83 Experts Share the Best Ecommerce Conversion Rate Optimization Strategies

As an ecommerce business, or for that matter any business, your primary focus should be on your conversion rate. Of course, I don’t mean you should undermine the importance of selling good products. Products that are valuable, and solve your customers' problems. However, you should continually look at ways in which you can increase your ecommerce conversion rate.

The competition in the ecommerce industry is huge. Especially with bigger players like Amazon and Walmart, it takes a lot of effort to build credibility. However, not many people know that a few key changes to your website can boost your conversion rate considerably.

Here’s my two cents on the best ecommerce conversion rate optimization strategies that you should focus on.

1. Work on Your Security Signals

When a visitor lands on your website, organically or by clicking on your ads, give them reasons to trust you. They should feel confident about spending money on your products.

You need to clearly establish the fact that their credit card information will be handled securely. 19% of online shoppers don’t complete their purchase due to such trust issues.

A great way of doing this is by displaying security badges from Verisign or Bizrate. You can also think about installing SSL on your website, and at checkout. This can boost your ecommerce conversion rate, and also reduce cart abandonment.

2. Make the Experience as Real as Possible

Studies have found that 55% of people check product reviews before buying online. The same study also found that 26% of consumers visit physical stores to try the product before buying online.

Ecommerce doesn’t allow customers to touch and feel the products. So you need to work on making the experience as real as possible. This alone can do a lot to increase your ecommerce conversion rate.

Make sure to include high-quality images and videos too if possible. Include product reviews from customers who have bought the products. Also, make your product descriptions compelling. They should include details about how the product will be used, and by whom.

Don’t forget to include your unique selling point. The reason why customers should buy from you instead of others.

3. Provide Free Shipping

This might sound daunting, but trust me, this is what can really set you apart from your competition. 60% of online shoppers ditch their shopping carts due to additional costs like shipping and taxes.

If you’re able to generate relevant leads who are interested in purchasing from you, free shipping can ensure they provide you with a better ecommerce conversion rate. Think about it. The moment a potential customer sees that they’ll be charged for shipping, what stops them from going to Amazon?

I’ll even go a step further and recommend adjusting your product prices, if needed, to cover shipping costs. Because free shipping makes customers feel like they’re getting a great deal.

Final Thoughts

One thing is common to all of these strategies I’ve recommended. They put the customer first. If you can ensure that you are providing them a world-class shopping experience, they will definitely convert. For more useful and actionable tips on boosting your ecommerce conversion rate, check out these insights from experts.

#1. Olga Andrienko – Semrush

Make sure your product and category pages are easy to crawl for search engines, contain correct meta information and have unique content in order to increase audience and conversion rate for your ecommerce website.

Check if the currency on your website matches your target country. It is so common that websites have an opportunity to change the country, but when changing the language, the currency doesn’t change.
Also, if you’re targeting different countries, choose the most relevant type of URL structure. Make sure the keywords you’re targeting match the keywords used in that country to search for what you have to offer.

Guest checkout. Make sure you have a guest checkout enabled through PayPal, and it will increase your conversion rate on a mobile device. Make it easy for people to purchase, don’t disconnect the shopping journey!

#2. Tracey Wallace – BigCommerce.com

Get product video content on your product pages ASAP. Mobile commerce is making up more and more of the market, and having a mobile-optimized site isn't enough to get you high in mobile organic rankings (or to increase conversion rate once someone is on the page).

Producing product videos for as many of your products as possible increases on-page engagement, which helps to boost your organic rankings. Plus, you can use those videos in re-targeting ads across Facebook, as well as on a YouTube channel to drive up CTR for searches on that platform and increase conversion rate.

Video gets you the biggest bang for your buck. It is becoming a must-have, not a nice-to-have. So knock it out in Q1 2018, and ride the wave for the rest of the year.

#3. Peep Laja – CXL Institute

 They should prioritize a new innovative strategy called “nailing the fundamentals.” It involves finally setting in place a proper conversion rate research process and running their testing program based on the research insights.

Do it any other way and you're only putting on lipstick without tackling the issues that would actually many you money and improve user experience.

#4. Bryan Eisenberg – Buyer Legends, LLC

Building a great ecommerce business is about the brand reputation you establish and how remarkable your customers find you and your experience. In fact, this is now one of the top SEO ranking factors according to the latest SEMrush ranking factors report.

One way to leverage this for brand affinity, traffic and conversion rate is online video. I hope ecommerce businesses invest in creating videos that not only inform but entertain as well. Move past boring flat product images, and simplistic product videos to better scripted info-tainment videos.

#5. Nir Eyal – NirAndFar.com

Ecommerce stores by and large still don't understand the importance of customer retention. We're so focused on getting people to “check-out” when we really should be thinking about ways to get them to “check-in.”

