E-commerce: 6 practices to boost your conversion rate
It’s a tall order: persuading your prospects to purchase a product without having previously handled it. We need to touch and see in order to appropriate an object, and thus desire to have it.
On Internet, we have to step it up a notch to give life to our products!
The conversion rate is the unit of measure of this success. It refers to the percentage of visitors who made a purchase in relation to the total number of visitors.
To improve your conversion rate is to increase your turnover.
Most of the time, we are focused on increasing traffic. This is indeed a good start, but a 5% increase in the number of visitors does not translate into a 5% increase in sales.
Optimizing the conversion rate consists of making sure that your visitors purchase almost every time!
That’s where the product visuals become important; the first thing that we see regarding a product is its photo.
Alternative and detailed visual angles
- Multiply the shots, offer as many as you can.
- Vary the angles in order to provide the details that your prospects are looking for.
- Also vary the shot’s distance from the product. Variety helps satisfy curiosity.
Being able to visualize the product from all angles and through different photos is a display of professionalism for your visitors.
This will reassure them and encourage them little by little to purchase from your site.
High-quality images to promote your brand
- Quantity, yes…But certainly not at the expense of product photos quality! An image that is fuzzy or not representative enough will not encourage your visitors to have confidence in you.
- Ergonomic studies show that images attract visitor attention more than any other element of a website.
- But conversely, they can also be the trigger for zapping.
- So be careful with already widely used stock photos or with cheesy photos having no link with your theme.
A meticulous layout
A meticulous layout helps to highlight your images: a large image to welcome your visitors to the product page, with miniatures to click on as complements.
Create captions under your product images. If some of your visitors may be discouraged at the idea of reading a product description which is too long, or even unnecessary, they will not, however, pass up on a small text under your photos.
The projection
To project your prospect into a user context, you can combine two perspectives: the product perspective and the user approach.
In the first case, you place the product in its user context; your client must be able to imagine himself using and owning it. This technique can have a strong impact on the conversion rate.
You can choose a background color which will highlight your items. The standard is the white background since, in general, it permits for a better contrast and enhancement of the products. But you can also try other backgrounds for your images, provided that you have a command of cropping techniques, etc. In particular, if you have white or very light products, it is better to opt for a black background, for example.
In the second case, you choose to insert photos of real people, corresponding to your ideal targets…because we all tend to be more attracted to pictures of human beings than to inanimate objects. This approach is especially true for the homepage.
Zoom: a conversion tool
Provide the possibility for web users to zoom in on the details of your product photos.
A proof of relevance, the power of zoom is today still too little used by “e-tailers” and still represents a strong competitive advantage for triggering a purchase from your customers.
Furthermore, the zoom, as with still product photos, interactive 360 or 3D, prolongs the length of the visit on your site. You already suspected that it was a ranking factor. But the patent filing by Google last August for a ranking algorithm based on viewing time has reinforced the point of view of SEOs. The time spent on your content, and therefore on your pages, is essential, as it is relevant for google to put forward in its search results the sites with a low bounce rate/long average session.
The image animated at 360°
Similarly, inserting images with 360° rotations with a product factsheet has all the chances in the world of holding the attention of the prospect.
This is a very effective means of increasing the conversion rate of products sold on an online store, and of improving conversion rates; this rate can increase by more than 30% compared to those observed on two-dimensional images.
In conclusion
There you go, you are armed and ready. Remember that photographs occupy a very important position for the web user… They are a key factor in making a purchasing decision for the online consumer.
Your item visuals must therefore enable you to first attract the interest of your visitors, and then seduce them in order to keep them on your site. The objective: reduce the loss of your Web traffic and boost your conversion rate!
Become the photographer of your products
Other posts you might be interested in :
Boost your conversion rate: 4 mistakes to avoid
Photos represent the first factor prompting a purchase from online consumers, followed by visuals technical details and product descriptions, then by online client reviews.
E-commerce: 6 practices to boost your conversion rate
It’s a tall order: persuading your prospects to purchase a product without having previously handled it. We need to touch and see in order to appropriate an object, and thus desire to have it. On Internet, we have to step it up a notch to give life to our products! The conversion rate is the unit […]
4 fundamentals for reducing abandoned shopping carts
Let’s take a look in this article at how to animate an e-commerce site in order to drastically reduce abandoned shopping carts. The ultimate objective is to optimize the conversion rate For this, we will examine four of “sure things” of customer experience, after having defined the two key terms of this article. The conversion rate designates […]