Low conversions...What am I doing wrong?

[aidan6969]

Hi,

I submitted my site and got some really great feedback - which I'm currently implementing.

But now I have another issue that's driving me mad. Over the last 2 years I've upgraded my product offerings with e-books, audio downloads and even an iPhone app, but I don't seem to be making the sales.

My site is Home - Practical leadership articles, books, consulting, training - Clemmer and my main product page is found here:
Online Book Store - Practical leadership articles, books, consulting, training - Clemmer

From the drop down users can even go directly to specific products they may be looking for.

Obviously, this is a niche market, but I figured with the addition of all these new options, I'd have seen the sales go up a bit.

Thanks,
Aidan

[Dubbya]

Hi Aidan,

Check your Google Analytics stats for clues in where your problem areas are.

• Are your sales expectations realistic? What's your conversion rate?
• Where are customers abandoning your site?
• Where are customers dropping their carts?
• How much traffic are you getting each day?
• Which pages get the most traffic?
• How effective are your keywords/keyphrases?
• Are you reaching your target demographic?

Following are a few areas that I see as contributing factors to lowered conversion rates and site abandonment.


The single biggest problem I've found is that users don't see a "View Cart" or "Checkout" link unless they're on the cart page. That's pretty much suicidal!

Unless they add an item to the cart, they'll never see it and when they "Continue Shopping", they can't get back to it. I shop, add a product or two, "Continue Shopping", read an article, watch a movie then want to check out. Now I've got to add another item to the cart just so I can get back to it, then delete the item I just added because I didn't really want it.

Once you get there, I find the cart is great up to the checkout page. Listing all the products the cart contains seems like a great idea but it's distracting and more importantly, requires that the user scroll down to fill out the billing/shipping information. I'm using FireFox at a resolution of 1280x1024 and I can't even see the form, so I'd consider that apretty significant issue.

Why can't I find a "payment methods" information page? I want to order over the phone or send an order in by fax. How would I do that?

Let's say I'm not happy with my purchase. Do you provide any satisfaction guarantees? Where would I find that information?

There's a lack of conformity in terms of your "Add to Cart" buttons and links. Some use text, some are pill shaped, others are larger and rectangular. Additionally, the product layouts seem cluttered without space between images and text.

Be sure that your font faces match. I found this and couldn't understand why it wasn't using the same font as the rest of the site. It just looks odd.

Thank you for ordering from The CLEMMER Group! Please ensure every field with an asterisk * is filled out completely to avoid any ordering problems, and double check your credit card number and expiration date as you enter it.

If you have any problems, please call us and we'll be happy to help you with your order. Call (519) 748-1044 or send us an e-mail to service@clemmer.net.

We offer substantial discounts from just 10 copies - click here for discount details - Books, Tapes & CDs

Enjoy your materials!

Jim Clemmer

The scrolling client list is extremely annoying. It's much to fast to be read, so what purpose does it serve? It'd be better to slow it down and display it one line at a time so people can read it or simply do away with it entirely.

Take a look at a "Learn More" product information pages. The movie window jiggles around if you resize the page and the columns containing text don't expand or contract horizontally to take advantage of all the white space on the left.

Your paragraph text would benefit from more space between shorter, easier to read sentences. They're practically screaming for line breaks. When it comes to writing for the web, remember that less is more. You can always use a "Read more..." or "Continue..." text link to another page focused on the topic at hand.

Your paragraph text links are much too long. They look spammy, clutter up the page and contain words that are of no benefit anyway.

Practical resources, filled with advice anyone can use to improve their team and organization almost immediately!

Take a look at the "Leadership Quiz" on the home page. The line spacing is so tight that it looks like one giant spammy link.

Clean up the clutter in the page footer which contains links already listed in the sitemap and top navigation menu.

Take a look at your meta descriptions and keywords. Several pages use duplicate Meta descriptions when they should be specific to each page. The same could be said about keywords. Restrict the meta description to a maximum 160 characters and use no more than eight keywords per page. This is where you can really make some progress in organic rankings.

Want to evaluate your results in the SERPs? Take at look at what your prospective clients see before they even get to your site. Based on your search query, take a look at the wording and ask yourself if you'd click the link.

Overall, I think you're pretty close to having a knockout site. Do what you can to improve the overall focus to a point where it's quite self evident and simple to use. Tackle some CSS layout, formatting, navigation issues and reduce page clutter and you'll be on your way to living the dream.

.02

[aidan6969]

Wow!

Thanks a million. I'm going to implement everything you just said by the end of the month.

It's a big project, but one that needs to be tackled.

We're getting about 400 unique visits a day (40% from Google), so I expect to sell at least one item per day. Hopefully after I implement all the finding I have, this will be the minimum.

