Too much chocolate can kill a dog.
Apples are the best killers of appetite.
Even looks can kill.
When it comes to conversion rate (I know, it’s a stretch), there are plenty of killers to choose from.
We’ve highlighted 7 common mistakes that can kill your conversion rate.
Mistake #1: Not Enabling Guest Checkout
This is crucial for your Magento store.
We’re talking you-must-do-this-today crucial. Not offering guest checkout is a death wish to your conversion rate.
We know that it’s more valuable to get a customer to sign up for an account – then you can send promotional emails, stay in touch, and make it easier for them to check out in the future.
But you shouldn’t disable guest checkout to encourage account creation – because this can cause customers to simply leave your website. Allowing guest checkout is critical for maximizing conversion rates and minimizing shopping cart abandonment.
In addition, 34% of customers have said that being forced to create an account causes them to abandon their carts – making it the second most common overall reason for abandoning a purchase.
Enabling guest checkout on Magento is easy, too – just follow this guide to turn on guest checkout, and you’ll be shocked at how it affects your overall conversion rates.
Mistake #2: Copying Product Descriptions from Other Websites
There are two major why you shouldn’t copy product descriptions from other websites.
First, you can sabotage your SEO efforts and be penalized by Google.
You may be tempted to use product descriptions from a manufacturer’s website. Don’t.
Chances are another retailer has done the same and now you’ve created duplicated content on the internet.
And Google hates duplicated content.
Your store could be marked as “low quality” by Google which could seriously affect your rankings in search results.
Another reason you shouldn’t copy product descriptions- they may not necessarily be accurate or even grammatically correct. And it’s been proven that poor spelling and incorrect grammar decrease conversion rates.
In a study by TargetMarketing, an eCommerce store that misspelled a pair of tights as “tihgts” and then corrected it to “tights,” experienced an 80% boost in conversions.
Mistake #3: Not Utilizing Full-Page Caching For Better Loading Times
Full-page caching (FPC) allows the full content of a page to be cached on a user’s device. In other words, it saves a local copy of the page to their computer or phone, which allows the page to load much more quickly in the future when your visitors come to your website again.
Webpage loading times are one of the most important factors when it comes to conversion rates. The faster your website, the more likely you are to make a sale – while a slow page will discourage customers from buying from your store, and make them more likely to close the page.
At 2.4 seconds, most websites will have a conversion rate of about 1.9%. At 3.3 seconds, this drops to 1.5%. Sink farther to 4.2 seconds, and your conversion rate will lower to less than 1% – and a 5.7+ second loading time leads to a conversion rate of 0.6% or less.
There are many different ways to boost your page loading times, but FPC is one of the most powerful – so follow this guide to enable it on your store, or turn to an experienced Magento developer for help.
Mistake #4: Not Using Layered Navigation To Sort Products
Layered navigation lets shoppers quickly filter products on product list pages by categories, ensuring they can find the items that they are looking for. While Magento comes out-of-the-box with some basic layered navigation tools, its capabilities can be greatly extended with the right third-party extension.
We may be biased since we did develop it, but our Persistent Layered Navigation extension is built to integrate with native Magento filtering features and allows filtering preferences to be saved between browsing sessions, improving the overall user experience.
Mistake #5: Not Integrating Follow-Up Emails
Using follow-up emails is one of the best ways to maximize your Magento store’s conversion rate.
Sending emails to customers who abandoned their carts can have a huge impact on your conversion rate- 50-60% of people who engage in those emails (open the email, click on a link…) will end up returning to the site and making the purchase.
You can easily set up a cart abandonment email program. Integrating dotdigital with your Magento store will help you convert more customers.
If you’re interested in learning more, take a look at this blog post we wrote previously, about the best types of transactional and follow-up emails you can implement on your Magento store for inspiration!
Mistake #6: Hiding Shipping Costs Until Checkout
Customers want free shipping.
Period.
90% of customers say that free shipping is one of their biggest incentives to shop on a given website. But if you don’t – or can’t – offer free shipping, or you only provide free shipping if a customer orders a certain value of merchandise, or on free items – you should be as transparent about this as possible. Unexpected shipping costs or extra fees and taxes are responsible for 55% of all cart abandonments.
However, if you make your shipping costs clear on each product page and on your Magento order summary screen, customers will not be as surprised – and they will be less likely to abandon their purchase. If you don’t offer free shipping, be upfront about it. Show the cost of shipping as early as possible in the shopping process.
Take a look at this blog post to find out why you should offer free shipping and get more details about Magento shipping best practices.
Avoid These Common Mistakes and Convert More Customers
eCommerce conversion optimization is both an art and a science.
We’ve only touched on a few tips and tricks, but they’re a good starting point, particularly if you’re new to using Magento. Start thinking about how you can implement them into your own website today.
For more information and Magento tips, we highly invite you to check out our blog.
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