Ecommerce retailers need to find ways to make interacting with their companies a consumer habit for better conversion rates.

In 2018, retailers need to remember that without a habit, the competition can always undercut them on price while loyalty is a competitive advantage. Build user habits into your product experience or bolt-on content marketing or community management to keep users engaged with your brand even when they're not ready to buy.

Remember, monetization is a result of engagement, not the other way around.

#6. Brian Massey – Conversion Sciences

For Conversion Rate of Ecommerce companies, 2018 will be all about the quality of their Digital Laboratory, because in 2019, the blind are going to drop like flies. The digital lab is the collection of tools that a business uses to measure, monitor and learn from their visitors ON A DAILY BASIS.

Forget big data. This is data on the desktop, at the fingertips of every marketer and product manager in the organization. Of course, it's not about the tools. The people using them make the difference.

The lab will incorporate inexpensive, easy-to-use tools, including analytics, user testing, heatmapping, session recording, and AB testing. In 2018, your team must learn to use these tools. In 2019, it will be too late. In 2018, awaken the scientists in your team.

#7. John Lincoln – IgniteVisibility

The first one, recommending similar products on the page. For example, I'm a big surfer. If I am buying a new wetsuit, I also need a hoot and booties. All of those things are important for winter surfing.

On the product page, the eCommerce store should recommend 2 to 4 other items the user would also be interested in purchasing, and if possible, also have an option to buy all three and show the savings associated with that.

Another strategy I recommend is an upsell in the checkout process. For example, after the customer selects their item, the next page shows special offers related to the product and showcases the discount.

Finally, after the customer has converted is another opportunity. On the confirmation page, you can add text that says “Your Product Has Been Purchased. Buy These Products In The Next 3 Minutes For 40% Off.” A post sale ecommerce conversion rate optimization strategy can be really effective.

My last one (I could go on for a while on this topic!) Is to add your top sale items to your 404 page. I did this with a client and saw an increase in ecommerce conversion rate of over 15% sitewide, and it was a pretty large site.

#8. David Skok – ForEntrepreneurs

For better ecommerce conversion rate, implement an omni-channel B2C CRM system that collects data across all channels, stitches identities, provides insights and recommendations, and then lets you drive campaigns across all channels. (Zaius is one example of this.)

 

#9. Tommy Walker – Shopify.com

Fix your analytics.

With nearly every analytics setup, there is something that is misconfigured that does not give you full visibility into your customer journey. Are you properly tracking your goals? Do you know which events lead to sales? Are your traffic segments tracking repeat purchasers? Are you looking at what people who search your site are doing? Or people who enter your site through specific categories, product pages, or information pages?

Analytics that are finely tuned to your business needs will give you incredible insight into exactly how people are using your site, and reveal gaps that can serve as the foundation for testing hypothesis, or obvious improvements that need to be made in your ecommerce conversion rate optimization strategy.

#10. Andy Crestodina – Orbit Media Studios

Cross-sell like a champion. Never miss a chance to offer visitors more. You can even give them more opportunities to add to cart… right there within the cart itself! If they were interested in the product, maybe they'd like the accessory.

Suggest products relentlessly without taking them out of their flow. The cart is a fantastic place to offer companion products since they've already expressed buying intent. Every additional purchase here just adds to the bottom line for better conversion rate of your ecommerce business.

#11. Dennis van der Heijden – Convert.com

Privacy is going to be huge in 2018. EU GDPR will have a big impact on what you can store and use. Even if your business is non-European focused the European clients that buy or surf your site (even subscribe to your newsletter) will have a lot to say about how their data will be used.

I think many forms will have to be tested in 2018 on how to get the email while making sure each person gives the consent on how to use that information. It will dive a more conscious customer and surely will increase the power of the consumer and increase conversion rate for your website.

Most marketing systems will be affected and I predict we will see a whole new range of A/B test cases on our Convert.com platform, where GDPR had a big say in the UX and outcome of the test.

#12. Michael Kawula – DinnerTableMBA

The best conversion rate strategy any Ecommerce store can benefit from in 2018 and beyond is “live” one-on-one discussions with your visitors who are on your site live (right now) and following up with your customers who’ve made a purchase already for feedback.

There are tons of live chat tools available to improve conversion rate of ecommerce websites, but if you’re using any of them, is your company collecting and using that data of conversations taking place?

These conversations and questions being asked will show you what needs to be tweaked on each and every page of your site to help get better conversion rate and convert new visitors to customers.

Really dive into all those conversations and you’ll notice patterns of areas where visitors are getting stuck and that will show you what to fix.

