shopping-cart-abandonment

How to Reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment with a Seamless Checkout

by Website Development

It has happened to all of us. We pick products on a website, add them to the shopping cart, and for one reason or another, finally, we do not buy and the order remains in the limbo of unpaid orders.

Facing the abandonment of a shopping cart by customers is something that creates a lot of insecurity in online stores. It is also a problem for many online business owners.

Fortunately, more and more studies reveal the different reasons why abandoned carts appear, which allows companies to improve the sales process and adapt it to improve the conversion rates in their stores.

Reasons for having abandoned carts

There are many reasons why consumers abandon full shopping carts in an online store. Although, difficult navigation or a complicated interface to use are some of the main reasons for the abandonment of the shopping cart.

The following are also some of the major reasons shopping carts are abandoned:

1. The inability to save in order to validate later
2. The number of shipping costs is not visible
3. The impossibility of contacting customer support
4. The impossibility of using a third payer
5. The volume of information requested is too high
6. The complexity of the payment process

Seamless checkout tips that can solve the problem of abandoned carts

We will discuss the issue of how to reduce shopping cart abandonment in your online store. Fortunately, more and more studies reveal different reasons why this happens, which allows companies to improve the sales process and adapt to improve the conversion rates in their stores. We have tried to collect the potential solutions that can be helpful in creating a better experience for your shoppers.

1. Quality customer service

We must pay special attention to communication with the client. E-commerce creates a new way of relating to the consumer, a relationship that is essential for the purchase process to be formalized successfully. Customer service is key. It has to be accessible and impeccable, we must realize that it is the only “contact” the client has with the company, so, even if it is virtual, it must provide adequate trust and demand from the client.

It is proven that when customer support is available at a single click, the abandonment of the shopping cart is reduced by 30%.

In the United States, 21% of online shoppers prefer a chat conversation with the company’s own support.

The ability to respond and the need for more information from the users have made companies rethink their sales process and bring a change in their strategy. The importance of knowing each client individually and building a lasting relationship will ensure better sales numbers.

2. Free shipping or discounts

Many online buyers abandon their shopping cart either due to a high shipping cost or the seller has not mentioned it during the entire purchase process, which may be an unpleasant surprise when they find it on the checkout page.

Also, keep in mind that customers are more likely to buy more products when you offer Free shipping.

3. Show the break-up of the cost

In the shopping cart, there must be a clear break-up of tax, shipping cost, and the final price, as it can mean a considerable difference that causes the customer to abandon their purchase.

Not indicating the final price on the products until the end of the transaction, can shoot the number of abandoned carts on your website

 

 

 

 

 

4.

The shopping cart must always be visible

Keeping it this way reminds customers to buy. Sometimes the product itself could distract the buying activity so a visible shopping cart will bring the customers to engage with the website.

5. Give them fewer steps

The customers are there to purchase, not just to fill out some irrelevant data. This may seem obvious, but there are still thousands of stores that put obstacles to their customers by adding an increasingly longer purchase process. You should minimize the number of clicks and make the customers buy the product at ease.

Analyze the heatmaps and study the behavior of your website visitors to know where you are failing.

6. Offer several payment options

You need to provide the clients with all possible payment options. The ideal thing would be to be able to pay by credit card, by conventional methods such as bank transfer or counter-reimbursement, by Paypal, or even other alternative methods.

There are many payment alternatives, the more the better. This will eliminate one of the most important barriers that a consumer would encounter.

google-rank

10 Reasons why your website is not ranked on the search results

by Website Development

If you have a website, your ultimate objective is to get it ranked on the leading search engines such as Google. Unfortunately, most of the website owners out there in the world struggle hard to get their websites ranked. If you don’t experience any positive results in getting the website ranked, you need to take a look at the reasons behind it.

Here is a list of 10 prominent reasons that indicate why your website is not getting ranked on the search results.

