated.
Hey, guys, be patient. Its frustrating to a) design and make a website, b) keep polishing it, c) expect a windfall success in less than a month (before you have to PAY). Gimme a break!
All you talented guys need is to have Patience, perseverance, and perspective. I have seen sites fail even when they offered their services and GOODS (free!) as a short test.
The secret is to learn how to use search agents: Google Yahoo, etc etc etc. Read the book.
Keep editing and sharpening your keywords. There’s more to making your site work than just posting pretty pictures. That’s why the Web Masters make the Big Bucks. Go easy on yourself, you are worth it. critique-me.com is my new baby and so far, I can only blame the economy. But time will, after all, tell. Good Luck!
THESE ALL SOUND REALLY GOOD,HOWEVER I DONT SEEM TO BE GETTING ANY TRAFFIC TO MY SITE.THEREFORE I CANT CREATE MAILING LIST TO UPDATE NEW PRODUCTS.IM JUST UNSURE
Content and unique benefits are important, but how do you drive potential customers to your site?
SEO seems to be the key to getting more traffic with relevant keywords and phrases. Note***HotFrog is a good way to begin getting some free exposure, at least it worked for my product locally.
nice idea, i will try on my shopping website.
EVERYTHING IS GOING WELL WITH MY SITE I WILL TRY DIFFIRENT THINGS.I WANT TO TRY THE BUTTONS NEXT.PAYPAL AND SHOPPING BUTTON.
Hi Everyone,
i am very new to this, i’ve have my business for years but this is my first shot at a website. Now I am very confused, i wanted to do this to get more customer and just get the idea of what i do out there but i don’t think i’m succeeding. How do I allow costumers to buy my products/place an order?? Any thoughts/Ideas?? Please help