10 Quick Tips to Boost Sales on Your Site

Small changes can often make a difference in whether a customer at your Web site purchases from you or hits the back button to look for a better alternative.

The 10 initiatives below can boost the sales on your site, helping you to weather economic storms and position you to sprint ahead of the pack once conditions change.

1. Clean up your shopping cart and conversion paths.

In tough economic times, you are likely to have fewer customers ready to buy. Customers will often visit your site multiple times or visit multiple sites before buying anything. Don't let a clumsy shopping cart or unclear conversion path drive them away.

Use your analytics to review your shopping cart. Look for cracks where you leak customers during the conversion process.

Next, learn why customers abandon your cart. Is the check-out process too long, or are the sale terms unclear? Is your return policy clear? Are shipping options and costs immediately available and clearly spelled out?

Finally, look for barriers to conversion. Can you simplify or clarify the steps? Strive for a purchase path as simple as Amazon's one click, which puts up almost no barriers.

2. Mine your internal search data.

Consumers have their hands in their pockets and are not spending as much. Are you sure you know exactly what they are looking for on your site? Are you offering them what they want?

Your internal search can provide a wealth of information about what site visitors want but might not find. Use this data to shift your market offerings to mesh with current consumer demands.

During previous recessions, consumers have focused on repairing their homes, autos and appliances, rather than getting new ones. If you offer repair parts, highlight their availability on your site.

3. Consider adding customer reviews.

Preliminary data has shown that consumers are using the Web to research products before they make a purchase. The Web and search have become their primary product and price research tools. If you add only one feature to your offering, it should be some form of user reviews.

If you cannot add a full review offering through a vendor such as Bazaarvoice, Aggregate Knowledge, Loomia or Buzzillions, then consider mining your own customer-service information for testimonials. Don't include only product reviews. Make sure that you include customer reviews of your service and customer support.

You want the consumer to stop researching and start buying at your site. Skittish consumers need to read reviews that boost their confidence in both the product and the vendor.

4. Study your competition.

Use tools such as Compete.com, NetPeriscope.com and Hitwise.com to monitor how the competition is doing. The more you know, the better you can position your business or site to take advantage of any opportunities that might arise in a changing competitive environment.

Visit your competitors' sites frequently. Look at their offers. Businesses in economic trouble frequently run multiple sales, one after another, to try to raise operating funds. They also do not add new merchandise. This is harder to see on the Web than in brick-and mortar-stores, but it can be done.

5. Tune your keywords to consumer attitudes.

With consumer confidence at record lows, be sure that the language you use on your site reassures and comforts the consumer. As an online merchant, your site's language must express good value.

Use value-laden words such as "inexpensive," "best value," "low-priced," "discount" or other terms that imply real savings. Also, you can point out best-selling and best-value items to assure hesitant consumers that they are making the right decisions on your site.

6. Tune your PPC search keywords to the consumer.

In the same way, be sure to tune your PPC search keywords to focus on value-driven keywords.

Also, as you work with your PPC budget, focus on the keywords that convert to sales. Now might not necessarily be the best time to bid on those broad category keywords that convert relatively poorly. Choose keywords that offer real returns for the business.

7. Tighten up your SEO efforts.

Make sure that you are at least doing all of the basics. Each page on your site, including every product page, should have a unique Title and a meta Description that includes a call to action.

The first line of the search results in Google is the Title. The meta Description is often the second line. By tuning your Titles and Descriptions, you can take advantage of this opportunity to sell. Don't miss out on getting that first click from a search page to your site's page.

8. Test your templates.

Instead of doing a major site overhaul, test your templates using heat-mapping tools like Crazy Egg to check how users are interacting with your pages.

Do visitors to the home page immediately turn to the search box? This might suggest problems with your navigation. Do visitors click on static images, expecting them to link directly to products shown in the images? Is the "buy" button clear and visible to every visitor?

With this type of information, you can improve your site's performance without having to remake it completely.

9. Tune your landing pages.

If you buy PPC traffic, you must provide landing pages that are clearly relevant to your PPC keywords.

All too often, marketers send their PPC traffic to the home page instead of a carefully selected or created page. To get even more value from your PPC efforts, try tuning your landing pages with Google's Website Optimizer, a no-cost tool that will help you improve your PPC performance. Develop and run a few tests, and watch the improvement.

10. Review your metrics regularly.

One of the most powerful features available in almost all the analytics packages is the ability to compare data year over year. Use this comparative information to assess your program's health and to drive your marketing efforts. Don't let the data mislead you.

For example, a late Thanksgiving creates a foreshortened sales cycle for the Christmas season. Retailers must interpret their analytics data in the context of the sales cycle, not just as it is displayed in calendar dates.

Amanda Watlington, Ph.D., A.P.R., is an Internet Marketing Consultant and owner of Searching for Profit, Charlestown, Mass.