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Just a little post on my vision on website(s) and their usability; and their ability to generate conversions.

In my humble though strong opinion a lot of websites are missing the point on what a website visitor really wants to do. It’s just like walking into a real (brick&mortar) store and not being able to find what you are looking for and nobody is there to help you..then you feel lost…and leave the store empty. But this is just one of these things; haven’t we all experienced frustration when trying to buy something on a website?

Frustrations in e-commerce

Does one of these experiences online shopping frustrations sound familiar?

  • Overly complex checkout process with way too many steps (haven’t we all seen these?).
  • No clear validation rules (example; you fill in a form and when trying to send the form it goes red)
  • Encountering the shipping costs deep in the checkout process (transparency anyone?).
  • (Lack of) payment options (haven’t we all seen and experienced this?).
  • Mobile-friendly version not available (or worse; available but not usable; large pop-ups that can’t be moved, buy buttons that can’t be clicked etc.).

But there’s more; think about what you are promising your visitor. If a visitor get’s into a brick and mortar shop they expect something in a way (because of the physical location (neighborhood), the appearance, and more clues. In case of a website a user use a search engine (anyone of them); or social media (paid or organic) but they miss all the brick and mortar clues. So all websites should try to get into the mind and figure out the intent of their website visitors in order to cater them best.

How to fix e-commerce frustrations?

Get to work and start figuring out what can be done to give your users the optimal user experience. You could do this by:

  • Looking at you Google analytics sales funnel and figure out where they are leaving the site (in what step and where).
  • Ask persons (random persons for instance and don’t tell them you are affiliated with the site ) what they think of the website (first impressions; would you buy?; are you missing anything?; etc.), this feedback will provide great insights!
  • Use tools for visitor playbacks like the one I really love. Again; this will take time but it sure is worth it!
  • Call a few customers and ask them how you can improve.
  • Set-up a gmail email address and get bcc’s of all customer service emails (why Gmail? > because it’s really easy to search all mails).
  • Loads more; trust me ;-).

You can do all of this yourself; but if you don’t know where to start then call me on +31646755022 or contact Arnout Hellemans.

Websites and conversions
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Arnout Hellemans

Arnout Hellemans, online (search) marketer with a huge focus on conversions from Amsterdam. I have a passion for making the web more usable and helping businesses getting the most out of their online adventures.

See all posts by arnouthellemans

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