1. High Bounce Rate
2. Frequent Hosting downtime
3. Duplicate content
4. Links to suspicious websites
5. Poor website architecture
6. Not Mobile Friendly
7. Lacks Depth in content
8. Over optimization
9. Too many 403 and 404 errors
10. Poor grammar and spelling in content

High Bounce Rate

What is a Bounce Rate? It represents the percentage of visitors who enter the site and then leave (“bounce”) rather than continuing to view other pages within the same site.

If the visitors exit your page without browsing further then your bounce rate will increase. When you have a higher bounce rate, the search engines will assume that your website is irrelevant or it doesn’t provide adequate information to the visitors.

Therefore, you need to add more relevant content, make your website more user-friendly and engage your visitors, so that you will be able to minimize the bounce rate.

Frequent Hosting downtime

If your website cannot be accessed by the search engine crawlers, it will not be indexed. This usually happens when your web hosting keeps going down frequently.

Best Web Hosting Services in 2018: Reviews & Comparison

If you are having any such issues, you are strongly recommended to change your web hosting service provider. Then you will be able to make your website visible for the search engine crawlers.

Duplicate content

You should never copy content from other websites and paste them on to your website. It is true that you need to have quality content to assure higher rankings in the search engine results page. But this doesn’t mean that you can copy content. Instead, you need to put efforts and come up with unique content that adds value to your audience.

If you find it difficult to come up with content on your own, you can seek the assistance of a professional to get the job done.

Links to suspicious websites

If your website has outbound links to suspicious websites, the search engines will not rank you in higher positions on the search results. It is important that you keep an eye on whether your website has links pointing out to suspicious, unethical and adult websites. If you find any, quickly disavow them.- How to Use Google’s Disavow Tool Correctly 

You also need to be vigilant on inbound links as well. If you notice any suspicious links, which you have not added, you will need to take appropriate steps to get them removed. This will let you minimize the damage caused on the website.

Poor website architecture

There is a strong relationship between the architecture of your website and the search engine rankings. That’s because the search engine crawlers find it as a difficult task to go through your website and properly index content if the site architecture is bad.

Therefore, you will need to spend your time and effort to come up with a proper architecture of the website. If you can do it, you will be able to secure amazing results in the search engine results.

Not Mobile Friendly

Most of the users in today’s world prefer to browse the internet via their mobile devices. The leading search engines tend to present mobile responsive websites to those users. If your website is not mobile responsive, it will not be seen by most of your potential customers.

Google has announced mobile friendliness as an important ranking signal. The change has affected the websites all over the world and made a significant impact on the search results. Optimizing your website to be mobile friendly will result in reaching scores of mobile users.

Lacks Depth in content

Your content should offer value to the readers. That’s why it is important for you to be concerned about the depth of content available on your website. Even if you post 10 articles in your website each day, you will not be able to secure top placements in the search engine results.

That’s because the search engines will reject your content because they don’t have enough depth. Due to this reason, you must extremely be concerned about the quality and depth of the content available on your website.

Over optimization

Website optimization should be done moderately. If you over optimize your website for the search engines, you will not be able to get ranked.

For example, most of the people tend to increase the number of keywords that appear inside content. In other words, they believe that increasing the keyword density is in a position to provide a tremendous assistance to them with securing better results in the search engines.

This fact is not true at all. If you do this, you will become a victim of keyword stuffing and won’t be able to get the website ranked. Therefore, it is important to use the keywords in your website in moderate amounts.

Too many 403 and 404 errors

If you don’t link the pages of your website properly, you will end up with 403 and 404 errors. These errors are in a position to create a negative impact on the search engine results.

Therefore, you should continuously audit your website and locate the broken links. Once you notice such broken links, you will need to take immediate steps to get them fixed.

Poor grammar and spelling in content

Having poor grammar and spelling in web content can also make the leading search engines reject your website from indexing in the top of the search engine results. Most of the website owners who live out there use article spinners to come up with content.

The article spinners just duplicate content. They don’t care about the quality of the content. Hence, you need to make sure that you come up with high quality, unique and manually written content on the website.

