Do You Sell Online? 5 Factors That Impact Your Sales Conversion

By selling online I mean using a website to drive new business into your sales funnel.

In the case of some products or services this can involve the full sales cycle leading to closing the sale online. However in other cases the website will act as in information or learning resource with the actual sale being closed offline or over the phone.

In either case the website needs to do the job of qualifying prospects and selling to generate either qualified sales leads or closed sales.

Here is a summary of 5 Key factors that will need attention if you wish to optimise your online sales pipeline:

1) Driving Traffic:

I know that ultimately online selling is all about converting traffic to sales, but without traffic nothing happens and this is what your online business must obtain first. Think of a retail shop with no shoppers. What do retailers use:

• Advertising
• Local leaflet drops
• Direct mail
• Etc.

In the same way, if you are serious you must allocate a budget for appropriate online promotion of your site including;

• Organic SEO
• Paid Search (Pay per Click)
• Social media
• Etc.

Some of these methods will deliver targeted traffic and others will not. You should remember this when setting up your tracking and measurement process.- each channel should be measured separately as each will have different conversion rates to achieve the results you are seeking.

2) Optimising Usability and Accessibility

This is often referred to as your information architecture and consists of making it as easy as possible for visitors to journey through your website to find what they are looking for. The two main factors to think about here are:

• Site navigation to ensure that a visitor can easily move to any part of the site from wherever they are located without pressing the back button.
• A search facility (Essential for large websites and catalogue sites) or a simple navigation process to enable them to quickly find the area on your site that interests them most. In the case of small sites the best navigation may involve using “Call to Action” content to direct them to the next step in their journey.

3) Creating an Excellent Visitor Experience

If you can create content that makes your site a genuine information and knowledge hub for your target audience then you should succeed in getting repeat visitors who will eventually think about buying from you.

Design is critical in presenting the content (particularly the “Call to Action” content) clearly and with an impact that gains your visitors attention

Your site should be designed with conversions in mind from the outset.

Think carefully about factors such as:

• Usability
• Font type and size
• Buttons
• Colours

These will all play a role in optimising your conversion

4) Minimising Friction at the Buying Stage:

You will need to consider factors such as

• How to present your price and when?
• How to build trust and confidence?
• How to streamline the actual ordering process?
• How to ask for the order and close the sale?

This is an area of huge importance and it is where many websites require a major effort for improvement. It deserves more detailed consideration and I intend to return to this topic in more depth at a later date.

5) Tracking and Testing for Conversion Improvement:

You will first need to define what you mean by “Conversion”. For some websites it means the % of unique visitors that enquire or opt-in to your sales funnel. For others it means the % of visitors who successfully complete your shopping cart process and actually buy.

You will then need to implement appropriate tracking and measurement tools to

Identify bottlenecks in your sales funnel and develop tests to find out what actions you can take to obtain improved results.

Again this is a large area that I plan to discuss in a later article.

If I have missed out on any issues pleas let me know your views.

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