One of the most common scenarios for online business ventures is that they spend a lot of money on developing the website, and 10 times more on marketing it only to find out that it is not converting into sales.
After 10,000 legitimate visitors from organic search queries has not produced a single sale, the website owners and their marketing team will begin to ask questions.
If they don’t, than they definitely should.
´Why are the conversions so low´ This question should be asked notoriously.
If you are the business owner and it’s your website, you should be asking this question to your online marketing team at least once a month, regardless of whether the website conversions are low or high.
The general mantra is that there is always room for improvement. In the case of online conversions, this is definitely a correct statement.
So drilling your marketing team and expecting better conversion rates will hopefully inspire them to dig deeper into the user experience on your website.
What can be done to increase conversions immediately
Some businesses have thought about all the aspects of online presence, except one of the most crucial thing, optimizing their order forms.
The order form with payment options is essentially where the sales happen, so it should never be left in the default settings of the payment system installation.
So what can be done to improve order form conversion rates?
First of all, I would recommend taking a look at order forms of the biggest and most successful online stores and simply copy their model.
Although this might not work for every type of online venture, it will probably work for about 90% of businesses.
Why?
Because the order forms of Amazon and other biggest online retailers have been designed by conversion optimization experts and their forms are backed by research collected through millions of sales.
They simply know what works best.
Here are a few things that should be included in your order form.
Assuming that there are no other technical problems present and your order form is fully functioning, here are a few points on how it can be improved
1. Use the same design as your website.
Use similar colors and graphical elements on your order form as your main website.
Some websites use remotely hosted order forms and they may look completely different then the original website.
Imagine a journey of the user who gets excited about your products or services and when he/she is ready to buy they get redirected to an order form that has a completely different feel than the original website.
This effect alone can cause a hesitation.
Any hesitation of a user during the purchasing journey is almost like a falling tree on the road you travel. It becomes an obstacle.
The user journey during online purchase must be very smooth and enjoyable.
Everything must fall into place. Nothing can look weird or appear different. The trust level must remain unchanged. If anything, it should deepen with the exposure of the order form.
Think of the order form as an additional reassurance that you give to your potential buyers.
2. Include accepted payment options and the logos of the companies that secure these specific transactions.
If your business accepts credit cards, make sure to include their logos on the order form.
It’s a visual effect that is proven to work.
Just by including logos of such mediating businesses like Visa, Mastercard, and American Express can increase your order form conversions slightly.
People trust these companies for financial transactions.
3. Include security graphics and affiliation logos.
Don´t forget to add graphics or statements about the security of the transaction and the order page. Make sure to use https secure protocol.
Security of the order form and the online transaction is extremely important.
If your business is affiliated with known partners, then also use this to your advantage and add that information on your order page.
For example if your business is about SEO and you are a qualified Google partner, add that Google partner logo to your checkout page too.
Impress your potential buyer with your affiliations and network.
The basic logic behind this is that your customer will think the following – if these partners put their trust in this organization, why shouldn’t I?
4. Include any logos of guarantees that you provide.
This is a big one. The last moment before someone decides to pay for your product or service is the most crucial moment of the conversion.
Drilling in your guarantees will assure your buyer that there isn’t much risk involved.
Eliminate any elements of risk for the buyer and assure them that they have nothing to lose, that you’ve got them covered.
This works for every major online reseller and will most certainly work for you as well.
Make sure the guarantees are clearly visible and displayed near the final pay now buttons.
5. Make it very clear how to proceed with the order.
Some order forms are unnecessarily confusing or obfuscated with useless information.
Visually direct the customer into the completion of the ordering process.
This can be done using brighter colors and bigger buttons responsible for the execution of the transaction.
Use call-to-action buttons, such as ´Buy now´ or ´Complete your purchase´ or ´Checkout now´, etc.
Conclusion
I’m going to make this conclusion very short and sweet. Take a look at the featured image of this article.
Do you see how happy this couple looks?
This is how happy your buyers should be when they are buying things from you online.
The whole buying process must be very smooth and generally quite pleasant.
Guess what?
Your users will remember that purchasing journey, and if it is good, they are very likely to buy more in the future.
But if it’s bad, they will remember that as well… for a long time.