Traffic But No Sales? Here’s How to Fix It

8 – 10 minute read:

Congratulations, you’re generating traffic to your e-commerce store and are getting hundreds or even thousands of visitors per day. However, are they converting to sales? 

Many new stores struggle to keep conversion rates up and turn traffic into sales. We put together a few simple solutions that you can implement to turn visitors into customers and keep them on your website.

Match Expectations On the Landing Page

When customers see your marketing campaign, they click on it if they expect to receive some value from it. The page on which they land must deliver the value which was promised to them, or they are likely to leave. 

If the advertisement features camera lenses but the landing page contains other camera equipment products, your visitors can feel lost and misled causing them to leave the site. In order to reduce confusion, you must match the customer’s expectations of what they will see once they click on your ad or social media post. 

The landing page must also provide enough information to retain visitors’ attention and answer any questions or concerns they may have. Consider this first visit experience as your company’s elevator pitch. Make it a valuable one and your visitors are more likely to become customers.

Design a Professional Website

For e-commerce stores, the way your website looks represents your brand’s identity since there is no brick-and-mortar store to do so. For this reason, it’s crucial to create an easy to understand and clear website design that matches your brand’s voice and looks professional.

Make sure that there is no clutter such as blocks of text or too many popups and overlays. The more clear and engaging the design, the more likely visitors are to trust it. Would you trust a store that feels unorganized and poorly designed? 

Triple check for typos, then check again

Ultimately, this builds trust in the customer’s eyes. Trust and identifying with a brand is what drives people to make a purchase, so your store must develop these two beliefs in its visitors or risk losing them. 

For example, steps you can take to improve your website’s design are:

• Use high-quality images
• Avoid text clutter
• Create an effective colour scheme and stick to it
• Lower page loading time

Provide a Clear Navigation

Another way to lower visitors’ confusion is to help them navigate your website intuitively. Products should be split into categories and must be easily found in your navigation header bar. If someone is searching for slip-on shoes on your store but doesn’t know how to find them, they will most likely give up and try somewhere else. 

Easy to find products also increase average order value. Even though your customers already found what they were looking for, if the navigation has clear categories they might see something that catches their eye.

Spark your customer’s curiosity then provide the answer. 

Today, a large portion of your customers are using mobile devices to make their purchases. Ensure that their experience is just as clear and intuitive as on a desktop device. Most Shopify themes’ layout automatically adjusts for mobile, but make sure important information is still easy to find on these devices.

Fine Tune Your Product Pages

One common place to lose potential customers is on the product page. There should be enough information to convince the customer to add the item to their cart but not too much so that the page feels cluttered.

The key elements should be:

• Enticing and high-quality images
• Clear product titles 
• Accurate descriptions 
• Variations information (sizing, colour)
• Customer reviews 

Make sure that the product page also matches your brand’s voice. The customer should feel a personal connection to the item and envision themself using it. Place a strong and clear click-through action (CTA) to encourage them to turn that vision into a purchase.

Create a Quick and Easy Checkout

Another place where many e-commerce businesses fail to turn traffic into sales is at the checkout stage. This process is the final barrier to completing a purchase and requires the most commitment from the customer since they are now paying for the product. 

Their experience should be seamless and feel trustworthy. Don’t ask for unnecessary information or create lengthy input forms. Also think about if requiring the customer to make an account before checking out is really necessary. 

Another way to build trust at this stage is to match the checkout pages’ design to the rest of the website. If these pages look different, the customer will feel that they are now paying someone else rather than your company. They will lose trust and turn away from the purchase.

The Importance of the Conversion Funnel

Potential customers often drop out of the conversion funnel when the purchasing process is lengthy and requires too many steps. Try to make it intuitive for your visitors to what the next stage is and how to get there. Make sure that there is a clear path to completing the purchase and that the sale is not clouded by unnecessary pages.

Lead customers along the conversion funnel

Having clear CTAs along this process helps lead visitors through the purchasing process and encourages them to continue to the next stage.

Track Important Data and Implement Results

Once you have implemented all of these practices into your website, the next step is to take a close look at your data and analytics. Doing so can be of great help and show you where customers might be facing issues. 

You can do so with the UI Ave Analytics app which turns important data into easy to understand graphs and reports. The app will automatically point out any weak spots and province suggestions on how to fix them.

The app helps you split the purchasing process into its individual stages and view data from each one. Gone are the days of guessing where your users are struggling. By pinpointing these areas, you can focus on where it matters most.

Conclusion

The best way to turn traffic into sales is by first identifying leaks where potential sales are escaping from. Use a data analysis tool to do so quickly and effectively. Implement the methods above to make sure that potential customers are not lost and that your store builds trust with them. 

And remember, your e-commerce site can always be further improved and optimized to make the users experience better.

Summary

• Match Expectations On the Landing Page
• Design a Professional Website 
• Provide a Clear Navigation
• Fine Tune Your Product Pages 
• Create a Quick and Easy Checkout
• The Importance of the Conversion Funnel
• Track Important Data and Implement Results

External Resources

https://www.oberlo.ca/blog/getting-traffic-but-no-sales#:~:text=If%20you’re%20getting%20traffic,probably%20haven’t%20visited%20before.
https://www.shopify.ca/blog/traffic-no-sales
https://www.mavenecommerce.com/2019/04/23/tons-of-traffic-but-no-sales/
https://startbusinessjourney.com/getting-traffic-but-no-sales/