Magento is an open source ecommerce platform that enables highly feature-rich state of the art, scalable functionality, and flexible content management system for ecommerce websites and mobile apps. Magento provides you all the tools and features to get your business up and running online. Magento is a fully-integrated e-commerce platform featuring flexible product display options, multiple transaction options, multi-stores, marketplaces and multi-sites functionality, advanced user accounts and loyalty programs, product categorization and shopper filtering, configurable discount and promotion rules, mobile templates and more.
Magento has two important editions – Magento Community and Magento Enterprise. All these editions make Magento a fully-integrated ecommerce platform featuring flexible product display options, multiple transaction options, mobile templates, marketplaces, multi-stores and multi-sites functionality, product categorization and shopper filtering, advanced user accounts and loyalty programs, configurable discount and promotion rules and more. Running your ecommerce website on Magento is just the very first step towards a successful online store. You also need to do search engine optimization on your Magento website according to latest rules and regulations by Google. It will bring targeted visitors to your website which is always a key to conversions.
An understanding and analysis of the number of sales with respect to the number of visits can help understand the conversion rates.
Why to Choose Magento for Your Ecommerce Website – An Infographic
There are many ways to improve these conversion rates in any Magento ecommerce website:
1. Mobile-Friendly/Responsive Website:
Make sure your website is mobile-friendly, meaning that it resizes to display uniformly and appropriately on any size browser from any device. A large portion of online traffic comes from smartphones and tablets, so Google has made these criteria directly correlated to how high your site ranks in its search engine.
2. Use-Friendy Layout:
The layout of your website especially landing page and checkout page must be easy to navigate and the features must be easy to access. This includes an SEO friendly user interface (UI) and the user experience (UX). Create a well-labeled site map for navigation of your website. It is also important that the structure of your page should be user-friendly. When a user visits your website, the first page should be as inviting and engaging as possible.
3. Site Search:
Magento ecommerce site search technology has been utilized by the most successful global ecommerce companies like Amazon, eBay, Buy.com and, Staples for over a decade. They realize the importance of site search and its ability to engage tens of millions of users. Site search is the preferred tool used by visitors to find products & their information, subscriptions, FAQ, content, customer support and store locations, if any. Top rated ecommerce websites always try to improve search technology on their website user interface & user experience (UI/UX) and promote their products relevance at the same time. The rate of conversion is often directly proportional to how fast the customer finds what he or she is looking for.
4. Site Navigation:
Make sure your website has a user-friendly navigation. The Main menu should be bold and must be properly connected to each and every section of the site and product offerings. Drop down menus are the most widely used and serve the purpose efficiently and effectively. Some other navigating features to consider include user-friendly language, link logo back to homepage, responsive navigation, fat footers, sorting by price, size, category and more.
5. Product Page:
The product page is the one that requires special care. The product page should include detailed product descriptions and technical specifications or dimensions wherever required. It would be nice to have a brief version that could be expanded for further information. This would cater to both types of crowds- the ones that already know enough about the product and proceed to order or the ones that have very little or no idea about the product. The crisp yet convincing layout of the information provided on the product page plays a crucial role in the conversion rate.
It is also important to show product options on the basis of color, size, style, gender etc. for a better user-friendly experience. The best example for this is True Honor – a lifestyle fashion website for men, women, and youth. Take an example of Shirts available on sale at Truehonor.com. You will see Men’s shirts, Women’s shirts, shirts for youth and you can sort them on the basis of name, price, and position.
6. Product Images:
On the product page, the inclusion of high-quality product images is a very important factor. In the case of online shopping, the customer doesn’t get to see the physical product before placing an order. So good images can help customers visualize the product before placing an order.
7. Product Videos:
When it comes to the product page, in addition to great quality product images, including a product video is an extra advantage. A video would provide a better feel of the product and a lot of customers prefer product videos.
8. Site Speed:
Site speed is a ranking factor for Google. Also, several studies have shown that visitors generally switch to alternative sites if a site takes too long to load. Site speed can be increased by optimizing sizes of the images (using Kraken.io), storing static data on Amazon S3 and using hosted libraries (like Google Hosted Libraries) for serving JavaScript files.
9. Secure Your Website:
In any online purchase, the user would look for secure payment features to feel more confident in placing the order and proceeding to the payments. In addition to providing customer service number or an address to get in touch with, in all the pages, it would be a great option to acquire some form of encryption like SSL to keep the customer financial information safe. And this security feature when displayed helps the customer feel more secure about the payments done. Customers would be more confident in providing their financial details under such secured conditions.
10. Customer Service Numbers:
A responsive customer care section and display of the customer service numbers on all the pages is always an added advantage. Customers would want to get in touch in any stage of the order process. So keeping the number visible helps gain the trust of customers. The visibility of the Customer Service number is, of course, to be backed up by a responsive team that answers promptly and resolves all customer queries and grievances.
11. Avoid Errors:
Though it goes without saying, checking and rechecking all the information on your website as well as keeping the content grammatically sound is an important aspect. Your website would often be the face of your business in front of the customers. So it is essential to project yourself as a professionally efficient firm.
12. Localization & Personalization:
Each business has a specific target market. Based on the customer segment focused on, the website layout could be designed. Of course, the website layout should cater to all types of general audience. But the focus segment should be given a priority. For example, if the website is mostly accessed by the older crowd, then it would be a smart move to keep the text legible and simple.
13. Customer Reviews & Testimonials:
Most customers who buy online would rely on and trust other customer reviews to know about the product as well as the shopping experience. So keeping a visible segment of customer review can increase the conversion rate by making the customer more confident in placing the order. A product rating and customer feedback option would greatly improve the efficiency of your product page.
In addition to the above strategies, there are several little details one could focus on to improve the conversion rates. Another important way would be to analyze the cart abandonment patterns and reasons. This would help understand why the sales did not happen and help improve on that aspect. In most cases, shopping carts are left due to the pricing of the products, shipping and return prices and policies, calling for too much information from the customers etc. One main neglected fact about most Magento retailers’ websites is the ‘view shopping cart’ link which is most often not distinctly visible or the actual checkout page which lays out too many options in a layout, which some might feel, is cluttered. So remember to tweak your page such that the view bag option is distinct and keep the checkout page sleek and easy. This would avoid a major turn off for several customers.