#13. Talia Wolf – GetUplift.co

The most important conversion rate optimization strategy to focus on is customer-centric optimization. All the tools, data and button testing in the world cannot deliver those huge increases you're after.

Unless you start making it about the customer, understand their challenges, needs and expectations you will never be able to create the experience your customers will love to convert to.

Stay data-informed, understand where the story is, but go deeper. Get to know your customers, get into their heads and run customer-centric tests, tests that tell you more about your customers and what they need. Forget about call-to-action buttons or headlines, amazing results can only be achieved when you run meaningful tests to achieve better results in your ecommerce conversion rate campaigns.

#14. Aaron Orendorff – Shopify Plus

The next frontier of Conversion Rate Optimization lies in B2B ecommerce. If you have a solid B2C funnel — e.g., traffic acquisition, conversion rates by source and campaigns, frontline “into-the-funnel” opt-ins, sales, upsales, and retention — you don't need to reinvent the wheel, but it does need a few extra spokes.

What's especially important to understand are the friction points where B2B buyers drop out of your funnel. In an increasingly self-service world — where B2B shoppers are well over 50% through a purchase before reaching out to directly to suppliers — aligning your social-media profiles (both branded and individual sales people) with organic-traffic entry points (SEO) with your “into-the-funnel” opt-ins is crucial.

What's equally crucial is creating gated content focused on aligning multiple stakeholders. You can do this by tracking link-clicks (UTMs) within gated assets — like PDFs — and measuring the engagement of different people at the same organization through your CRM.

#15. John Rampton – Calendar.com

Make website navigation a priority in 2018. As you have expanded your ecommerce store, it's most likely become more complex due to the extra pages that have been slotted in. However, your conversion rate optimization may decrease because of this so it's important to regularly revisit navigation using your website map to ensure it's still easy to follow for visitors, including search crawlers.

 

#16. Sam Hurley – OPTIM-EYEZ

My primary recommendations are: PERSONALIZATION and WEBSITE SPEED.

Personalization:
The demands of customers are more intense than ever before. Big brands are innovatively delivering exceptional, optimized experiences that are now becoming the norm; at least, in the customers' eyes…

Tools are available to completely tailor websites (and surrounding content, including ads) to the individual — so ecommerce stores definitely need to take heed and start acting on this, if not already. It's the path to seamless 1:1 communication, at scale.

“81% of consumers want brands to get to know them and understand when to approach them (and when not to).”
(Source: Accenture)

Chatbots and virtual assistants are equally powerful tools to equip in any ecommerce conversion rate optimization kit. The buzz surrounding them is justified. They can be used to aid customers throughout their entire journey, even up-selling and cross-selling along the way…

The good news? Such technologies are becoming less expensive (and easier to use) as the industry grows, so it's definitely worth the investment. They are proven to dramatically increase ecommerce conversion rates — and consequently, profits.

“89% of businesses report improved results from personalization.”
(Source: DealerRefresh)

Present shoppers with the specific products and content they want to see (exactly when they want to see them.)

Website Speed:
In a world of shortened attention spans, not much needs to be said here!

In addition to demands, customers NEVER want to wait. Not for anything…

Load fast, or lose customers!

NOTE: Focus particular attention towards your checkout process. Is it completely pain-free? Don't lose all traction at the last hurdle!

#17. Kath Pay – Holistic Email

The best conversion rate optimization strategy is to know about your customers as the more you know about your customers, the better you can speak to them. So, ask them what they like best; via testing in the channel that is one of the key drivers of traffic to your website – email marketing.

Your email database contains your target market, so use email’s unique push ability and treat every email as a survey by asking your customers what they like via a scientific A/B testing program in order to achieve success in your ecommerce conversion rate strategy.

By seeking long-term valuable insights through email marketing, you not only increase results within email marketing but you can share them across other channels to drive the business objectives that are common to all channels.

Apply what you've learned to your website copy and organization, to your search keywords, PPC campaigns and related landing pages, and in ads and banners you run on third-party sites in remarketing or network campaigns.

Email gives you a good basic testing structure that you can build on to sharpen your insights and improve your marketing efforts bit by bit across all channels. It's another one of email's superpowers that marketers so often overlook or ignore.

Ultimately, it's another reason why investing both time and money in email pays off across your entire marketing program.

#18. Nichole Elizabeth DeMere – Zest.is

Conversion rate optimization in 2018, and moving forward, is headed in one direction: Personalization.

Not just in being able to target ads ever more precisely, but in more companies figuring out how to really hone their messages through accurately identifying their ideal clients, doing the on-the-ground research to find out what they need, want and are missing, and creating entire experiences – ads, landing pages and products are the tip of the iceberg here – around them.

