Web Conversions: Boosting Online Sales with Proven Strategies

In the dynamic landscape of XXI-century business, having a website isn’t just a choice but rather a strategic imperative. Picture it as the digital version of your brick-and-mortar shop, store, or office (if you have one); the digital storefront, business card, product catalogue, and customer service hub rolled into one. In an era where online presence is crucial for businesses, asserting that a business can thrive without a website is akin to navigating uncharted waters without a compass. 

Customers rely increasingly on the Internet for browsing, researching, purchasing, and reviewing products and services. The emergence of e-commerce has elevated the significance of a well-designed and responsive website to unprecedented heights. However, merely having a digital presence isn’t a guarantee of success. The real key to success online is understanding your customers, how they navigate through your website and optimising web conversion rates. That is why, in this article, we take a look at the details of website conversion and discuss practical strategies to optimise it. Let’s dive in!

Understanding web conversion rates

What is a conversion? 

Conversion happens whenever your website visitors do something you want them to do. This can be filling out a form, downloading a PDF, or completing a purchase. Today, we’ll focus on the last one, sales. 

How is the conversion rate calculated?

The formula for calculating the conversion rate is as follows:

Total number of conversions

________________________________________ x100

Total number of unique visitors

Understanding web conversion rates

At Waytobill, our experience spans various industries, allowing us to witness a diverse range of strategies and results influenced by numerous factors. Let’s explore the forces that influence the average web conversion rate: 

• Diverse intent: visitors often arrive on a website with intentions beyond an immediate purchase, engaging in activities like comparison shopping or information gathering. Different reasons for website visits naturally contribute to a lower overall conversion rate. 
• High competition: the online marketplace is highly competitive. With numerous options available, users often explore multiple websites before making a decision. 
• User trust and confidence: building trust in the online environment is pivotal for conversions. Users may hesitate to provide sensitive information or make a purchase if they’re unsure about the credibility of your website. 
• Cart abandonment: users may add items to their cart but abandon the process before completing the purchase. 
• Content quality: outdated content or a design that lacks responsiveness may prompt potential clients to seek alternatives. 
• Traffic quality: the source and quality of website traffic significantly impact conversion rates. High-quality traffic from targeted audiences is more likely to convert than generic or unqualified traffic. 

Waytobill and average web conversion rates

According to Shopify, the average web conversion rate typically falls between 2.5% and 3%. While these figures may seem modest, they provide an excellent starting point for optimising online conversion rates. At Waytobill, we work with merchants from a variety of different industries, with non-profit, insurance, and membership organisations forming the majority of our client base. Presently, the average monthly online conversion rate for all Waytobill merchants ranges between 5.3% and 20.7%. Notably, some merchants achieve an impressive 26.6% conversion on their websites. It’s essential to understand that our merchants’ conversion rate is calculated by comparing the number of all open checkouts to those that were successfully completed. We also see a difference in conversion results depending on the merchant’s web design. Let us take you through strategies that we learned have a positive impact on web conversion.

Strategies to increase web conversion rates

1. Optimise online forms and user experience

One of the crucial aspects of online web conversion is the user experience and how easy it is to complete the checkout process. Apart from offering a simple process, it is also pivotal to minimise the steps involved in the checkout process. But what does it mean? 

Consider this: Every additional field in a form acts as an additional barrier to conversion. Hence, it’s crucial to request only essential information required for your CRM or sales system. 

➡️ Keen to find out more about the system we're integrated with? See our CRM and sales system integrations.

The reluctance to alter established processes has a direct impact on conversion rates. Take, for instance, the necessity for Waytobill to gather client details such as names and email addresses to create mandates and send order confirmations. However, the key lies in avoiding redundancy by not requiring users to re-enter information already provided. This practice creates negative user experiences, ultimately generating abandoned checkouts and worsening overall conversion rates. If specific client details are imperative for your CRM, trust Waytobill to seamlessly collect this information during the checkout process, ensuring a streamlined experience for your users. To do so, we have additional features that make filling out the forms even easier - account lookup, email validation and address lookup. All these features help avoid mistakes and fill out the form faster.

