By Mitch Bettis, Practical eCommerce
It may be the most common problem ecommerce businesses face: plenty of traffic but few sales.
Converting visitors into customers is a blend of both art and science and, once it's understood, it's a skill that will reap rewards for a company's bottom line.
The Web Analytics Association (www.webanalyticsassociation.org) defines conversion as a "percentage of a visitor type who complete a multistep conversion process with a defined beginning and end within 30 minutes, whether it be signing up for a newsletter, buying a product online or some other desired outcome."
In the end, it's simple: Did the customer do what you wanted him to do?
Bryan Eisenberg, chairman of the board of directors for the Web Analytics Association, co-founder of Future Now, Inc. (www.futurenowinc.com) and co-author of "Waiting For Your Cat To Bark?" says successful conversion is about knowing your customer and focusing on the end result.
"How effective are you getting visitors to take the action you want them to take?" Eisenberg asked. "To buy, subscribe, click on link and get a lead, all are considered a conversion. You must persuade the customer to take an action."
A healthy bottom line is about attracting quality visitors and the actions those visitors take. What does the visitor want? What will he find when he arrives at a landing page on your site? Will his questions and concerns be address during the buying process? Is the process for him to buy something on your site too long and cumbersome? Will he have confidence in you to be trusted with his credit card and deliver him a product? Answering these questions is the first step to improving your site's conversion rate.
Investing in what's necessary to convert traffic to into customers can pay dividends. An ecommerce site with 6 percent to 9 percent of its visitors making purchases can be considered a success, according to conversion experts.
With an industry standard hovering around 1 percent to 2 percent, most sites are failing to capture all the business they can have. Increasing the number of transactions by one or two percentage points can make a substantial impact on your company's bottom line. If you have 10,000 unique visitors per month and you're generating 100 transactions per month (1 percent) with an average sale of $90, boosting your site's conversion rate one percentage point generates an additional $108,000 annually. Getting your conversion rate to 5 percent increases sales by $432,000 annually, so it's easy to see why improving a conversion rate is so critical.
"Think in financial terms," said Kevin Gold, CEO of Enhanced Concepts (www.enhancedcocepts.com). "Visitors to a site represent an expense. Pay-per-click paid for those visitors plus SEO costs, costs for an email list, publicity, etc. Conversion is essential to take that expense and turn it into revenue. If you can increase conversion by small percentage, a direct dollar drops to the bottom line."
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