There are some brick-and-mortar stores that are nailing this in ways ecommerce stores are only beginning to understand. You might even call it the “Cheers” effect – everybody knows your name, and when you come in the door, you feel like family.

That is what personalization can be, and that is what will be providing better results in conversion rate as consumers learn that they can expect that level of experience.

#19. Daniel Burstein – MECLABS Institute

The strategy ecommerce stores should prioritize is practicing customer-first marketing. In other words, prioritize the customer.

In our survey of 2,400 customers, the most frequent way unsatisfied customers described the marketing of the company they were unsatisfied with is “the company does not put my wants and needs above its business goals.”

A Conversion Rate Optimization tool ecommerce marketers can use to increase conversion rate by putting the customer first is the MECLABS Institute Conversion Sequence Heuristic. It is a thought tool to use as you work on webpages and marketing and help you increase the probability of conversion rate. You can get a closer look at this thought tool at MECLABS.com/heuristic.

#20. Anna Talerico – ion interactive

First, testing and optimizing the ways to purchase. Choice is key — Paypal, ApplePay, Amazon—there are so many ways to make buying easier for shoppers, which accelerate the purchase. I think testing around how these options are presented, and optimizing the user experience, is important.

Secondly, continuing to focus on testing the merchandising, especially the mobile experience shows better ecommerce conversion rate results. As we buy more online we need to be able to get up close and personal with the merchandise. How it's presented is key, especially on mobile.

#21. Josh Coffy – Flight Media

Three words: Facebook Messenger Bots.

They're incredibly effective and very cheap to set up. In fact, Facebook Messenger is now one of the most-used means of communication, often more than texting and Whatsapp – with open rates often in the 80% range with click-through of 5-15%.

With Facebook Messenger Bot tools, like Many Chat, you can set up automated “message” sequences to drip content to people via Facebook Messenger and automate conversations with potential customers or current customers to increase conversion rate of your ecommerce website.

If you don't use messenger bots, you're leaving thousands on the table that can affect in your ecommmerce conversion rates.

#22. Mandy Edwards – ME Marketing Services

There are many areas eCommerce stores need to be looking at when putting together their Conversion rates strategy. Two of these areas are appearance and analytics.

Let’s talk appearance first. Are you using high quality, appealing images? Are these images inviting? You want these to draw your customer in and entice them to click.

Ugly, low quality images never do that. Is your site clean and easy to read, or is it cluttered and flashy? You will lose customers if they feel overwhelmed by the content on your site and thus hinder your conversion rate stats.

How about analytics, especially Google Analytics. If you are not using Google Analytics to track traffic on your website, stop what you are doing right now, bookmark this post, and go set it up.

You need to know where your traffic is coming from, who is visiting your site, how long they are on your site, and if they put items in a cart and left. Consistently monitoring your site’s analytics will tell you if your efforts are working and if you need to adjust your ecommerce Conversion rate strategy.

#23. Graham Charlton – SaleCycle

With a wealth of data on customer behaviour, such as browsing and purchase history, personalization has thepotential to improve your ecommerce conversion rate through better targeted and relevant email marketing, to better on-site experiences.

#24. Rachel Pedersen – RachelPedersen.com

In 2018, every single ecommerce store needs to prioritize radical split tests. Radical split tests can often uncover a unicorn in ads, funnels, or in copy – a unicorn that yields to major increase in ROI.

I’m not just talking about testing button colors or fonts… Drastic split tests that will polarize the results and find something unexpected.

For example, the difference between a graphic and a stock photo or between a lifestyle photo and a testimonial could be dollars per acquisition.

My personal favorite split tests include; using vastly different imagery for banner ads and Facebook, copy that is clickbaity vs. long form copy, and even split testing a market that you didn’t previously realize could yield major results (younger, older audiences, male vs. female).

The more money you spend on traffic, the quicker the data becomes apparent, and you will quickly realize the difference in price and how it adds up in your website conversion rate!

#25. Chris Makara – Bulk.ly

With an ecommerce site, there are so many different things you can implement as part of your conversion rate optimization strategy.

But before you start implementing and testing, you need to be 100% sure you are tracking and documenting changes made to your site. Without it, you'll have no idea what is or isn't working on the site.

When it comes to ecommerce conversion rate strategy, I typically like to make deliberate changes one at a time in order to really know what is impacting overall conversions. And I prioritize the checkout process.

Of course different markets respond to different things, but I find that implementing (or at least testing) the option to checkout as a guest opposed to having to create an account almost always wins out. This is because there is less barriers for the buyer to overcome.

They have to give you their name, shipping info, payment info and email at a minimum anyway. But since they aren't forced to create passwords, verify email addresses, etc. they typically feel less pressured and are more than happy to hand over their basic details.

