Menu Close

5 Ways to Increase Conversion on Your E-Commerce Website

First quarter is a great time to think about how to maximize sales in the new year. Here are 10 things you can do now to increase conversion and revenue in 2017.

Create a Marketing/Promotions Calendar

Now is the time to map out your store banners, marketing messages and promotions for the year. With a simple marketing calendar, you can plan weekly or monthly homepage banner updates, seasonal sales and topics for your social media and email marketing. I’ve found marketing calendars keep me focused and reduce stress because things are less likely to sneak up on me! Having consistency in your brand’s messaging means shoppers will see important promotions more often and repetition is known to help increase conversion.

Switch to Sitewide HTTPS

BigCommerce recently made sitewide HTTPS available to stores on all plans. By having your entire website on HTTPS (secure), shoppers will be more confident to purchase from your store, ultimately leading to an increase in conversion. In addition, Google is now starting to rank websites with sitewide HTTPS higher than those without.

Add Live Chat to Your Store

When shoppers have questions, most won’t bother to call or email you. By installing a live chat feature on your website, you can be instantly available to answer questions and help close the sale. Live chat is affordable and can be used as a general contact form when you’re not available to be online. My personal favorite is OLark, which allows you to see visitor behavior, create rules for when to initiate chats, customize the chat box and more. They are pre-integrated with Bigcommerce so it’s quick and easy to install the app, plus you can try it free for 14 days.

Activate Apple Pay and Amazon Payments

A great way to boost customer confidence and reduce their concern about shopping with a new store is be offering payment methods they already use. Shoppers who have Apple Pay or Amazon accounts can also checkout faster (since they don’t need to enter their payment information) and reducing barriers to checkout helps increase conversion. Depending on your current payment gateway, you may be able to activate one or both of these options in your online store.

Offer Toll-Free Customer Service

Even with long distance included on most phone plans these days, shoppers still prefer to call companies toll-free. Having easy, toll-free support reduces shopper anxiety and is likely to increase conversion. Getting a toll-free number is quite affordable and you can even choose a vanity number that spells out a word related to your brand or products. I personally use FreedomVoice and highly recommend it. Beyond the toll-free number, they allow you to route calls to your mobile phone during set hours so you can always be available for customers without having to list your personal phone number on your website. Plans start at just $9.95 a month and you can try it free for 30 days.