2. Enhance the clarity of your checkout process and optimise call-to-action buttons

If you're experiencing a high cart abandonment rate or witnessing suboptimal conversion figures, it's crucial to examine the clarity of your call-to-action buttons. A key insight we've garnered is that the best results are achieved when the call to action explicitly indicates that the next step leads to the checkout. For instance, users typically expect to view product information or details when clicking on a product name or banner. However, we've observed examples where users are unexpectedly redirected to the checkout page, leading to immediate abandonment as customers weren't prepared for this unexpected transition.

To address this, immerse yourself in your users' experiences and conduct precise user experience testing. By repeatedly analyzing how users navigate through your website, and understanding their motivations, pain points, and context, you gain valuable insights. It's worth noting that our research indicates that customers are more likely to proceed with payment if they have all the necessary information before reaching the checkout. Therefore, your user research should focus on understanding the factors influencing users' decisions, ensuring that all pertinent information is provided before reaching the checkout step. Aligning customers' expectations with your website's functionality is pivotal for improving user satisfaction, reducing checkout abandonment, and ultimately enhancing conversion rates.

3. Optimise landing pages and run A/B tests

Tailoring your landing pages to specific audience segments is a pivotal step in enhancing user engagement. By understanding your audience and crafting personalised messaging, you can create a more tailored and compelling experience. Identify distinct demographics or behaviours, and adjust your landing pages to match their preferences and needs. Define clear objectives and use A/B testing to test various elements, and see what works best for converting users into paying customers. 

4. Improve website content

Improving website content may be one of the easiest and most effective ways of boosting your conversion rates. Dedicate time to creating compelling product descriptions that provide all the information that potential clients may need. It’s also important to utilise only high-quality images and multimedia to engage and captivate your audience. 

5. Build customer trust and loyalty

Website security is particularly important in cultivating customer trust and, subsequently, boosting conversion rates. Transparent and easily accessible policies, including refund information policies, show that customers can trust your company. Besides, authentic customer testimonials showcase a variety of experiences and add a powerful infusion of credibility, which has a direct impact on conversion rates. 

Another powerful way of building credibility and trust is to generate educational content that empowers users with knowledge, fostering a sense of confidence and trust, contributing to customers feeling secure, informed and more inclined to convert. Bear in mind that website security, transparency, and customer testimonials take time but are essential for increasing customer trust and driving more sales online. 

6. Take advantage of analytics and improve web conversion

If your conversion rate isn’t satisfactory, diving into the world of data-driven insights may be the answer you’re looking for. Online analytic tools like Google Analytics and screen-recording software like Hotjar, can be great allies in guiding your business on the path to understanding user behaviour and, in turn, optimising conversion rates. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) become navigational markers, offering insights into crucial metrics like bounce rates, click-through rates, and conversion.

By systematically analysing user behaviour you will gather data that will influence your decision for further experimenting with variations in design, content, or functionality. With time, you will discover what resonates most effectively with your audience.

Smooth checkout experience with Waytobill

At Waytobill, our commitment to optimising web conversion extends to providing a seamless checkout experience. Our intuitive design and straightforward checkout process significantly contribute to the high conversion rates witnessed by our merchants. We prioritise user convenience, minimising the steps involved and ensuring an efficient journey to order completion.

Did you know that Waytobill is integrated with the top sales and CRM tools? Connect Waytobill with your sales system and reap the benefits of having real-time payment information available in your preferred sales tool.

Are you looking for a tested fundraising platform for your non-profit organisation? At Waytobill, we’ve developed a fundraising platform that can be inserted on your website as an iframe, making it an integral part of your design. 

The above example shows exactly how users view the different donation options available before proceeding to the checkout. This step ensures that donors heading to your checkout are qualified prospects looking to financially support your organisation. 

We hope that you now have a better understanding of web conversion rates and strategies to improve them. Here at Waytobill, we’re happy to answer any of your questions and provide advice regarding recurring payments and online checkouts for merchants. Contact us today!