The next thing I would prioritize in my ecommerce conversion rate strategy is how you do pricing. If it is more than $100, try testing where you don't use decimals in the price. The reason is that when you “speak” out the price it is more words and can feel more expensive to a buyer than a flat number without decimals.

This can lead to more perceived value of the product and elicit more buyers to take action.

In 2018, I would start with these two ecommerce conversion rate strategies and measure the results. If they prove successful, look at ways you can improve them even more.

#26. William Harris – Elumynt.com

I'm still bullish on more ecommerce stores getting into 1:1 alert based marketing. It grew in 2017, and I think it will be imperative for 2018. One of my favorite tools for this for large retailers is MyAlerts.com.

I also think more ecommerce stores will realize the value in offering payment terms for their merchandise. A lot of people don't realize how hard it is for millennials to get credit cards and build up any substantial credit profile. Companies like Sezzle.com don't require a credit check, and make it easier for millennials to purchase from their favorite stores.

#27. Tink Taylor – dotmailer.com

In the world of ecommerce, we want to be able to marry an anonymous web user’s visit to an actual person. The single customer view is the ultimate aim for any business and a foolproof way to achieve web tracking is to use people’s email addresses as the unique identifier.

My advice for 2018 would be to fully optimize the way you collect users’ data via your store for your website's conversion rate. Introducing a smart popover is one of the best ways to make this happen because you can choose where and when it’ll appear on your site.

An advanced tool will let you measure performance and continually improve your ecommerce conversion rate so that you can endeavor to gather an email address from everyone who visits your website.

#28. Marcus Miller – BowlerHat

The best ecommerce conversion rate optimization strategy is always to better understand your prospective customers. There can be too much focus on having the right colored button or call to action. And sure, these things can be optimized and improved through A/B testing but developing a keen understanding of your customers wants and needs will only help in this regard as well.

So the best conversion rate strategy can be to go back to basics and develop a better understanding of your customer.

At my agency, Bowler Hat, we are big fans of the SOSTAC digital marketing framework. The Situation Analysis (S) component here will help you really dive into your customers and competitors. From here you should be able to identify opportunities to offer more value than the competition. And this value proposition should be key to your approach when trying to convince more visitors for better ecommerce conversion rate results.

Then, with this strategic knowledge in place you can start testing different offers and calls to action to put your theory to the test. Then, you can dive into analytics and the more traditional elements of ecommerce conversion rate optimisation – but make sure you get the marketing basics 100% dialed in first.

#29. Erik Emanuelli – NoPassiveIncome.com

Put yourself in the shoes of your customers.

When you look at your ecommerce website, answer this question:
“Does it satisfy my audience needs?”

Each of your web pages are aimed to attract, educate, convert or finalize the purchase.

Focus on keeping your users on the website. Use amazing pictures, add informative videos, create product guides, showcase positive reviews to increase the conversion rate of your ecommerce website.

Invite buyers with free shipping, or particular discounts or gifts.

The purchase process should be smooth, from selecting the product up to the shopping cart.

It's all about user experience and the added value you can give to your audience.

#30. Matt Janaway – Marketing Labs

Conversion Rate Optimization tip #1: Install Live Chat & use it!

It’s a well-known fact that today’s online shoppers prefer to message. 2017 was the year of live chat and 2018 should be too!

Nearly every day I see an eCommerce website where a live chat plugin or integration could help convert more visitors into customers. It is also a great tool to help visitors contact your business without having to pick up their phone, which in turn reduces the strain on your customer service team (if you have one!).

Live chat can also uncover repeat customer queries which can then be fed back to your design time to implement in order to increase ecommerce conversion rate of your website.

There are bundles of free live chat plugins and integrations available, I highly recommend live chat software such as ZenDesk or Tawk. If your eCommerce website is based on WordPress, these two options both offer one-click WordPress plugin integrations that you can add yourself without the need for developers.

Conversion Rate Optimization tip #2: Improve your product descriptions

I’m 99% sure your product descriptions suck. I’m yet to see an eCommerce store with product descriptions that can’t be improved in terms of content, layout and user experience (UX).

If your customer service team is wasting time answering product related customer queries, your product descriptions have failed – big time! I’m always telling eCommerce owners and webmasters that they need to imagine their product descriptions as an in-store assistant – first, think like your customers and then answer every possible question within the description.

Improving your product descriptions is a long and relentless process (even for businesses with a dedicated web team!), so if you’re struggling for time in 2018, try and write 3-7 detailed bullet points for every product. I promise your ecommerce conversion rate will increase.

Conversion Rate Optimization tip #3: Improve your product images

We all know that product images sell and with just 8 seconds to engage with the average website visitor, your product images need be hot and I’m talking super hot!

