Sales are the lifeblood of any business, so it’s essential to ensure that your conversion rate is as high as possible. Conversion rate optimisation (CRO) is a process that can help you to achieve this. By understanding your customers and what they want, you can change your website and marketing campaigns to encourage them to buy from you. This article will show you how to boost sales with CRO.
Tracking your conversion rate may be low down on your priority list when you first start a new online business, but there comes a point where you need to take stock. First, you need to find out what is working and what isn’t. You need to know where your efforts are best spent to have the best return.
And it is at this point that knowing your conversion rate comes in handy.
What is your conversion rate?
The conversion rate is a calculation that tells you what proportion of people buy from you after seeing your product. It is the percentage of your shop visitors who purchase something from you.
The metric is calculated by taking your number of orders divided by your number of visits. Multiply this by 100 to get the percentage.
So in this example from the Etsy image below, the conversion rate is: (59/1742) x 100 = 3.39%.
If you don’t know your conversion rate, you are flying blind. Knowing it means you can see what is working and what isn’t, which means you can use your time better because you only work on what needs working on.
To get the numbers you need to calculate your conversion rate, ensure you set up Google Analytics for your shop.
What is a reasonable conversion rate?
The average conversion rate for online shops ranges from 1-3%.
If your figures are lower than this, you need to get working on your shop. Improving its appeal to your customers should be your primary focus.
Anything higher than this rate, then you are doing OK. This means your effort should be focused on generating traffic to your business.
Your conversion rate can be for your whole shop or individual products. Looking at the conversion rate for individual products can be helpful, as it may be that one specific product is pulling your overall percentage down.
What is conversion rate optimisation?
Conversion rate optimisation is improving the percentage of visitors to a website who take the desired action, such as making a purchase. CRO can help you to increase your conversion rate.
Many factors can affect conversion rates, such as the website’s design, the quality of the product or service being offered, and even outside factors like news events.
By testing different elements on a website and measuring the results, you can find ways to improve the conversion rate and boost sales.
The benefits of conversion rate optimisation
There are many benefits of CRO, including:
1. Increased sales: By making changes to your website that result in a slight increase in conversion rate, you can see a significant boost in sales.
2. Improved ROI: CRO can produce a higher return on investment than other marketing activities since it allows you to get more value from your existing traffic.
The key elements of conversion rate optimisation
Many elements can be optimised to increase conversions, but some key considerations include the following:
-The overall design and user experience of your website
-The clarity and persuasion of your value proposition
-The simplicity and effectiveness of your call to action
-The relevance and target of your ads and landing pages
You can significantly boost sales and conversion rates over time by taking a data-driven approach to CRO and constantly testing and tweaking various elements on your website.
How to get started with conversion rate optimisation
Many factors can affect conversion rates, so you must test different elements on your website to see what works best for your business.
Here are some tips to get started with CRO:
1. Define your goals – What do you want visitors to do on your website?
2. Analyse your data – Use Google Analytics or another tool to track how users interact with your site. This will help you identify areas for improvement.
3. Test your landing pages – Create multiple versions of one page and test which performs best.
4. Consider your audience – Think about what will motivate different types of people to take action on your site.
5. Use social proof – People are more likely to follow an action if they see that others have done the same.
How do you improve your conversion rate in your Etsy shop?
If your conversion rate is below average, you need to get more sales from the people who do see your items. This means improving the specifics of the listing, such as photos, descriptions, etc.
Here are some ideas to help you push your visitors across the line:
- Always make sure your images are the best they can be. Remember, they need to beat your competition.
- Write better descriptions. Focus on the emotions and benefits the customer will get from your product.
- Price your items to reflect the value of your item. Interestingly, reducing your price doesn’t always increase your sales. A lower price sometimes makes the customer think it is of a lower quality, which can be off-putting.
- Answer any potential issues in your descriptions or images that could stop your customer from buying. Give them reassurance that what they are buying is worth the money. Offering returns, guarantees, etc., can often help push them over the line. Too strict shop policies can sometimes be all it takes to turn off a customer. If you have a more relaxed approach, you may find that very few customers actually take advantage of them.
- Make sure your processing times and shipping costs are appropriate. Etsy knows that customers are more likely to buy if free shipping is included (even if that ‘free’ shipping is included in the cost of the product). Try making your shipping and delivery as simple and quick as possible.
- Make sure your shop categories are clear and straightforward so your customers can easily find what they are looking for. You don’t want to confuse them before they even get to your product.
- If you have a few poor reviews, make sure you are working hard to improve your customer service. Don’t respond to any poor reviews aggressively or rudely. Instead, write your response as if you are explaining the issue to future customers. Always be polite, no matter how much you may think differently.
- Make sure you don’t direct people to your products who have no intention of buying them. This will definitely skew your conversion rate. So stay away from the Etsy Forum games of favouriting each other’s shops.
Improving individual product conversion rates
Everything above relates to your shop as a whole.
Now we know what to do for your shop, let us unleash the power on individual products.
Working out the conversion rate on your products can dig deep into which products are working for you and which need more work.
Look at the most visited products for a specific period and calculate the conversion rate for each of the top 10. You can do as many as you like, but start with the first few, as this can be time-consuming.
Once you know which of your “most viewed” listings have the lowest conversion rates, these are the ones you need to start improving.
The goal here is to capitalise on your traffic. You are already getting people visiting the item, but there is something about it that is stopping them from buying it. Work out what it is and massively increase your sales.
Next, look at the least visited listings and calculate the conversion rates again.
The “least viewed” listings with the highest conversion rates mean these products sell well even though they don’t get many visitors. This is an excellent indicator of where to put your most significant SEO efforts. If you get more traffic to these listings, you have the potential to make more sales.
Make sure you review your shop and listing conversion rates regularly. Doing this every 1 to 2 months ensures you are on top of your game and making the most of your products and visitors.
Why not use our Etsy Statistics Tracker to take the pain out of this process.
If you are interested in finding out about other useful statistics, take a look at this post.
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