Why People Don't Buy from your Website

Some of my new online store website clients ask me: "Why aren't people buying on my website?"

As a long-time website designer, this isn't an uncommon question. First thing to think about: people online are quite fickle, studies find 92-98% of consumers don’t make a purchase during their initial visit to an ecommerce website.

Since this is the case, it's good to give them an option to reach out to you so you can followup with potential customers. For example, having a prominent Coupon Signup form so first time users can get a coupon for Free shipping or a 20%-50% off coupon by email could be very helpful – this way, you have their information to followup with them on a regular basis with an email newsletter which can help, since they may just be looking on their first visit and may forget about your site as they bumble along on the internet. I know that happens to me all the time when I’m looking for stuff. Having a coupon offer to signup for is a great motivator for them to provide info if they’re on the fence about buying. :) One warning, however, DON'T use popups that block the entire screen, this annoys potential customers, and also Google has warned that it will penalize websites in the rankings if intrusive popups are used. So instead, make it a clean but non-obtrusive signup for coupons box.

Also, think about price, maybe at the top put one or two of your most popular items on sale (50% off) to help motivate people to buy them… something under $10-$15 and/or items with FREE shipping… just to get them to start adding things to their cart or to keep shopping.

Also, only feature your known most popular items on the homepage, you can also add more, think about what is your top selling products in general, or what is the top selling product of all? These are the items to put on your homepage. Also, add reviews from your customers to the homepage, maybe one between the top selling items and the collections. And then more at the bottom of the homepage. For example:

"These are just the best wallets, I LOVE that have pockets for cards inside!” - Rebecca Then add a button to link to more reviews on your Reviews page where you add reviews regularly.

First time visitors are especially looking at reviews, so making them prominent is a good way to get their attention. Just one review that says exactly what the customer is looking for can seal the deal! Something like "These are the best ____ on the market, the quality is so much better than previous ones I've purchased, and I love that they have extra ____ and ____." can really help sell the customer on buying your product over the 1000s of other options on the internet.

To help get MORE visitors to the site, Keep posting in your blog and adding new content and/or pages to your website regularly. The more blog posts you have, the more doorways/landing pages there are in Google for people to click and get to your site. Find out what people are searching for, and write up a page or blog post about every search phrase. To find good keyword phrases that people are typing into google, use Google Adwords' Keyword Tool or the Keywords Everywhere Chrome Browser Add On tool that displays the keywords on the side of your Google searches, I love using it for ideas on what to write about next in my blogs for SEO. Find these tools and more keyword research tools on my sister website here: SEO Hero Resources.

Any keyword phrase terms that people are searching are great page or blog post titles as well as Alt Text titles for the images in the posts. For example, a good blog post would be “Best Purse” (which has 650 searches a month), and put in all your favorite purses you’ve sold (and still have) over the years. Add alt text to each one that is unique, like “Best Purse - Black and White” or “Best Purse - for work” “Best Purse - fashion blue” etc, etc. The more photos you have in the post the better. Also, it’s GREAT for SEO to keep adding more photos to older posts, to keep them fresh. So you can add a whole bunch of pictures to start, publish the post, then revisit every 30-60+ days and add more images to the post. This will keep the post fresh in Google’s eyes.

Google +

Also, making sure you have a Google+ business page, and posting on Google+ often (and link to your new blog posts) helps along with Facebook and Pinterest and any other social media you are on. It’s also good to post on Google+ regularly as your business, with links and/or images for new items you put up, or other blog posts or news/press/testimonials. The more you post on Google, the more they will notice you!

Get New Reviews Page on your Website: You can also send people to a Reviews page on your website to ask that they review you with easy links to your Google listing and other review websites.

Getting reviews is the best thing you can do for SEO and getting people to buy on your website!

You can also email happy and repeat customers directly to ask that they review you on Google (send them a link to your Google reviews listing on Google Maps).

Maybe even offer some of your good customers with something like a $20 gift card to your shop if they post a Google review – each good review is priceless in my opinion for SEO! It is really, really good for SEO to have a a lot of reviews being posted over time, so if you can get a few new ones each month, that would really help your site start getting found in searches. Ask friends and family to post reviews, too. The more reviews the better, and the more often you get reviews over time, the better.

Pinterest is one of the BEST places to use to promote your products, since you can link the image Pins right to their product page, a blog post or your homepage!

So my overall advice is to just keep at it, websites take a long time to gain momentum, but posting on a huge variety of keyword phrase topics, and adding lots of products to your site regularly (titling them with searched keywords such as "Blue Purse: Handmade Floral Coin Purse". you’re casting a much wider net to get people landing on the page.

Offering a coupon upon signup is also helpful to get customer info for following up!

Let us know if you want help with a Website Redesign, Logo Design, SEO, or setting up an email signup and automated coupon thank you emails, We can help with all of the above, contact us.