Web design tips to keep customers coming back…

Your website is fundamental for your online business.  Our Business of the Month for March Biscuiteers was a great example of how an effective website should look and operate.  But poorly laid out products and a difficult to use navigation system can spell disaster for your conversion rates.

Whether you are in the process of building your website or simply thinking about giving it a refresh, here are our top tips:

-Filter your products-Displaying products under age groups, best sellers, etc, will make finding suitable products much easier for your shopper

Retro sweetshop A Quarter of.co.uk

-Make sure your calls to action are clear-Also try to keep these above the fold.  How can your customers get in touch if they can’t find your contact details?

-Links are important -Link your company logo back to your homepage

-Never assume your shopper is done.  Once your customer has placed a product in their basket, redirect them back to the product pages

-Consistency is key. Keep font and text copy regular.

-Don’t make your pages too wide and keep content above the fold.  Your customer should be able to view everything without having to scroll around too much

-Have a maximum of four product pages per category.  Any more than this and your customer will quickly get bored of scrolling through pages

-Include lifestyle imagery.  Allowing your customer to imagine a product in their home is a great incentive

Not on the High Street

-Try to replicate the face to face purchase. Include rollover zoom to allow your customers to view products in more detail and provide colour swatching

-Test, test, test-Do some usability testing on your site or at the very least get some friends to have a play around on your site.

Tempt your customers with a breadcrumb trail…

In our most recent issue of Moving Money, we have included a round-up of the results of our 2011 e-business benchmark report as we prepare to survey e-businesses for the 2012 version.

As I was reading the article, I was thinking about how important the first page of your website is.  It really is fundamental in terms of encouraging potential customers to part with their hard-earned cash.  E-commerce is a competitive market with consumers increasingly likely to shop for comparisons before completing their purchase so when a shopper first hits your site, it needs to keep visitors interested, assured and enticed enough to get them to the checkout.

This month, I’ve picked out Sage Pay customer www.Biscuiteers.com as a great example of a website. Its welcoming, easy to use and exceptionally well thought out.  The business behind the site was set up by Harriet Hastings and her husband Stevie Congdon. They came up with the idea to set up a biscuit gift business online with a difference.  With the tag line “Why send flowers when you can send biscuits”, Biscuiteers craft beautiful hand iced biscuits delivered in gorgeous illustrated keepsake tins.

And as a solely online business, the Biscuiteers team know the importance of providing a rich, interactive shopping experience.  Along the top of the Biscuiteers site, there are clear links to the contact details, account log in and basket.  One of the things we found in our e-business benchmark report is that displaying a shopping basket on your home page and across your site is no longer a differentiator; it’s an absolute must.  Likewise, displaying your contact details clearly helps to reassure your customer that you are easily reachable should you not be happy with your purchase or if you have any queries regarding the service.

Always one for a bargain, I quickly spotted a special offer on the homepage of the Biscuiteers website.  We found in our e-business benchmark report that 76% of top performing businesses are using special offers to entice browsers to convert into browsers.

It’s good practice to display your security policy on your website to show customers that you take their personal data seriously and will use it responsibly.

We found that many top performing sites are differentiating themselves in their use of social media but there’s marginal difference between them and the lower performing sites we looked at.  This point is really important, as it’s not necessarily what you do, but how you do it that will make a difference.  It’s no surprise then to see over three quarters (76%) of our top e-tailers regularly luring visitors to their site through the use of social channels.  Biscuiteers are using Twitter and Facebook to engage in real dialogue with their customers, let them know about new products and when to expect a bargain.  They are also using YouTube to post lessons on baking and icing for anyone who wants to have a go at home!   Biscuiteers display these links as icons to aid navigation.

Top sites are recognising more than ever that customers not only want a good deal, they want it quickly.  Offering next day delivery was the most popular service offering.  If your business is able to offer this, don’t hide it away; it’s a great way to get ahead of the competition.

With a multitude of delicious products available, Biscuiteers have made navigation around the site as easy as possible for their customers by filtering all products, making finding suitable products easier for customers to find.

They keep this up to date with latest events so if you’re looking for some Olympic themed biscuits, then you know where to go – unfortunately they haven’t included the occasion ‘I just love biscuits and want to buy some for myself’ which is generally what I would be searching for!

Founder of Biscuiteers, Harriet Hastings told me ‘We’re really pleased to have won Sage Pay’s business of the month award.  It is a real tribute to the team at Tom&Co who have worked so hard on our website and the re-launch last September.  As an online retail shop, our website is our real and virtual shop and the heart of our business.  Customer experience  is critical in building sales and improving conversion rate.’

‘We didn’t use third party user testers but we did spend a lot of time testing the customer journey and functionality among ourselves before we launched the new website.  The biggest questions we had to answer were around navigation and visibility of our growing product range.  The most important decision we made was to make search by occasion the primary search tool.  We looked at best practice on other sites to make sure our social media strategy was up to date and appropriate to our business model.’

