In this blog, we’re giving away 5 proven best practice guidelines for your landing page that will increase conversion rates on your online store
We know that you’ve put your heart and soul into building and launching your online store. And no doubt you’ve worked hard on bringing in more traffic through SEO, social media, blog posts, and ad campaigns. Your visitor numbers might be growing, but you still know you could be converting more!
Don’t worry, we’re here to help!
If you’re not seeing the conversion rates you want, it may be because of some common landing page mistakes.
Here are some best practice guidelines from tests that are proven to reduce bounce rates, increase customer engagement and lead to more transactions (and leads).
1. Show them what you got – all you got!
Make sure first time visitors understand at first glance the breadth of the range of products or varieties that you offer. Let’s say you have a fashion store and you sell footwear, pants, dresses, tops, sweaters, handbags, sunglasses and hats. But when a visitor lands on your site all they see are a variety of tops. They might conclude that you only sell tops! If they want a handbag, you’ve lost them!
Studies from AB Tests have shown that best results come from showing products or items that represent at least 40% of your range. When you successfully demonstrate to a visitor that you’re likely to have a solution for them, they’ll be willing to commit the time and effort to investigate your site further. Otherwise, they are likely to leave after spending just a few moments, never to return!
2. Invest in Professional Bespoke Imagery and UX/UI Design!
First-time visitors to your site are incredibly judgemental! They will form an opinion about the credibility and desirability of your brand and offering in an instant – and that impression will stick!
Even if they do stick around after deciding that your site’s design is subpar, they will be less tolerant to any friction from minor errors and annoyances and are much more sensitive to causes of anxiety about the quality of your products and the likelihood that their order will even arrive!
We highly recommend investing in both great bespoke imagery that is unique to your brand and that your site’s UX/UI and design aesthetic is of a high professional standard.
3. Tell them why you’re different, right up front!
It’s nice to be the first, but chances are you’re the third, fourth or fifth site they’ve landed on today while looking for the exact product that you’re offering! While the other sites may offer the same product or service, there is a reason why they’re still looking.
They might be on your site because they’re looking for a better price, the other sites might be out of stock, they didn’t guarantee their offer, or don’t demonstrate social proof. Perhaps it’s because they didn’t provide a BNPL (Buy Now, Pay Later) payment option or they’re not environmentally friendly? Who knows, but this is your moment to answer the question ‘Why Us?’ in a compelling way!
While this can be implemented in a wide number of ways it generally involves highlighting core differentiators in a concise way that shows superior value, eliminates friction (making your service less hassle to use) or relieves a source of anxiety.
Good examples are Guarantees, Free or Fast Shipping, Ratings, Environmental Friendliness etc… If you can’t give free shipping don’t worry. Be creative and amplify your strengths.
4. Make your Search Bar prominent, and keep it there!
The search bar, when done right, can be the most effective way for customers to find exactly what they’re looking for and pave the way to a conversion. Customers are so accustomed to searching that the average person makes at least 4 searches every single day. Perhaps even more than that if we consider how search is used in social media apps like Instagram and TikTok.
If your search is on point your conversion will grow… we’ve proven this in hundreds of tests!
While there are over 15 best practice guidelines we use when implementing search and displaying results, the number one tip is simply to show it. Show the whole search bar, not just a link to your search feature or an icon. Just show the entire bar and keep it there!
5. Don’t frustrate visitors with a bad carousel
Less than 30% of top global eCommerce sites still use carousels and their popularity is still on the decline. So if you’re seeing fewer carousels around, there’s a good reason why. Digital marketers have learned that unless you nail their implementation, they’re going to work against you!
Here are our tips:
1. Don’t let them rotate too quickly. If they do they’ll either be ignored or you’ll simply frustrate the user. When you get halfway through reading a sentence bef…….… exactly. Now the visitor is thinking, well if this is how this site is going to treat me they can stick it. So give each slide at least 7 seconds for the visitor to consume their content, up to 10 if they’re text-heavy.
2. Pause the carousel when a visitor taps or hovers their mouse over it. This means that the visitor is paying attention to it and that they are engaged. Which is awesome! Well done! So don’t disrupt them when they’re found something useful, they’re probably on the path to a conversion!
3. This one builds on the previous tip. Do not restart the carousel after the customer has interacted with it. Particularly if they’ve just navigated through the carousel by tapping or clicking on the slide tiles or arrows. It’s best to allow the visitor to retain control over the content they are consuming. Remember, there’s a reason why it’s connecting with them.
4. Make control super clear. The best way to help someone navigate through your carousel is to make it clear that it’s navigable by keeping the controls visible and then making it easy for them to tap or click on.
Hidden controls that only appear on mouseover might result in a customer not realising that they can navigate back to a carousel slide that they only got halfway through reading.
When done right, carousels can be a compelling way to create awareness of a product, feature or benefit but be sure not to rely on the carousel being the only way to learn about it.
A better alternative to carousels that we recommend are content blocks distributed vertically down the page as visitors are accustomed to scrolling (or thumbing) down the page to look for more information or answers that resolve the problem they’re currently motivated to solve.
The tips in this blog only cover a few out of thousands of best practice guidelines and implementations that we identify for your site in a Crobar Conversion Audit
Crobar helps optimise your eCommerce landing page by identifying conversion killing mistakes and showing you exactly which best practice guideline you need to implement to help grow your conversions.
Request your Free Conversion Audit or chat with us today to learn how we help grow your conversion rate.
