Well firstly, to find the best ways to get more new customers to buy, you need to think about your best customer. What do they look like, the gender, the age and what sort of job do they do?
Once you have pictured this person now you need to think like this person.
So, if you were them and you arrived on the homepage of your website right now, you need to consider the following points. So grab a pen and paper, this exercise is fun and it could bring you more sales than you ever imagined.
How to boost Google rankings to increase your ecommerce sales
So, imagine you’re the customer.
1. Type into google the search term you would expect to find your product or service?
Can you find your website? For those who are pretty clued up here and can find yourself easily, you can skip to question 2.
For the rest of us, depending on how well your site is optimised and whether you spend money on the Google ads platform. You will either find yourself in the ads section which is usually the top 3 or 4 or the bottom 3 or 4 listings which are shown with an Ad symbol next to the text.
You might also find your ads in the product ads section, which are the images shown at the top or righthand side of the page. These adverts are part of the Google Shopping platform. They will normally show for the keywords you are searching for, as long as that keyword is included in the title or description of your product listing. This is powered by the feed via Google merchant store.
You may also find your website is shown in the organic listings section of Google, this is between the ads and is often referred to as the natural or organic search listings area.
To appear in this section, you need to make sure your SEO is absolutely top-notch. Generally, the position you are in on these organic listings reflects on how well you are doing as a business.
Top of page one – Then well, you have made it, you are in top position, and you will be getting the maximum organic traffic.
Page 1 - Top 3 then you are doing very well and almost there, you will be getting at least 50% of all the traffic searching for this keyword.
Page 1 any of the listings – Looking good, but more work is needed you will be getting some traffic and clicks, but it could be better.
Page 2 and beyond – Chances are you are not seen at all, so it’s time to get kickstarting your SEO campaigns.
Whatever your SEO position speak to Boost Ecommerce today for SEO advice and support, we would love to help you and your business.
Best landing page for new customer acquistion
2. Once you click on your Google listing you either land on one of these pages:
A. Homepage (main page on your website)
B. Category page (where products are listed)
C. Product Page (actual page of your products)
D. Info page (about us, contact us page)
The page you land on will determine the customer’s next move.
The worst page they can land on is an info page, why is this less than ideal?
Well, it’s normally about some specific information about your business. This may help the customers become more trustworthy of you. However, these pages are often text heavy, written in legal language often by lawyers and sometimes are a little negative in tone, especially if it’s terms and conditions or the privacy policy page. So, it certainly won’t be sales copy or even mention what you sell or what you do, so try to avoid customers landing on these pages if you can.
I have heard the homepage is the best landing page?
Landing on the homepage used to be the ideal landing page for optimum customer experience. While you can learn about the brand and navigate from there to the rest of the website. In practice, customers on an ecommerce site want to see what you have for sale right away and don’t want to have to scroll through pages and pages to find what they want.
It’s a bit like a retail shop, if you stand outside the shop you will learn and get an understanding of the building, the signage and maybe some offers. However, you won’t be able to see or touch the products and find out more about them. So, although a very powerful page the homepage is probably the 2nd worst page to land on.
So what is the best landing page for customers to land on an eCommerce site?
So, drum roll please!! Well, the very best page to land is actually the category page.
Why? The category page is usually built around the keyword. So for example, if you run an online clothing store and someone was looking for ‘mens jumpers’ on google. You would optimise a category page for ‘mens jumpers’, as you know there was a market for people looking for this style of product. Try to keep terms as generic as possible as this opens up the biggest source of customers, it’s also the most competitive, so it’s a balancing act to get it right.
So your category page title would be titled ‘mens jumpers’ and the description and products would all be your catalogue of mens jumper products only. You then have an exact match for the keyword, so it’s relevant and the page matches the customer intent, so you guessed it, they now have the exact products in front of them that they were searching for. All they need to do now is choose the one they want, add it to their basket, checkout and purchase.
So what about the product page is this a good converting landing page?
Well yes and no, on one hand, the product page is how customers find your products when using Google shopping ads. These ads can perform quite well if they fall in love with that one product after clicking the ad. Where it doesn’t work is the fact this is one product chances are it won’t be perfect first time, so the bounce rate on product pages could be quite high.
Now they may go on to find other products in your range either through a similar products carousel or through further investigation of the website. This is great if this happens, however, this takes time to understand the customer journey it won’t happen by magic without optimising this customer journey. However, once you turn this customer into a buyer this journey through the product page can become a very strong landing page on your website.
Unfortunately, if this page is not optimised and the customer bounces straight back to Google, they then could be shown a different product from a competitor’s website. Chances are they will then click their advert instead. Potentially going on to buy, as there is little customer loyalty at this stage unless your brand is very well known. So, this is a completely lost opportunity and lost sale for your business.
This customer journey and user experience is an area Boost Ecommerce specialise in, so speak to the team if you would like to boost and grow sales by improving your user experience with digital marketing solutions.
Convert more customers on your website
So now you have a clear guide to the best pages for your new customers to visit. They can easily find what they are looking for and with barriers reduced and the journey optimised, as long as you have the products they are after and at the right price, your conversion levels and ultimately sales will grow sharply.
Now you have the groundwork and base established, you can start to increase your traffic to your website - learn how to do that in our next blog. For now, start optimising the customer journey and send your new customers to your category pages. Just make sure these are optimised to the keywords that match the products or services you sell, again Webjack can help with this.
Please also ensure your adverts on Google or Microsoft are targeted to the right category pages for your products. Doing this will allow you to optimise the ad text, match the keywords that are relevant, and then start to build a high-quality score that helps bring down the costs of your ads.
For help in any area of finding the best ways to bring customers to your website speak to Boost Ecommerce, with over 20 years of experience, we know exactly what your business needs to succeed. Complete the query form here and get a free website review today.
