Converting visitors into customers is an uphill battle for every e-commerce website owner. It has never been easy to convert most of your visitors into leads and customers, which is the reason why conversion optimization is sometimes called both an art and a science. However, with the right efforts and guidance, you can always increase your conversion rate. Here we’re going to tell you about eight simple steps that you can take to optimize your checkout page and boost your conversion rate. Let’s get started:
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1. Less Form Fields
First, reduce the number of form-fields on your checkout page. Nobody likes filling out lengthy forms while purchasing something, and if you put a lengthy sign-up form in front of customers, they’ll hit the close button earlier than you think. Keep the information you ask for as minimal as possible – ideally, you should ask only for the name, mobile number and address for sign-up. That’s enough to deliver the order, and you can get them to fill out other profile information later through a variety of methods.
2. Optimize For Mobile Devices
This one is a no-brainer. We live in a mobile world, so you must optimize your checkout page for mobile devices. If your checkout page doesn’t load properly in mobile, there’s a good chance that you’ll have to settle with a much worse conversion rate than you deserve because many of your visitors will be browsing the products and checking out from their smartphones. And when their experience isn’t optimal, there’s no reason why they would want to buy from you. So, don’t forget to optimize your checkout page for mobile.
3. Offer Multiple Payment Methods
Many times, cart abandonment happens because a payment method stops working. In these cases, if you offer a different payment option, you won’t have to settle with a drop in sales. The choice of payment methods also helps because everyone likes no single payment option. Some like paying through their credit card, some through bank account and some others through PayPal. If you offer all these popular payment methods, you’ll eliminate lack of payment options from the list of reasons behind cart abandonment for your online store.
4. Avoid Hidden Costs
Always display your prices with all taxes and charges included in them. Don’t leave any of them to be shown only on the checkout page; otherwise, you may end up seriously killing your conversion rate. If you give a rude shock to your visitors when they’re about to make the payment, there’s an excellent chance that you’ll not be able to convert them into your customers. Surprise costs are a big reason why carts are abandoned, so always avoid them. Mention all taxes, shipping costs and other costs upfront on the product pages themselves.
5. Include Security and Trust Elements
People want to feel secure when they do an online transaction. If your checkout page gives them the feeling of security, you’ll be rewarded with the high conversion rate. On the other hand, if people feel insecure on your site, then they’ll turn to your competitors. So, you should take every possible measure to boost your conversion rate. Install a proper SSL certificate like Comodo Wildcard SSL that displays the necessary security badges and use security symbols like padlocks near the credit card data fields to provide the feeling of security.
6. Integrate Live Chat
Sometimes people drop their plans of purchasing something because a question comes to their mind right before the checkout. If you’re available to answer the question for them, there’s a perfect chance that the sale can go through. So, include a live chat functionality on your website, and solve each query facing during the checkout process by a user. Research by eMarketer has shown that 60% of customers prefer using a site with Live Chat.
7. Offer Guest Checkouts
In the first point, we talked about reducing the number of form fields a user needs to fill out before making a purchase. If you wish, you can take that a step further by allowing guest checkouts. Guest checkout is the type of checkout in which you don’t require your customers to sign up before placing their orders. Instead, you ask them to only provide their name, address and some contact information (usually a mobile number) to place their orders. There’s a good chance that this type of checkout process can significantly boost your conversion rate.
8. Consider Single Page Checkout
This is another step in the direction of simplifying the checkout process. Many companies have found a drastic increase in conversion rate by switching to one-page checkout from multi-page checkout, so you should also consider giving it a try.
However, it doesn’t mean that single-page checkouts are good by default. There are advantages of multi-page checkouts as well. They allow you to track the problems that your visitors encounter while checking out, and they also allow you to organize information in a better way because you don’t need to put everything in a single page. If switching to a single-page layout doesn’t work efficiently or increase your conversion rate by any significant margin, you should switch back to multi-page checkout.
9. Keep Testing
No list of conversion optimization tips can be complete without talking about A/B Tests, because conversion optimization is a process which never ends. You should keep an eye on the heat map of your checkout page, which tells about the areas where your visitors are focusing. Then you should optimize the various elements in those areas of user attention and compare the results of multiple changes with each other. Only later, you can arrive at a conversion page design that provides you with the optimum conversion rate.
Conclusion
There’s no shortcut to conversion optimization, even if it’s the optimization of a single checkout page only. You arrive at an ideal result only after constant optimization and A/B testing. However, this list of nine conversion optimization tips will certainly guide you in the right direction. Implement the steps outlined here and share your experience in the comments so others can also benefit from it.
Also Read: 5 Simple Ways To Detect a Fake/Scam Website
