Stop Turning Customers Away From Your Online Store

If you’ve started an ecommerce business from scratch, then that’s already something to be proud of – your online store. However, your work doesn’t end there. Online businesses demand constant attention and there’s one reason above all else: there are always new ways to turn customers away from the site. Here, we’re going to look at some of the ways to make sure that customers aren’t bouncing off your online store and how to make sure they stay once you’ve got them.

Use landing pages that make sense

If like many others, you are using advertisements to win visitors to your online store, you should look a little more closely at those ads and, specifically, where they lead to. If you advertise a specific product but clicking the link leads to a category page or even the front page, the customer is going to feel like they have been misled on their journey. Use landing pages that match the specific copy of the advertisement to assure them that they are in the right place and there aren’t any more barriers between them and the purchase they are trying to make.

Write clear copy

Don’t be too abstract or too obtuse when it comes to writing product descriptions. You want to write in a marketing sense that makes your products more attractive on your online store, but all of the facts should come first. If customers feel more informed about a purchase, they will feel more comfortable about buying it. Fail to give them the information that they need and they will look elsewhere.

Get an idea of what does and doesn’t work

User experience is crucial and yet it often goes unconsidered when it comes to site design. Your content can be perfect and your visuals can look great, but if you haven’t organised it all in a way that focuses on how the user navigates the site, then they can have a much tougher time finding what they need and quit before they reach their goal. A tree testing tool can help you get the visitor’s perspective of what it’s like to navigate and use the site. From that, you can use their input to improve what works and get rid of what doesn’t.

Don’t make purchasing a headache

The point of conversion, actually selling the product, is the most critical juncture but its one that so many online stores trip over. The more steps you force the customer to take, the more likely they are to get bored or frustrated and leave the site instead. Learn about shopping cart abandonment and what you can do to stop it. There are a host of tips, from using breadcrumb navigation that shows how many steps they have left to complete, to allowing them to complete purchases as a guest. It’s up to you which ones you use, but it’s important to consider them.

Your customer retention rate is not something that you “win” at. Rather, it’s something you have to repeatedly push and struggle to increase. The tips above will get you started, but you need to keep the effort up from there.

*This is a collaboration post