Well done Biscuiteers for being awarded as our Business of the Month.  As websites go, theirs really takes the biscuit and of course, the proof is in the pudding!

6 steps to improve your website’s performance through conversion rate optimisation (CRO).

This next guest blog has been sent in by Crafted Media’s search director, Ian Miller.  Crafted Media (a Sage Pay Partner)  is an independent creative and marketing agency offering e-commerce solutions tailored to client needs. Ian provides a run down of his top tips for maximising those all-important conversion rates…

Good news! Your website has 10,000 visitors per week and you are number 1 in Google for your key search phrase. Your marketing team has done a fantastic job increasing your digital footfall and the traffic graph is going up.

However, have you checked just how many of those visitors requested a quote / bought your product / booked an appointment? If you have Google Analytics installed on your website with goal conversion tracking setup, it is pretty easy to see how many visitors are actually turning into customers by engaging with your website.

If the conversion rate is looking a little on the lean side (a 2% conversion rate essentially means a huge 98% of people left without taking action), it is probably time to look at how well your website is working for you.

Google, as you might expect, has a product to enable website owners to test the effectiveness of forms and content with their “Website Optimizer”; a free and very powerful system capable of A/B and multivariate testing to gauge which version of your enquiry form / checkout / quote tool works best. But before you get started setting up experiments, check out our suggestions to drive up your conversion rates:

1)     De-clutter

As Steve Krug, author of the hugely popular web usability book says, “Don’t make me think!”. Look carefully at your page – does it need two paragraphs of introduction or would one get the point across? Do you need to ask the user for their date of birth or can you quote them without? Perhaps just “Contact number” would be best rather than ask them to fill out Phone, Mobile and Fax.

Once a user is on the page where you want them to engage, it is essential to remove as many potential stumbling blocks as possible. If you can process their enquiry or order without asking for this information, do so (you can always ask them for this information later, once they have submitted their core details).

Quick tip: Keep forms concise. If you need to ask 40 questions to complete a quote, split your form into two stages: the first to capture the all-important contact details, and the second to ask everything else you need. If the second form isn’t completed, you can still call the customer to get the missing information.

2)     You are making the smart choice, Mr Customer

Your website user is about to become your customer, they are already on your contact page after all, but sometimes they just need a little more encouragement to take the last step and press the button.

Providing your customer with reassurance that they are doing the right thing can be the difference between form abandonment and a new sale. This can be achieved with a message about what you will do with their email address (“We will never pass your details on to 3^rd parties. Ever. Promise.”), that your website is secure and is independently tested, that X thousand people complete this form every month, or that you have won the award for Best Customer Service 2011 from the local paper.

Remove doubt from their minds by trying to second guess their concerns and addressing them with carefully placed messages. Make the process seamless, and comfortable.

Quick Tip: Always inform customers what you will, and will not, do with their email address details. Even if you do not need them to opt-in to your newsletter, still make sure you explicitly state your intentions with their details. (could it do with rewording so its stronger / more explicit?)

3)     Form labelling: above, to the left or to the right?

What might seem a fairly inconsequential aspect of your form design can have quite a serious impact on completion rates and speed.  Luke Wroblewsk, author of “Web Form Design” suggests that each can be used in an appropriate scenario.

Left-aligned labels are perhaps easier to scan read, but the gap between field and label can increase completion time – these should be reserved for advanced or unfamiliar field entry. Top-aligned labels allow users to capture both field and label in one eye movement and therefore improve speed of completion. Right-aligned labels are most commonly used when vertical space is restricted.

Quick tip: Unless your form is reasonably complex, use either top-aligned or right-aligned labels for fastest completion time.

4)     Little messages of support

A well-designed form should be pretty self-explanatory to complete. Certainly, most savvy users will know what is expected of them – to fill out their name, phone number and email address – but are there any fields that could use a little explanation?

Firstly, review your form’s questions and ensure that they are all as intuitive as possible. Strive for clear labels and certainly don’t leave any ambiguity about what you require as a response.

Secondly, for any questions that could use some clarification, make sure you provide a note against the field to fully explain (concisely) what is needed.

Quick Tip: To keep a tidy form without lots of additional text, use code to automatically display the relevant message as a user clicks into each field.

5)     The big red button

The most important aspect of your form is arguably the action button and therefore needs to be considered very carefully. There are several factors to think about: message, colour, location, size. Simply changing the colour of your button and nothing else could have a positive effect on your overall conversion rate.  In terms of size and location, your button should be visible and follow the user’s path through the form – don’t overly separate the button from the final field.

The message on the button should be a positive action. “Submit details”, whilst factual, is very dry where as “Send my details” or “Checkout now” suggests a more active engagement.

Quick tip: Avoid a grey button with a dry message. Ensure your button is visible and engaging.