Importance-of-User-Experience-in-your-Business

Importance of User Experience In Your Business.

by Website Development

User experience encompasses all efforts you put on the website in order to make it attractive, user-friendly and interesting to visitors. Visual appeal and usability have the largest influence on people’s first impression of a brand. And these initial impressions can last for years.

First impressions are 94% design-related. Don’t get me wrong, quality content matters. A lot. But even the best content is rendered powerless when it’s embedded in poor design.

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A good user experience should entail value, usability, ease of navigation and a functionality which provides the website visitors with a positive impression. Cheap is expensive, Do not compromise on average design and functionality to save cost.

Ask yourself and your staff the following question: Have we logged in and changed anything in the last month? Six months? Year or more?

The longer that period is, the more likely your site is outdated and that goes double if no one can remember the logins to get into the website.

Reasons why user experience matter to your company.

Mobile factors

In the current scenario, mobile phones account for 52.2 percent of everyday web traffic. This means you should design your website to accommodate mobile users or else you will be serving less than half of the web users. Most companies are quickly adopting mobile-friendly website and marketing strategies to boost their sales.

User Behavior

It takes about 50 milliseconds (that’s 0.05 seconds) for users to form an opinion about your website that determines whether they like your site or not, whether they’ll stay or leave.

User BehaviorHere’s a sad scenario.

A prospective client is referred to you by a friend, family member or client. Before they contact you, though, this person does what everyone else does — they visit your website to learn more about who you are and what you do.

But then, silence. They don’t call for an appointment. They don’t email you. Nothing.

Apparently, your warm lead just turned cold. What happened?

Easy. Your website scared them away.

Instead of giving them the confidence that you know what you’re doing and you can actually help them, your site did just the opposite. It created doubt, uncertainty and a general feeling of uneasiness about you and your company.

So they quietly click the back button on their browser and decided to look elsewhere. Probably to one of your competitors that offers inferior services to yours, but has a better website than you.

Bringing clients on board is already tough. Don’t make it even harder by having anything lesser than an exceptional website that drives them away.

Referral to other users

When your website leaves a lasting impression on the minds of the users there is a huge probability that they will pass on the good name to their friends hence increase traffic to your site.

People are 4 times more likely to buy when referred by a friend.- Nielsen

user experience referrals

With limited time and higher stakes than the general consumer, business leaders have to be sure that they’re making the right decision. And many of these top-level business people already know that referrals are worth their weight in company gold.

84% of B2B decision makers start the buying process with a referral.

With the right tools, your organization can implement a structured process for monitoring, tracking and rewarding your customers. And over time, campaign analytics can show you key areas of the referral funnel that need improvement.

Sites efficiency

If you can customize your site in such a way that it simplifies processes and saves the users time, you will definitely create a great user experience. If a task initially took five minutes but your system performs it in two minutes people will definitely opt to use your site. The ease of your site is also an important factor to consider.

The ability to increase sales

One of our clients runs an e-commerce business and they faced a situation where more than 60% of the users exit the page after adding the items to the cart.

After some research, it was discovered that there was a form that the customers were supposed to fill before checking out and it was putting most of them off.

In order to make sure that you don’t face such user experience nightmares, you should ensure that your site has a smooth workflow and the user should not be introduced to a new task after every click.

Elements of a successful User experience.

Most people always assume that user experience only entails design and colors of your site, well there is a little more than that. A positive user experience must incorporate the following elements.

Value

What are your customers getting from your website? What value are your services adding to their lives? Are you solving their business challenges? These are the basic questions which should be answered when developing a perfect User Experience strategy for your site.

Usability

Good usability is not attained overnight. Your website should consist of clear, credible and relevant information that provide answers to all the questions your visitors are yet to formulate.

Navigation

Customers definitely hate a lot of ‘next buttons’. You should, therefore, reduce the number of clicks to find out what they are looking for. The layout of your site also plays a key role in ensuring that your site offers a great user experience.

Functionality

A website without functionality is a one-way street. Since the Internet is designed to allow more than one channel of communication, it is pointless to have a website that does not provide some form of visitor interactivity.