Your images need to be professional, show off the product from multi-angles and show the product in a “real-life situation.”

If you want to go all-out, try and get your hands on product pictures from your customers and drop these into your product pages. Social proof has been proven to increase ecommerce conversion rates time and time again.

So, go away and take some new product photos…you could even start a competition with your customers to send you photos of their product using an engaging #hashtag!

#31. James Scherer – Wishpond

Realistically, even an optimized ecommerce site won't convert around 95% of its traffic. So the biggest opportunity for profit and growth lies in recapturing as much of that 95% as you can. And there's two strategies for better conversion rates: retargeting, and email.

Putting advertising to the side, I'm confidently recommending to ecommerce clients that they ad list-building popups to their websites as soon as possible – welcome mats/entry popups, scroll-popups, header or footer opt-in bars, etc.

All these optimize your ecommerce website for better conversion rates to capture lead information. This enables you to send not just abandoned cart emails, but also emails about an upcoming sale or limited-time promotion.

As a bonus, capturing lead information before someone buys also means you can simplify your checkout process (often reported as one of the primary reasons people don't complete checkout). There's no account creation necessary.

#32. Khalid Saleh – Invesp

Creating a personalized shopping experience:

2018 will bring in new complexities in conversion rate optimization for ecommerce websites. Consumers expectations are ever changing. They no longer accept generalized and generic offers. They want a personalized experience.

Consumers have too many options to choose amongst. Most services and products have been commoditized. If you want to compete online, you must focus on creating a personal and unique relationship with your customers.

With the advent of technology, there is a tendency to automate and generalize everything. The challenge will be to find the right balance of when to use general solutions and when to introduce personalized shopping experience to online visitors.

Start thinking and adapting to voice search:

Back in 2009, we talked about the growth of mobile websites. Some marketers predicted that eventually, most of the web traffic would be coming on mobile devices.

That day is here now. Voice search is next frontier. 20% to 30% of searches are done using voice search. This trend will continue to grow.

How does that impact ecommerce? Voice search allows your potential customers to ask specific questions and to expect quick and personalized answers to help them make a purchase decision and increase the conversion rate for your ecommerce website.

In addition to adapting your ecommerce technology to meet visitors’ expectations, we might see trends of less browsing and more direct navigation to match visitor query. How would store layout, navigation and search change to meet that new trend? It is too early to tell, but one thing you can bet on is that this will be a topic of heavy discussion in 2018.

#33. Danny Halarewich – LemonStand

I always recommend online retailers to evaluate how well they're doing on the fundamentals at the start of a new year.

There's no shortage of conversion rate optimizations and ideas to grow your eCommerce business that you can use to grow revenue and profit.

But, before implementing specific ecommerce conversion rate optimizations, you should ensure you are doing a great job of the basics because that is most often where the biggest opportunities for growth will be found.

Is Google Analytics installed and tracking correctly, including eCommerce and checkout conversion rate data?

Do you have clear reporting on how your business is doing today? What has worked well so far? What hasn't? Did you hit your previous goals? Why or why not?

What are your specific, measurable goals for 2018?

Have you tested your ecommerce website, especially the path to purchase, across multiple web browsers and devices to look for bugs, confusing text or visual blockers? If anything is broken, prioritize that first in ecommerce conversion rate strategy.

Run speed testing tools against the main pages of your website, and make fixes and improvements accordingly. You don't need a perfect score, but aim to get as close as possible. Address any quick wins immediately, and schedule larger improvements.

Review customer feedback, questions asked in customer service, and complaints. If you don't have feedback to review, prioritize gathering that feedback from customers ASAP.

After that, there are some more specific second-level areas you can evaluate:

• Shipping: Study after study show that many customers don't complete their purchase because of expensive or confusing shipping charges. Is your shipping charges clear and simple to understand? Have you carefully considered offering a free shipping option? If that's not possible, can you offer simple flat rates?
• Product Images: Are your product images professional, and high resolution? Do you show multiple photos for each product? Do you include photos showing the product being used and enjoyed by customers?
• Product Descriptions: Are your descriptions detailed, clear and on-brand? Does your copywriting use language that matches how your customers describe your products?
• Checkout: Do you allow guest checkout with as little friction as possible? Is each page or section of the checkout simple and clear? Is visually secure, and use HTTPS on the checkout (and other pages)?
• Live Chat: Implementing live chat makes customers feel more comfortable making a purchase, knowing they can speak to a real person. It's also a great way to glean insights from visitors by learning what questions and objections they have, which can inform further areas of improvement in your ecommerce conversion rate optimization strategy.

After evaluating those areas, note down specific items for each that can be improved and tested for betrter conversion rate results. Implement, measure, learn, then repeat.

