How to Start Optimizing Your Ecommerce Website

When you think of optimizing your ecommerce website, do you think of conversion rate optimization (CRO)? If not, you should. And if you aren’t doing CRO, you should be worried. Chances are your competition is (or soon will be), and you’re falling behind.

Don’t lose your edge.

In the world of digital marketing, CRO is the great frontier, the new kid on the block. But it’s not just going to change how companies market online; it’s going to change business altogether. It’s going to affect the way companies view and measure success, their company culture, and their philosophy.

Conversion rate optimization is like giving your ecommerce website a turbo boost. It’s all about fine-tuning your online store to turn more visitors into happy customers. CRO is a crucial strategy for enhancing your ecommerce website’s performance.

Convinced you should add CRO at the center of your online strategy? Great! Let’s get started!

 

Where to Begin

First-timers can find CRO a little daunting, so focus on these three simple areas to get your tests underway:

1. Top Pages With Highest Bounce Rate

If your analytics show visitors leave certain pages within seconds of landing there, get those pages in triage, stat!

Test different versions of your content or design elements to determine why people leave so quickly and what will persuade them to stick around.

Make sure to include clear CTAs (e.g., “Buy Now,” “Add to Cart”) to draw them further down the funnel.

2. Top Fallout Points in Your Conversion Funnel

It’s essential to know where your missed opportunities are.

Maybe your ad campaign brings people to your landing page, but the lackluster copy bores them to tears. So, when creating copy, make sure it’s engaging. Engaging copy will do the following:

• Capture attention
• Build trust
• Increase conversions
• Enhance SEO
• Differentiate your brand
• Improve user experience

Another missed opportunity might be that your visitors don’t know where to sign up for your email list, so they navigate away in frustration. Again, using clear CTAs is helpful in these situations.

If you organize your site logically, you’ll ensure that visitors can easily find categories, subcategories, products, and even where to sign up for your email list.

Plug these holes before your leaky conversion funnels sink the whole ship.

3. Top Valuable Pages on Your Site

Your landing pages, product pages, and shopping cart should be among your top converters.

These are the pages where visitors are making the decision to continue down the conversion path or not, so focus your optimization strategy around these pages, and always test for ways to improve their performance.

Sign up for a CRO service such as Optimizely or Visual Website Optimizer (VWO). These services will get you started on testing and provide insight into your site’s strengths and weaknesses, and they’re intuitive enough to learn even without prior experience.

If you need help, we happen to be Optimizely Certified Partners.

It Takes Two

Okay, fine, it probably takes more like four or five, but you get the point. Two (or more) heads really are better than one when it comes to CRO.

Successful CRO strategies aren’t just about testing button colors — they go deep into user habits and experience. The best CRO teams leave their opinions at the door and humble themselves in the face of the data.

You might love the plum-colored background on your landing page, but you probably don’t love the repellent effect it has on visitors. You need a CRO expert on your team to tell you that your instinct is wrong and implement a test to reveal what works better.

You can spend months trying to create your CRO strategy by yourself, but why would you? Unless you thrive on the tedious trial and error of fixing site breaks and figuring out which tests mean something and which are useless, find an expert who can help.

CRO teams exist to help businesses work smarter and faster and release you to do what you do best. And you know what the best part is? CRO has a direct and tangible ROI, so you can easily determine the benefit of doing it yourself vs. having a professional do it for you.

The Metacake Way

At Metacake, we offer CRO clients our expertise in all the relevant areas: design, development, branding, and marketing. We take companies from ideation to market, from a brand concept to a fully realized and successful business.

We also help running businesses grow significantly. We don’t just figure out whether a test succeeded or failed — we dig into why it did and what needs to change through deep user behavior analysis.

We have extensive experience working with brands large and small. Whatever service or product you offer, we’ll help get it in front of your audience. We’re a customer-focused company. That’s why we love CRO: it allows us to give users exactly what they want, exactly how they want it.

CRO is written into Metacake’s DNA. By working with us, you get our customer-centric philosophy, which grows brands and increases your long-term business.

Start Optimizing Your Website: Final Thoughts

When it comes to optimizing your ecommerce website, CRO is a true game changer. Whether you work with us, work with another partner, or take on the challenge yourself, CRO will help you get ahead and stay ahead of your competition.

If you’re not ready to go it alone, we’re always here for you. Reach out today to see how our expert team can help you optimize your ecommerce website.