How to Optimize Your Website To Increase Online Sales

Every business owner knows that having a great website is key to success in the age of hybrid/e-commerce. Unfortunately, few business owners know how to make their website stand out from the crowd of millions of other sites. To help in this regard, keep reading for 5 pro tips on how to optimize your website to increase online sales.

Improve the Loading Speed of Pages

You can’t close a sale if shoppers don’t stick to your site. And there is nothing that will cause shoppers to bounce quite like slow-loading pages. Statistics indicate that each second it takes for a page to load will reduce conversions by 4.42%, so it will be highly profitable to improve loading speed to keep customers engaged with your offerings. Some ways to optimize the loading speed on your site include:

  • Compressing image size
  • Reduce the number of re-directs to shorten HTTP request and response process
  • Eliminate any unnecessary plugins

If these are tasks that fall outside the scope of your professional expertise, it is worthwhile to partner with a web design expert to help minimize loading time. Every second is revenue lost, making this one of the most profitable partnerships your business can make for boosting online sales.

Incorporate Elite Where to Buy Software

Although there is mounting pressure for online businesses to provide direct-to-consumer delivery, the reality remains that few companies are equipped with a delivery infrastructure that makes this a profitable practice. As such, many online stores still rely on third-party vendors for distribution. If this is the case, it is critical that your site be equipped with the most advanced store locator software to quickly route shoppers to the nearest vendor. Some features of great locator software include:

  • GPS routing directly from your device location to the nearest store
  • Robust exterior and interior photographs of the vendor location so customers can quickly identify your products in-person
  • Up-to-the-minute inventory and store traffic gauges to help customers determine which location can best suit their needs

While store locator technology is critical in all aspects of e-commerce, it is particularly impactful for converting mobile shoppers. A whopping 76% of mobile “near me” searches result in an in-person visit within 24 hours, so it is critical that your locator software be up to snuff to tap into this lucrative demographic.

Create Epic Content in Your Niche

Your website has to be more than just a platform for completing transactions. It must provide a complete shopping experience for visitors.

In the same way that skilled floor representatives would educate shoppers on products and services at in-person locations, it is essential that your website must have these same types of educational tools available. This could include helpful how-to posts on your website blog and step-by-step video demonstrations of how to use your products.

Not only will this type of content help educate the shoppers visiting your site, but it has the power to introduce your site to an entirely new set of eyes altogether. Content marketing is one of the most effective digital marketing tools available to online businesses in the e-commerce era. Customers have an insatiable thirst for information and make billions of searches each day. Therefore, if your content is helpful in answering trending questions in your niche, your site will rank for SEO and be the first place customers go when they need their questions answered. Each of these new arrivals causes your network to expand exponentially, with increased sales sure to follow.

Employ a Marketing Management Tool

One of the major perks of digital marketing is that it has the potential to be quicker, cheaper, and more far-reaching than traditional in-person marketing campaigns. While there is power in these types of numbers, digital marketing efforts can quickly become watered down the further they move away from the source. Before you know it, you can have an affiliate halfway around the globe advertising your products in a way that does not even resemble the products you have on your site.

Therefore, it is essential that your business invest in a marketing asset management tool to keep all marketing campaigns consistent and tightly focused. The best digital marketing management tools will allow all team members to collaborate and contribute to marketing content and make it readily accessible for all reps, salespeople, and affiliates, assuring brand cohesion and a more impactful marketing message.

Showcase Customer Feedback

Simply put, the opinion of like-minded customers with similar life experiences goes much further in 2022 than any celebrity endorsement. Online shoppers are constantly browsing online reviews and ratings to determine whether or not they want to buy a product.

As such, make this information readily available to customers visiting your website. A rolling ticker of customer reviews is a great way to get opinions before shoppers’ eyes, while social media buttons can allow customers to interact with your brand via their preferred digital medium.

5 Pro Tips to Optimize Your Website to Increase Online Sales

Your website serves as your digital storefront in the age of e-commerce. As a result, it is critical that your site be optimized to convert as many visitors into paying customers as possible. With this in mind, if you need help with any of the 5 pro tips listed above, contact a web design professional today to turn your website into a revenue-generating machine!