What's troubling me right now is the overall bounce rate that's creeping up to 70%

I think the scrolling client list may have a lot to do with it. God know it's hard to search while you're having a seizure.


Thanks again.
Aidan

[Dubbya]

Actually, I'd suspect that a 70% bounce rate is about average for your niche but implementing the changes I've recommended should help, at least to some degree.

With 400 unique visits a day, if they're spending an average of 1-2 minutes browsing your site, you've got ample opportunity to set a hook. Fix the cart issues and you'll see some improvement. Improve the overall shopping experience and you'll see some improvement.

Check out some competing sites to see how they're tackling the same issues. You'll be miles ahead if you do.

BTW, you'd do well to pick up a copy of Steve Krug's "Don't Make Me Think" volume 2.
Advanced Common Sense Home

He does a great job of showing folks how to dissect a website to diagnose and prevent problems like these. It'll help you see things like a user would, particularly where Navigation, checkout pages, page layout and copy writing are concerned.

It's an easy read, an invaluable resource and money well spent.

Don't forget to update the thread when you've made some changes.

Good Luck!

[aidan6969]

Following are a few areas that I see as contributing factors to lowered conversion rates and site abandonment.


The single biggest problem I've found is that users don't see a "View Cart" or "Checkout" link unless they're on the cart page. That's pretty much suicidal!

Done

Once you get there, I find the cart is great up to the checkout page. Listing all the products the cart contains seems like a great idea but it's distracting and more importantly, requires that the user scroll down to fill out the billing/shipping information. I'm using FireFox at a resolution of 1280x1024 and I can't even see the form, so I'd consider that apretty significant issue.

Why can't I find a "payment methods" information page? I want to order over the phone or send an order in by fax. How would I do that?

Let's say I'm not happy with my purchase. Do you provide any satisfaction guarantees? Where would I find that information?

So I've brought the check-out pages into my site using a wrapper on my CMS. I'm still listing all the products - but only because it's a preference. It's something I can turn off and on in the admin of the shopping cart and I'll be doing some testing in the new year to see if it makes a difference. Obviously, my preference counts for crap if the other option manages to move more product

I have all the payment information at the top of the order form (phone, downloadable PDF for mail or fax, and an email address in case there are any other problems.) I've also added a 30 day money-back guarantee (not including shipping.)[/QUOTE]

There's a lack of conformity in terms of your "Add to Cart" buttons and links. Some use text, some are pill shaped, others are larger and rectangular. Additionally, the product layouts seem cluttered without space between images and text.

Be sure that your font faces match. I found this and couldn't understand why it wasn't using the same font as the rest of the site. It just looks odd.

I'm removing all the buttons and using "Order now for only $13.95" as my call-to-click. Is there a better term to use?

The scrolling client list is extremely annoying. It's much to fast to be read, so what purpose does it serve? It'd be better to slow it down and display it one line at a time so people can read it or simply do away with it entirely.

I've removed it.

Take a look at a "Learn More" product information pages. The movie window jiggles around if you resize the page and the columns containing text don't expand or contract horizontally to take advantage of all the white space on the left.

That's a issue with the template we're going to look at in the new year. Is it worth a lot of money to have this issue solved? It seems fairly minor on the list of "to-dos."

Your paragraph text would benefit from more space between shorter, easier to read sentences. They're practically screaming for line breaks. When it comes to writing for the web, remember that less is more. You can always use a "Read more..." or "Continue..." text link to another page focused on the topic at hand.

I totally agree. I'm cutting 25% off the top of each product page. As a writer, I understand the power of brevity.

Your paragraph text links are much too long. They look spammy, clutter up the page and contain words that are of no benefit anyway.

I've eliminated most of the spammy looking links on the shopping cart pages.

Other changes include:
More spacing between table cells
Uniform image sizes for products
Grouping related products horizontally in rows of three
Multi-level drop down menu to get to products (and reviews) more easily.

Any more advice would be greatly appreciated as I'd like to take advantage of this slow period for us.

Thanks,
Aidan

[Dubbya]

Much, much better! Glad to see you've been hard at work.

I'm sure you'll see a marked improvement in conversion. Now it comes down to marketing, acquiring inbound links and building sustainable traffic.

You've already got all the tools in place. Just keep on keepin' on.

Hope to see you on Canada AM some time!

Good Luck.

[davebarnes]

The pale-blue background is just awful. Awful bad.

[aidan6969]

Canada AM was a great win for positioning on a very hot topic. But they wouldn't allow any mention of books or even run the website.

Thankfully when you put "Jim Clemmer" into a search engine we come up on top.

Still. I didn't see a huge bump in traffic.

As for the blue background, that's corporate colours. I could go darker?

[holyinsomniac]

In addition to what others said, I also think that you should use CSS for your links. The blue underlined links are overwhelming on your site and I think there is a little room for improvement.