6)     Test & re-test, learn and refine

Whether your first test is a success or an abject failure, don’t stop testing. Conversion optimisation is an activity that ought to be on-going even if the later tests are focussing on subtleties such as the title of the page or the shade of your action button. Each and every element of your website can affect sales conversion.

Make sure your website is working hard to sell your products and services. By following these guidelines, you will convert more visitors to customers, more enquiries to clients.

Quick Tip: Change only one factor at a time to ensure a proper controlled test. There is no limit to the number of tests you can do – strive for the ultimate completion rate! Increase your ultimate conversion rate.

Amy adds: Great tips from Crafted Media!  Interestingly we found in our 2011 E-Business Benchmark report that although the majority of e-businesses conduct usability testing on their website, around 1/3 of them forget to test their payment pages!  It’s good practice to check every page of the customer journey regularly alongside tracking checkout abandonment rates.  In most cases drop-outs can be down to a technical fault that you’ve never noticed and not only because a competitor is offering something similar at a better rate.

If you have any tips to share, please do so! We’d love to hear from you.

Sage Pays e-business benchmark – A first look…

Getting a basic ecommerce site up and running may be simpler than it has ever been, but it’s surprising how many businesses become preoccupied with aesthetics, while the really crucial things, like how customers will actually pay for goods, end up as an afterthought.

We are just about to launch our second e-business benchmark report, an annual examination of how and where the ecommerce industry is growing.  It looks at getting people to your site, protecting yourself from fraud, and expanding into overseas markets.  It’s packed with statistics, advice and case studies – all of which will help you to increase those all-important conversion rates.

I thought you’d like to have a sneaky peek at some of our findings:

- A clunky or unprofessional looking site, particularly one with multiple checkout pages, can be the death knell for even the best looking site.   Our research has shown that most successful e-tailers have a maximum of 2-3 pages in their payment process.

- Any hint that your site is anything less than 100% secure will also have today’s web-savvy consumer heading for the exit. We found businesses are spending £430 a year on average in fraud prevention.

-76% of top performing sites now use social media to create a dynamic, two-way relationship with customers to help encourage loyal and returning shoppers.

-From a security point of view, most of the businesses we surveyed are doing a good job at spotting and stopping would be fraudsters but nearly a third (31%) still reported losing money to fraud in the past 12 months, with a further 5% not knowing how much money they had lost.

-While only 5% of our respondents currently have a mobile App, 41% of higher performing websites plan to produce one.  While app take up is fairly low, respondents believe that making sure their sites work well on mobile browsers is a shrewd move.

Register to be one of the first to receive the full 2011 e-business benchmark report on its release:

www.sagepay.com/ebusiness-benchmark-2011

Getting your ducks in a row…

One of my pet peeves is a badly designed checkout process.

It’s a terrible thing to spend hours searching for the products you want, get them all in your shopping basket in the right size and colour and then have to re-search for the product when it incomprehensively disappears from the basket or puts in 10 of the same product.  Then when you try to find your basket again, it’s completely vanished!  After searching the site for your basket, you find it.  Oh, you mean this miniscule icon in the bottom left hand corner that doesn’t even resemble a basket?!

Once you’ve gone through all this trauma, just wanting to pay, you’re hit with pages and pages of garbled checkout.  Enter your address.  A seemingly simple command but nowadays customers want goods delivered to their work address where they’ll be able to sign for their package, or to a friend or family members house as a gift.  You continue through the payment process only for your payment to fail because your delivery and billing address do not match.  Arrrggghh! Just let me pay!

The checkout process is such a fundamental part of running an online business.  Mess this up and your dropout rates will be sky-high.  Theres some pretty obvious things you can do to avoid high dropout rates at the checkout.

1. Keep things simple, don’t overload your pages.

2. Have a clear link to the shoppers basket on every page of your site.

3. Provide your shopper with an order summary before asking them to pay- Nothing makes customers cancel the process like confusion over how much they will be paying.

4. Keep your payment pages down to a minimum -The less pages, the less obstacles the shopper has to overcome in order to pay you.

5. Inform your customers of how far they are in the checkout process and whats coming next with a bread crumb trail If you have 3D Secure set up, it’s a good idea to let them know what it is and when they will encounter it.

So on my quest to find the Sage Pay Business of the Month for June, I’ve decided to focus on the checkout process and one e-commerce site that’s got it all wrapped up is Bombay Duck.

Their payment process is simple, uncluttered and comprehensive.  You don’t have to be a genius to manoeuvre through the site and their customised pages incorporate all of their branding so you don’t realise you have been redirected to Sage Pay to collect your sensitive data.  What’s even better is that if you are an existing customer, you can simply log in and find all of your address details stored so you don’t have to re-enter them every time you want to pay!

I’m sure my bank manager wishes my drop-out rates were higher but with companies like Bombay Duck making the checkout process so easy, it would be rude not to buy!

Congratulations to Bombay Duck for being Sage Pay’s June Business of the Month!

If you’d like to know more about optimising your checkout pages, download our E-Business Benchmark Report here.