Your site should be straightforward about the services you offer. Customers should not wonder what you are specialized at and be able to see it at the first click.

user experienceAdaptability and Design

Your website should be goal oriented without distraction to the buyers. It is always easy to deviate from your goal when on the internet; your website design should not be the reason the users will get distracted from what brought them there in the first place.

It should also adapt to all devices that use internet be it phones, tablet, iPad or even desktops

  • 57% of internet users say they won’t recommend a business with a poorly designed website on mobile
  • In 2017, mobile eCommerce revenue accounted for 50% of total U.S. eCommerce revenue
  • Nearly 8 in 10 customers would stop engaging with content that doesn’t display well on their device
  • Average smartphone conversion rates are up 64% compared to desktop conversion rates

 

Impact of User Experience in Return-on-investment (ROI)

Research shows that your ROI increases rapidly with an increase in your investment in better design. Every 1 dollar spent on UX has a $100 ROI.

A good example is the ESPN which saw its profits increase by 35% after taking into consideration its fan base suggestions on how they wanted the site’s homepage designed.

It is important to ensure that you offer the best experience for your clients. This can get you a better website traffic, generate sales and an increase in ROI.

user-engagement

How can a Mobile-Friendly Website Boost User Engagement

by Website Development

With the introduction of technology in the business world, complicated business endeavours that were once a pain have now been made simpler. We live in a generation where a simple device like a mobile phone is no longer just used for communication but to mainly seek information on the internet and even manage and run a business.

The big question is How much time do consumers spend on mobile devices?

mobile devices

With a massive growth of the mobile market in the recent years, having an archaic website that only runs on the desktop means that your website is losing a large volume of valuable traffic.

1. Mobile Marketing Strategy

Why do you need a mobile marketing strategy? Well, this is the age we live in! Just get to the city square and you’ll find thousands of folks glued to their smartphone screens.

Here’s a quick bite of some mobile marketing stats.

  • According to official Google statements, more than 50 percent of search queries globally now come from mobile devices. But we don’t know whether the number is 51 percent or 60 percent, or if it varies significantly by country.
  • The number of mobile phone users in the world is expected to pass the five billion mark by 2019. In 2016, an estimated 62.9 percent of the population worldwide already owned a mobile phone. The mobile phone penetration is forecasted to continue to grow, rounding up to 67 percent by 2019.
  • 66 percent of all email in the US is now opened/read on smartphones or tablets and 34 percent is viewed on a desktop. The mobile breakdown is as follows: 49.5 percent of email opens were on a smartphone, 16.8 on a tablet.
  • Google drives 96% of mobile search traffic, followed by Yahoo at 2% and Bing at 1%.

 

2. Mobile website optimization

With the help of a Smartphone, Buyers can now access your website within a short span of time and shop. Due to the increased use of mobile devices to access online content, you need to ensure that your website is fully functional and well optimized for mobile devices.

Enter your website’s URL into Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test and it will let you know if you’ve got a mobile-friendly page on your hands. If the website you entered passes Google’s test, you will see a green banner indicating the website is mobile-friendly

A slow website loading time is, and will always be your biggest threat. The webpages should operate well to allow it to smoothly function on multiple screen sizes. Most people will abandon the website if the loading time takes more than five seconds.

Human-vs-Goldfish-Attention-Span-researchGoogle has announced mobile friendliness as an important ranking signal. The change has affected the websites all over the world and made a significant impact on the search results. Optimizing your website to be mobile friendly will result in reaching scores of mobile users.

3. Mobile phone applications

Companies have started to embrace mobile apps as they understand the exceptional user engagement and the value-add it brings to their business. It can be easily downloaded from the App Store. The app economy is continuing to grow, with the worldwide revenue from app stores expected to top $110 billion this year.

mobile-app-usageMobile apps with numerous functions help customers to quickly access the company’s products/services with minimum steps.

It also provides an easy payment option with an ability to track sales which benefits both the customer and the seller. Similar to mobile-friendly websites, Mobile apps engage buyers to spend more time surfing the products and services, thus increasing sales remarkably.