How to Encourage Customers to Leave More Reviews

Having a loyal base of customers can be a lifeline for your company. They can spread positive word of mouth and act as brand ambassadors, and you can rely on them for repeat business. However, even if your customers are singing your praises, you must find a way to show that to the public. Sometimes, amassing many positive reviews can be challenging, and many new business owners have no idea where to begin. At eSEOspace, we specialize in digital marketing and promoting businesses through SEO. We have experience in increasing companies’ visibility in online spaces, and we will share tips on how to encourage customers to leave more reviews. Keep in mind that you should temper your expectations. As with anything relating to digital marketing, it might take some time before you achieve measurable results.

 

Before You Encourage Customers to Leave More Reviews

Instead of immediately pushing customers to leave you reviews, we suggest you make preparations to ensure everything goes smoothly. Users typically have an adverse reaction whenever businesses act too forcefully. Even though you want to get reviews, your customers don’t need to know the exact details. Here is how to prepare to get more reviews:

1.Research Your Customers

Although you might know who is buying your products and services, it would still be best to create a profile of the ideal customer—research where they spend time online and which social platforms they use. Asking for reviews on the wrong platform won’t get a large response, so you’ll need to focus most of your efforts on your customers’ social networks.

2.Monitor Your Current Reputation

Before launching any marketing campaign, you should understand how your audience views you. Imagine getting an influx of new reviews where most of them turn out to be negative. Perhaps it would be better to monitor your online reputation and launch a PR campaign if you realize your reviews need improvement.

3.Implement Social Proof

Have a plan of what you will do with reviews once you gather them. For example, if you plan to ask for reviews on your Google profile, leaving them unnoticed would be a shame. Imagine all the users who don’t look at Google reviews missing out on the positive testimonials you have amassed.

We suggest implementing elements of social proof on your website. You can have a dedicated page to display reviews and share comments from satisfied customers. Additionally, consider placing some reviews on the landing page of your website or in your marketing emails.

 

How to Encourage Customers to Leave More Reviews:

1.Engage Customers in Conversation

Users will be much more likely to leave you a review if they regularly interact with your business. Getting customers to care about your business doesn’t happen overnight, but you can build a friendly rapport. Remember when we told you to research which social media platforms your users frequent – that is where you need to start building a following. Even if your website has a comments section for user messages, most people would rather interact with businesses through social media.

You shouldn’t misinterpret this advice and open a business profile on social media to ask for reviews. No one will stick around for that, and being overly promotional will only alienate your audience. Instead, you should foster meaningful conversation and give users a reason to participate.

2.Ask Nicely

You will frequently find multiple elaborate strategies if you seek advice on getting reviews. However, the most basic approach is often overlooked despite being incredibly practical. Politely ask customers for reviews – that’s it. However, you may not know when is the best time or how to ask for a review.

Send your customers an email after they complete a purchase. Depending on the type of products you sell and the expected delivery times, you can do a follow-up after a few weeks. Send a simple message stating, “Thank you for your business. Consider leaving us a review if you are satisfied with our products.” Of course, you should also include a way for users to leave you a review, which brings us to our next point.

 

3.Respond to Your Customers

Your customers might be dissuaded from leaving reviews or comments if they see many unanswered questions in your reviews section. Responding to customer reviews is essential to ensure your audience that you care. Moreover, this includes responding to negative comments and reviews. Take the time to craft a good response and show your customers you care about their feedback. Remember that you should also act on this feedback and implement necessary changes to your business. You will get more positive reviews if you demonstrate that you listen to what customers say and take their issues seriously.

 

4.Make it Easy to Leave a Review

Imagine the following scenario. You convince one of your customers to leave you a review, and when they go to write one, they are met with a complicated login form. They will pass, and you will be left without a review. Google suggests giving users a direct URL to leave a review on your Business Profile. However, if you want reviews on your WordPress website, you can simplify and streamline the forms users need to fill out. You can even consider allowing users to leave reviews without creating new accounts.

 

The Bottom Line

Many positive reviews can go a long way in convincing skeptical users that your company is reputable and worth their time. Now that you’ve learned how to encourage customers to leave more reviews, it’s time to put our advice into practice. Of course, if you want positive reviews, you must provide your users with an exceptional shopping experience and customer support. Managing your online reputation is essential for any business, and customer reviews are the easiest way to let users know you are running a stand-up business.

 

Author Bio: Fred Stanley is a Customer Relationship Management Expert focused on improving the user experience and facilitating communication between sales representatives and the end-user. Fred enjoys helping businesses reach their full potential in a humane and meaningful way. Fred loves relaxing with a good book and a cup of tea when he isn’t resolving sales disputes.