#35. Jamie Turner – 60SecondMarketer.com

Use Trust Badges: I'll be the first to admit that trust badges look junky and ugly. And as a former graphic designer, that drives me crazy.

But in the end, the only thing that matters on a landing page is your ROI and trust badges can help improve your ROI. How?

Studies show that your ecommerce conversion rate will increase 10% or more when you use a trust badge. Given that, you should use them wherever possible. After all, adding a trust badge is like putting money in your pocket, and that's a good thing for your ecommerce conversion rate, right?

#36. Shanelle Mullin – Shopify

Everyone’s looking for a quick and easy golden nugget they can implement for 10x growth or lift in their conversion rate strategy. A button copy tweak here, a color change there.

Go beyond the hacks and tactics. Rely on a less sexy, but more effective systematic process to achieve desired ecommerce conversion rate results. The process is a bit different for everyone, but it should look something like this:

1. Conduct qualitative and quantitative research on your unique site to identify problem areas.
2. Use your research to come up with test and experiment ideas.
3. Prioritize those test and experiment ideas using a prioritization method like ICE or PXL.
4. Begin running the highest priority test or experiment.
5. Analyze the results of the test or experiment.
6. Record or archive the results of the test or experiment.
7. Use the insights from your most recent test or experiment to come up with smarter test and experiment ideas.

If you focus on this, I genuinely believe you'll be among the top 30% of successful ecommerce conversion rate optimizers.

#37. Jim Sterne – ai4marketing.com

2018 is the year to look into, get comfortable with, and start experimenting with artificial intelligence for marketing. Dive in wherever you are comfortable, interested, and/or have the time: high-end mathematics, deep-end algorithmic invention, systems-level tool development, process-oriented data wrangling, or simply end-user tool implementation in your ecommerce conversion rate optimization strategy.

Just like the World Wide Web in the early 1990's, AI and machine learning are going to significantly change marketing and now is the time to poke it with a stick and think about how it can help you. And, it can help you today.

#38. Dennis Yu – BlitzMetrics

Use Facebook's new analytics tool to build web, social, and email funnels. Then you can drive people to your store for a nurtured purchase sequence. Facebook's analytics tool (find it within your Business Manager) is something almost nobody has seen or heard of, yet is the most powerful analytics tool on the planet.

You can build funnels, examine audiences, and run ads across all your channels, not just Google Analytics (which is only for your website).

Go play in the demo account to see how to set up your Facebook analytics account.

Then compare your referrer, goal path, and session reports between Facebook analytics and Google Analytics. You'll find significant differences, since Google is measuring based on cookies, which don't account for people using multiple devices — therefore, dropping and over-counting sessions by about 41% of your social traffic.

Now you get to see the true impact of your Facebook efforts on your ecommerce conversion rate efforts.

#39. Sean Si – SEO Hacker

With the rise of templates and pre-made systems that cater to ecommerce conversion rate, you can be sure that presentation and aesthetics are more or less spoon fed to the shop owner. So the optimizations that are mostly neglected but are very important for conversions is up on what people can control which are the following:

Good images: With the rise of the Apple brand accentuating the need for “feel” and “presentation,” a good image can turn a “want” to a “need,” if you can get a higher resolution image that is curated to make sure your audience see what they need to see regarding the product, do so.

You can’t imagine how many shops I’ve been to that literally had something that looked copy pasted from Google images page. Instant bounce.

Customer feedback: In the age where websites are popping up everywhere, social proofing is very necessary for a sale as it builds trust to your brand using third-party credentials.

When people see people buy, they are more inclined to trust the seller and let loose of their inhibitions against the risks of online transactions. Make sure to get their name at the very least and a picture would be the definite magnet to this feature in order to improve conversion rate of your ecommerce website.

Smoothen your checkout: Different people prefer the different process of checkout, from laying out every form to fill out face front to separating them into segments, then test which one works best for your customers.

But overall the rule of thumb is to get only what you need at the time that they are about to pay. The more friction you have in that moment, the more they have time to hesitate to make a sale.

Security signals: This is the most important ecommerce conversion rate optimization strategy that gets overlooked a lot but makes a significant difference. Give your site the subtle comfort of security by making sure you have SSL and that green padlock icon at your address bar plus the icons of that builds trust such as the different credit cards, Paypal and McAfee, Geotrust etc.

Provide Valuable Content: On the product page especially. There are a lot of shop owners who feel like the “picture says it all” but I highly believe otherwise. Dimensions and technical details of the product will always encourage the customer that they are buying “just what they need.”

