In order to attract the right visitors to your online store and turn them into customers, you need to work to ensure that your website is properly optimized. Businesses are only getting more and more competitive, so you need to ensure yours secures sales!
In this article, we’re going to outline a few tricks you can use to help your eCommerce business make more money. Let’s get started.
Incorporate the right keywords into your website copy
It’s important that you target the right keywords on your eCommerce website. This will help ensure that you rank for the right queries on search engines, drawing the best people to your website, so they are likely to make a purchase. This is part of improving your search engine optimization or SEO.
To find the right keywords for the different pages of your website, you’ll need to start by conducting keyword research. Head to a tool like Google Keyword Planner with a list of words and phrases related to your business. You can then plug these into the tool and Google will provide you with keywords that people are searching for on these topics.
Depending on what page of your website you’re writing copy for, you’ll need to consider the search intent behind the different keywords you’re planning to target. Generally speaking, there are three types of keywords: commercial, informational, and navigational.
Commercial keywords: indicate an intent to purchase — they usually include phrases like “buy now” or “near me”
Informational keywords: indicate someone is looking for information — these often include phrases like “how” or “why”
Navigational keywords: help people find and buy from a specific brand they have in mind
Next, you need to determine what page you want to target keywords on. Content pages are likely to need more informational keywords, while your product and service pages will use more commercial keywords. Your homepage can use a combination of these, but it is likely best if you stick to commercial and navigational keywords here.
Once you pick a page to add new keywords to, you need to determine where to place them. Generally, Google will look for keywords in the body copy, headers, and titles of a page. Pick the keywords with the correct intent that are most relevant to the page in question and incorporate them naturally to ensure you’ll rank higher on relevant search engine results pages.
Take great product photos and optimize them
It’s extremely important that you have high-quality product photos on your eCommerce website. This is because high-quality images can convey a lot of information about your products!
You need to ensure that your photos are taken in good, consistent lighting at multiple angles and with a high-quality camera. There are a lot of simple tools that can help you take great product photos.
First, you should invest in a ring light. This will allow you to take photos in consistent, soft lighting that eliminates shadows. You should also get a tripod — this will help keep your camera steady and in the same location when taking pictures from different angles.
You also need to ensure that you have a high-quality camera. Fortunately, most smartphone cameras today rival traditional ones so, if you have a newer smartphone, your phone camera should do just fine!
If you don’t want to use your smartphone, you’ll need to invest in a camera. Be sure to do some research about what lens to use, as well as which brands and models will help you to get the results you need, depending on what kinds of photos you’re planning to take.
Taking great product photos will help ensure that you show your customers what your products look like under different circumstances. Showing them in the best lighting and at different angles will provide a lot of detail about your products, too. This will help give them a lot of the information they need to make an informed purchase, helping improve your conversion rate.
Let’s look at a business with some excellent product photos so you can get some inspiration.
Express, a men’s and women’s clothing retailer, has high-quality images on its product pages.
If you visit any of its product pages, you’ll see something similar to what you see above. This is from one of the women’s jeans pages. The company shows its garments on a few different models from many different angles — this allows people to see the details on the jeans like the pocket design, hem cut, and how they look on different body types.
By showing off the products from different angles and on different types of people, Express can help ensure that people know what they’re getting, even though they’re shopping online instead of in-store. This can help encourage more purchases!
When you run an eCommerce business, your product photos will be vital to your success. After all, if someone can’t see what you offer in person, they won’t be able to touch or hold the product. Show your products from multiple angles and be sure to convey how they would look or work under different circumstances. You need to have product photos that show exactly what customers will receive, as Express has.
Win customers over with positive reviews you’ve received
Customer reviews and testimonials can be incredibly valuable for helping you win new shoppers’ trust and ensure that they make informed purchasing decisions. If you place reviews on your website, new visitors will be more likely to trust you and therefore more likely to make a purchase. Be sure to place them somewhere where customers will quickly be able to see them — you might decide to place them right next to the relevant products, for instance, or you might use them as a header on your homepage.
If you have a lot of products in a certain category — for instance, if you work at a clothing store or toy manufacturer — consider using star ratings. These will allow people to quickly and easily compare your offerings and hopefully help them decide on a product to buy. Or, if you sell more specialized products on your eCommerce website, it’s likely worth displaying written testimonials to provide more context.
To collect reviews, you just need to ask for them. Reach out to your past customers and see if they would be willing to leave a review, perhaps in exchange for a small discount as incentivization. Or, if you have clients you’ve worked with closely, see if they would be willing to attend a video interview with you or write a longer testimonial.
Let’s look at a few examples of businesses that do an excellent job of incorporating reviews and testimonials into their websites so you can get some pointers.