4. Social Share

It is no longer a news that we’re in a social-driven world. Facebook has more than 1.6 billion monthly active users, while Twitter has 305 million–numbers that are rapidly increasing. More than 100 million people use Instagram every month.

You don’t have to limit social engagement on social media. Engage customers as soon as they arrive on your website by offering a Live Chat option. Linking your social media is just the first step but to truly boost engagement, you need to get serious about the content creation and distribution.

Social media for mobile-friendly-website

A mobile-friendly website with social media engagement would be a perfect mix to retain visitors and respond to your call-to-action.

5. Online surveys

Surveys are a way to know the market views concerning a certain product or service. The consumers give their opinions concerning the improvement of a product or service by completing online questionnaires made available.

A mobile-friendly website would allow the customers to take part in online surveys easily. This will enable the service providers or companies to evaluate themselves and make changes to the products/services leading to a better user experience and increased sales.

6. Better Conversion Rate

If your target market can access your website conveniently on their mobile devices, then they are more likely to complete contact forms, make purchases and become a loyal customer to your brand.

One of the main benefits of having a mobile-friendly website is that even for dynamic technology platforms- such as wearable devices and smartphones- your website will still run very well and be optimized. This means that a mobile-friendly website will serve your business for years to come.

The mobile market is rapidly expanding nowadays. It presents a great opportunity for your business to stand out from your competition. When done properly, your mobile website will help attract more customers and achieve a better bottom line.

Ecommerce-mistakes

10 common errors E-Commerce business owners make on their website

by Website Development

E-commerce business model has received an increased use from businesses. This is because of more penetration of technology making it more profitable and again it is also easier to start. For the brick and mortar businesses, they also want to tap an online business based on the opportunities that can be found online. However, they often make the following mistakes which should be avoided at all cost.

ecommerce mistakes
1. Non-Optimized Websites

Modern website design requires that you offer users a website that can be accessed from any device since people will use different devices to access your online store. Therefore, it is important that businesses consider improving their websites so as to be accessed easily from any device.

2. Poor Navigation

Website navigation should be easy so that shoppers can easily find the items they are looking for. Therefore, you should name links appropriately so that they can identify which one leads to the item they are searching.

3. Not Using Search Tool

Shoppers want to easily access the item and read about it then they can make a purchase. This should be done within the shortest time possible. Therefore, it is important for a business to consider the attributes that will help in searching items and develop a search tool to be used by the shoppers.

4. Broken Links

Some E-commerce websites have shown broken links. This is because the owners have not put in place a mechanism of quickly checking the functionality of the links. Remember that part of the website maintenance includes checking thoroughly to make sure the website links are working. Therefore, don’t just, check if the website is running remember to confirm the links are also working.

5. Forget to Renew Website Subscription

It’s the end of the year, and you should renew the website so that shoppers will buy from you again next year. Therefore, make sure you have set an auto reminder so that you don’t forget this important action.

The global e-commerce market has reached the 1.7 trillion USD and the industry is growing at an explosive pace. Hence, there’s a huge importance of SEO for E-commerce websites.

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6. Poor Choice of Website Hosting Services

Your website should be hosted by a reliable service provider. Therefore don’t just go for the cheap hosting, make sure that the company is reliable. The speed your website loads on the user’s device are dependent on the server speed.

7. Non-Secured Websites

Shoppers want to shop from trusted sites, therefore, it’s important to make sure the security certificate HTTPS is on your website. Otherwise, people will avoid shopping on your website.

8. Not Having Customer Feedback Section

Customers want to be able to send feedback, and therefore it is important for the website to have customer reviews section. This will also help in selling if you have positive feedback.

9. Forgetting to Add Call to Action

A good E-commerce website should have a call to action button so that customers can be influenced to buy the product. Something like “Buy Now!” This will influence the customer to buy.

10. Hidden Contact Information

Customers should be able to contact you anytime they want. Therefore you need to have your contact information on the website pages.

A successful E-commerce website depends on a well-developed website. Therefore you should contact the best website designer to help in designing one.