Always go the extra mile to think what the customer would want to see, a different angle on the picture? Specifications? Size? Length? Expiry date? etc. Try as much as possible to compensate based on the lost senses they might use in a physical shop to buy the product

Allow anonymous checkout: As counter-intuitive as it seems, sometimes some people just need something on your site and that’s all. In these cases make sure to allow anonymous checkup to remove just another friction in the checkout process.

Keep the registration optional but make sure to emphasize it’s benefits such as order tracking and better customer support.

#40. Laura Pence Atencio – SocialSavvyGeek

Get personal and get connected. A great way to engage with buyers and re-engage potential buyers (who abandoned an item in their cart)  to increase ecommerce conversion rate is to message them using a Facebook ChatBot.

At Social Savvy Geek we use ManyChat to automate some of our messaging and we have had an overwhelmingly positive reaction.

The key to this tactic is to keep things simple, give people what they really need from you, and always, always offer human help. Automation is great – until it isn't.

Much like email automation sequences, ChatBot sequences are a great tool as long as you don't overdo it. Getting the conversation ecostarted and helping people in real time using a bot is a win for everyone as long as you let people know that you're doing it and that they are welcome to move on to human interaction whenever they need a more personal interaction.

If it's appropriate to your brand, a little humor never hurts, either.

#41. Ayat Shukairy – Invesp

The annual Conversion rate optimization survey by Invesp shows that 65% of CMOs are still not happy with their ecommerce conversion rates. Data from optimizely and VWO show that most A/B tests do not produce significant results. Increasing the ecommerce conversion rate for a website means that optimizers must deploy the right mix of strategic and tactical split tests on their website.

Strategic experiments require significant pre and post-test analysis. They also require significant time and level of effort. Tactical testing is quick to implement and requires less effort.

2018 must bring in a new commitment to implement the right conversion rate optimization program. For those who dabbled in split testing but never committed, it will be the time to seriously consider what it would take to start a conversion rate optimization program.

For those who have been doing some testing, the new year should allow them to evaluate their program. Are they following a meaningful strategy? What kind of results did they see? And finally, how can they improve their program.

#42. Jordan Kasteler – JordanKasteler.com

On product pages, ecommerce stores should focus on the images in order to achieve their desired conversion rate results. Images in use , and used in many ways, sell the product. Also, make sure your reviews look real and believable. You're not going to lose someone's trust more than by having fake reviews on your site.

#43. Matt Thorpe – Grasshopper UK

Strategy: Welcome Series Personalization / Optimization

Data is everything to an ecommerce business but it's only valuable if you use it in the right way.

Stores need to focus on providing a more personalized experience with their welcome series for increase in ecommerce conversion rate. They need to collect more data and then use it to tailor the on-boarding content that adds real value, instead of a one-size-fits-all approach. The first 90 days of the relationship is critical but they must impress and engage from day 1.

Customers have so many emails fighting for attention in their inbox but the ones that deliver value and solutions to their problems are the ones that will be seen. It's also much easier to sell to someone who loves what you do already.

#44. Drew Sanocki – Nerd Marketing

Too often ecommerce Conversion Rate Optimization is all about AB testing button colors and layouts. But this is the photo; you want the video.

You have to think about how users interact over time, and be able to identify deviations from standard purchasing behavior. The more you can correct those deviations, the better your Conversion Rate will become.

 

#45. Cameron Conaway – Reflektion

In 2018, individualization will move from ecommerce buzzword to necessity. Why? Because the best way to improve your ecommerce conversion rate is to show your customers the products they're most likely to be interested in.

It sounds like common sense, right?

The best way to do it, especially for ecommerce sites with extensive product catalogs, is to use an AI-powered platform that can understand and even optimize your product catalog while it creates unique profiles based on every individuals' preferences and intent.

Unfortunately, most ecommerce sites are lagging woefully behind. Some are complacent and unwilling to change their legacy processes (which are often based on antiquated segmentation models), and many others think artificial intelligence too nascent to offer them any value.

Providing a truly individualized customer experience both for anonymous or logged in users (and whether they are on your site or checking their email) isn't a hack, nor will it give barely noticeable ecommerce conversion rate gains.

Customers are increasingly expecting such experiences, and conversion rates often increase upwards of 20% for brands that deliver.

#46. Nicholas Scalice – Earnworthy

I think one of the most important things ecommerce stores can do in 2018 is simplify their product pages for improved conversion rates. Far too many sites are trying to cram too much stuff onto a single product page.

Remove everything that could detract from getting a visitor to click on that “Buy Now” button.

For instance, do you really need 5 different social sharing links above the fold on your ecommerce website? Focus on the elements that will bring better conversion rate results, such as testimonials, product reviews, trust seals, and great images.

#47. Tiffany daSilva – Flowjo.co

Services like UserTesting.com,

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