Doors Plus, a construction and home improvement company specializing in doors, has implemented reviews on its homepage. As you can see in the image above, the company has a rolling carousel of reviews from different clients, all outlining how their new doors improved their homes. The reviews feature quotes from customers who discuss exactly what they enjoyed about the company’s services. Additionally, each review is accompanied by the customers’ names and images, proving that they’re credible. This shows the website visitor that a lot of different people have enjoyed using the services offered by Doors Plus, making them more likely to consider making a purchase.
Consider showcasing multiple reviews on your website, as Doors Plus has. Additionally, be sure to show off the customers’ names and photos, if possible. This will add credibility to the reviews and build a stronger trust with customers.
Aerial Wakeboarding, a retailer of water sports and wakeboarding equipment, uses reviews a bit differently on its website.
As you can see above, the company has a single written testimonial below its product demonstration video and then shows off its average star rating that shows, based on more than 600 reviews, Aerial Wakeboarding has achieved a 4.9 average rating! Showing off the average like this is a good strategy for any business because it conveys to the reader that a company gets results time and time again. Additionally, by placing this below the product demo, Aerial Wakeboarding can ensure that the review is seen by people interested in the products.
Consider showing off an average star rating you’ve received on your website. If you choose to do this, make sure that you have enough high reviews for it to be impressive. After all, five individual five-star ratings are excellent but won’t have as much sway on a viewer as five-hundred five-star ratings. Additionally, consider placing your reviews near relevant product images or demonstrations — this will ensure that they are seen by people who are showing interest in your products, encouraging them to make a purchase.
Help people get to your checkout in as few clicks as possible
Online shoppers love convenience. If you want to provide them with a great user experience and improve your sales, you need to limit the number of clicks it takes to move from your homepage to your checkout.
Here are a few ways that you can ensure your website provides a positive user experience that makes it easier (and faster!) to get to the checkout:
• Offer a straightforward and easy-to-use navigation menu
• Design a sophisticated search tool that takes people to the products they need
• Have a “recommended for you” section based on customers’ past experience with your business — this will direct people straight to the products they’re likely to buy
Let’s look at a company that does a great job of helping people get to its checkout quickly so you can get some pointers.
Dermeleve, a company that sells itch relief products, uses a CTA on its homepage to make it very easy for its customers to get to the checkout. As you can see, on the company’s homepage, there is a bright white CTA that says, “Buy Now.” If the website visitor already knows they want to make a purchase, they can quickly and easily checkout. Because this is the company’s only product, this makes it very easy for people to buy it as soon as possible. Furthermore, their header copy says “live without itch”, which works as a sales tactic — people who are facing this problem will be convinced by this copy and more likely to click, helping improve Dermeleve’s sales numbers.
Consider providing a stand-out CTA right on your homepage that directs users to checkout. This is a great strategy if you have a single flagship product, like Dermeleve does. If people come to your website ready to buy, you need to ensure that they can get to your checkout quickly and easily to secure their business.
Harness the power of user-generated content
User-generated content, or UGC, is content, like social media posts or pictures, provided by your customers that show them enjoying, wearing, or using your products.
UGC serves as a great form of social proof because it shows that, not only do people enjoy your offerings, but they like them so much that they were willing to post about them on their personal social media pages. This will build trust with new customers and encourage them to make a purchase.
To collect UGC, start by looking through your tagged photos or mentions on social media. If you see some posts that you like, reach out to the poster and ask for their permission to repurpose it on your website. Just be clear with them about what you intend to use their image for, as some people might not be comfortable with this.
Once you have permission to use their images, post them on your website! You can display UGC on your homepage, for instance, or on the relevant product or service page. This will help ensure that the people most interested in your products are likely to see them.
Let’s look at a company that has effectively placed UGC on its website as inspiration.
BarkBox, a dog toy and treat subscription service, does a great job of implementing UGC on its homepage. As you can see, BarkBox displays several pieces of UGC from happy owners and their dogs. Each cute picture is accompanied by a quote from the owner outlining how much they love their BarkBoxes. This UGC is likely to build trust with website visitors, helping encourage people to make a purchase.
Consider showing off UGC in a similar way on your website. If you have been tagged by customers saying how much they love your products, ask for their permission to use their content! UGC is a great tool that can help you build trust with new website visitors and make them more likely to purchase from you.
Summary
As a business owner, you’re likely always looking for ways to make more sales. In this article, we outlined some simple tricks that you can use to do just that. We covered harnessing the power of customer reviews, UGC, great product photos, and more.
Need more help? Check out the AZ Big Media blog. They have articles on social media management, software development, and more.
Author: Adam Steele has been writing about digital marketing and SEO for 11 years. He’s consulted for businesses small and large, including several of the largest companies in the world. If you liked this post, follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn for more like it.
