The purpose of any website is to sell. It is believed that their volume directly depends on the incoming traffic: the more it is, the more conversions. Many businessmen focus on attracting visitors. Their logic is simple: more people – more money. However, not all so simple.
Some site owners are surprised to find that the increase in traffic has no effect on the growth of sales. Here lies the main problem: attracting visitors is only half the battle. It is important to push them all the way from landing on the first page to the cart. If the resource has an ill-conceived structure or other shortcomings, only a few will reach the goal, who really really need your product.
What can repel a visitor to make a purchase? Grizzly Digital Company will try to figure out the reasons.
Technical problems
The technical part is one of the first points that you need and can check. Unlike more complex areas, such as the user interface, it is much easier to find errors and omissions here.
Organize a full resource audit. Entrust it to a specialist who has the necessary tools and knowledge.
The most common technical issues affecting conversions include:
- Slow download speed
Every year, users are becoming more demanding on the speed of sites. Long page loads and slow page switching annoy people, causing them to close the tab and go back to looking for other offers. To get started, you can use the free PageSpeed Insights service. If he finds problems, contact a specialist to fix them and further more detailed check.
- Incorrect display in the browser
Find out from which browsers you are accessed most often and test how the site works in them. Perhaps somewhere lies a problem with the layout that you did not suspect.
- Poorly configured mobile version
The share of buyers using various mobile devices is increasing. Make sure that the resource is convenient for viewing and performing targeted actions on smartphones. Try to perform typical user actions yourself: go to the page of the desired product, add it to the cart, fill in all the fields, place an order. Also check if applications are submitted via forms.
If you have corrected the technical issues, but there are no more sales, it is time to evaluate the structure and design of the online store itself.
Outdated design, inconvenient interface, lack of information
Some owners of online stores do not even think about their convenience for the visitor. However, the confusing interface of the catalog, basket, forms to fill out can cut off a significant part of potential customers.
What most often repels buyers?
There are some of the most common problems:
- Low degree of usability. This includes unreasonably large registration forms, ill-conceived filters, poorly readable links, non-clickable buttons. Also, visitors do not like too bright colors and unreadable text due to an incorrectly chosen background.
- Bad photos. Blurry images that blur even more when zoomed in don’t drive up sales. The client should be able to examine the product in detail. Place high-quality photos from all angles in the catalog.
- Lack of price information. Many are annoyed that the cost of goods or services is not indicated in the online store. Even if you are ready to advise the buyer at any time of the day by phone, the need to communicate with managers repels a certain part of users. If the prices for each customer are calculated individually, try to indicate at least an approximate cost.
- Poor quality texts. Templated, unstructured content is almost useless to the reader. Try to write interesting, informative descriptions of products and your benefits in order to interest the buyer.
How to identify problems?
For the initial identification of weaknesses, conduct an analytics of resource attendance. You can use free tools: Yandex Metrica or Google Analytics. With their help, it is necessary to analyze the following parameters:
- Time spent on site.
- Bounce rate.
- Average session length.
- Viewing depth and others.
Having studied the metrics, you will be able to determine at what stage customers “fall off”. If you do not have such experience, contact a professional for a detailed audit. They will qualitatively analyze your resource, competitors and give recommendations for improvement.
Unattractive USP
Many online store owners mis-position their unique selling proposition (USP), or other benefits. It is important to think over the offer so that it is beneficial for your target audience.
Answer the following questions:
- What is the use of the product?
- What tasks and “pains” of clients can it solve?
- How are you better than your competitors?
If you don’t have a clear and understandable description of the benefits, buyers are likely to go to a competing site, where they will be told in detail about them.
To find out if your USP is your weak point, look at the Bounce Rate for each page that contains your offer. Uninterested visitors usually leave the page within 3-10 seconds.
Attracting inappropriate traffic
Non-target users who visit the resource not for a purchase, but for their own reasons, is another common problem.
Let’s consider a small example. You sell building materials and at the same time write useful blog articles. After some time, it turns out that traffic has grown significantly, but sales have remained at the same level. After analyzing the traffic in detail – key queries, visited pages – you will find that the resource is visited by people who make repairs and are looking for information about materials and construction technologies. They just read your articles and leave.
We can draw a certain conclusion: in order for traffic to be converted into real buyers, it must be targeted.
Analyze the following points to understand where non-target users are coming from:
- Learn what keywords visitors use to come to your resource. When identifying irrelevant ones, review the semantic core and exclude irrelevant queries. An agency that promotes websites in search engines can help you with this. SEO-specialists will study your niche and collect SL related to the topic.
- Contextual advertising. Analyze advertising campaign metrics. If bounce rates are too high, it means that not potential buyers, but everyone in a row clicks on your ad. This is an occasion to study the settings and content of the texts in more detail. Perhaps your audience is not segmented or your headlines are too provocative to attract too much attention.
You may need to work harder with these user acquisition channels. Contextologists and SEO specialists will help to deal with the problems. They will conduct a detailed analysis and offer options on how to rectify the situation.
Conclusion
After carrying out the above work, you will identify the reason for the lack of sales. Even if the problem is found in the technical part, this is not a reason to stop. Analyze your marketing strategy and interface: it is likely that they are already outdated and not as effective as they were at the start.
This is especially important if you have a highly competitive niche. Other store owners may be constantly testing new email options or button colors to increase conversions. Your task is to always keep up with the times, constantly evolving. Otherwise, you will lose profit, even if your product is objectively better.
