It’s no secret that conversion rate optimization is an important part of online marketing.
The CRO ‘science’ consists in optimizing your website in order to increase the likelihood that visitors will complete a specific action, or at least get closer to a desired goal.
In 2020, the average eCommerce conversion rate is about 2.86%. This means that 97.14% of visitors leave most websites without completing their customer journey.
As many businesses have had to sell online these past few months, and as the busiest time of year approaches, we asked our partners at leading agencies for their advice.
Their experts came back with 5 great tactics eCommerce businesses can implement to increase funnel conversion rates, from search to onsite. So if you haven't been able to improve conversion metrics, you might want to give these a go!
1. Implement schema markup in your structured data
Dan Baum, Paid Media Specialist at IMPACT recommends that his clients use structured schema markup on their pages.
“Structured schema markup provides the search engines more information to better understand the content and intent of each page. The search engines then present these extra details as review snippets under the title and meta description of your SERP listing. Schema markup lets you give users more information about your page, like information about your hours, contact details, reviews, pricing, location, star-rating, product availability, and more. The availability of all this extra information drastically improves the appearance of your search results and can significantly improve your click-through rates.
“The tough part is that you can't just ‘turn schema on’ to start using these much more attractive search results. You'll need to head to Schema.com where they walk you through all the vocabulary and code you'll need to create schema markups that can be read by Google, Bing, Yahoo, and most other popular search engines. if complex coding and development isn't really your thing, there are some really effective schema generators out there. Check out technicalseo.com or Google’s tool.
2. Dominate SERPs with search query funneling
Greg Thibault, Organic Search and Conversion Strategic Manager at Agital, is a strong proponent of search query funneling, a tactic that allows you to identify keywords to drive more revenue for your business and dominate SERPs, while mitigating wasted ad spend.
“The three core steps to search query funneling differ from the typical bid approach of bidding on high-value IDs. Here are the steps:
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Step 1: Prioritize your keywords, placing categorical phrases at high-priority, and deprioritizing branded, product-specific keywords.
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Step 2: Instruct Google on where and when to stop by adding negative keywords and using campaign priorities.
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Step 3: Assign bids to each priority bucket. Bidding high for low-priority phrases and low for high-priority phrases.
In order to capitalize on the visibility you are driving by leveraging search query funneling, ensure you have product reviews on both the SERP and the product page. Reviews ultimately influence conversion and anything you can add to product listing ads or site is a no-brainer.”
3. Turn reviews into verified review content to drive conversions
Exclusive Concepts’ advice is to turn reviews into verified review content to drive conversions.
“With shoppers moving to eCommerce in droves for 2020, it’s only becoming more imperative for online stores to convey instant trustworthiness. To do that, we recommend adding visible social proof at significant steps in the customer journey to engender feelings of safety and security.
Because the user experience is paramount to helping undecided and unfamiliar shoppers feel comfortable making purchases, online stores should:
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Include star-ratings for every item on category pages
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Display a review carousel near the top of the page and star-ratings near the add-to-cart button on product pages
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Include a review carousel at the bottom of the page, near the checkout button on cart pages
The most successful e-commerce sites will be the ones that can improve conversion metrics by reassuring their customers that they are making a good decision at each point of the purchase.”
4. Convert onsite with an optimized chatbot
Ben Lack, CEO of Interrupt Media, suggests implementing a chatbot onto your website.
“If implemented correctly, you’ll give yourself the ability to quickly answer questions your potential customers have about the products you’re selling so that you can turn more web visitors into customers. After implementation, make sure that you have a clear strategy for different page types. For example, for your home page, consider having your chatbot automatically ask a question like ‘is there a specific product that you’re looking for?’. If it’s a specific product page, your chatbot may want to automatically ask ‘do you have any questions about this product that I can answer?’.
“These are leading questions that generate opportunities for your chatbot to convert more traffic into sales. Some chatbots will let you automate replies based on user responses while others require someone to write real time responses. So make sure that you map out how you want to support the user engagement for each use case.”
5. Optimize for your core demographic's digital behavior trends
Barron Rosborough, Content Marketing Manager at Hawke Media, offers a tactic that helps businesses easily increase funnel conversion rates.
"Analyzing the behaviors of your core demographics is a tactic you can employ to hone in on trends in customer behaviors that lead to conversions.
This is helpful for two reasons:
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You learn which customers are likely to buy and you can tailor your strategy to earn their repeat business.
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Once you’ve identified behavior patterns, you can isolate those traits in your targeting to expand your audience for potential customers that are likely to convert.
Look for co-occurrence between activities by visitors that complete checkouts on your website. Where did they come from? What did they click? How long did they stay on the page? Glean helpful data points that help identify behaviors that have a high correlation with purchase intent.
For Hawke client Barstool Sports, we analyzed the behavior of visitors to all of their content channels, realizing that their massive audience was consuming their content, but not visiting their store. So our team redirected users to their online store by serving search ads on various platforms leading to a 1,082% increase in eCommerce revenue."
We hope these 5 tips from digital experts will help you master conversion rate optimization so you can start improving your website’s user experience today.
If you found this article insightful, or if you have any other tips you’d like to share with us, do not hesitate to tweet us at @Trustpilot using #onTheBlog. Alternatively, if you'd like to find out more about Trustpilot and how reviews can help you boost your sales, give our conversions guide a read by clicking the link below:
Author
Flora Frichou
Global Content Marketing Manager