E-commerce has rapidly experienced massive growth in recent years. Before, it was a stretch to imagine just clicking away on the products and services that you needed and waiting for them to arrive at your doorstep. These days, however, it has become the norm, especially with the current coronavirus pandemic.

As a business owner, you should already know the advantages of promoting your merchandise online.

You may already have an e-commerce plan in place. Nonetheless, it’s wise to keep on improving and maximizing strategies that can help your brand scale to new heights.

Here are some ways to increase your revenue online:

1. Understand User Intent

Search engine optimization (SEO) is such a valuable tool in e-commerce that even non-technical people know about it. After all, it plays a significant role in the success of your blog and, ultimately, company in the digital realm.

SEO is the process of enhancing your website and all its content to position your webpages on the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs) for relevant keywords. It involves optimizing the elements displayed on your site and in the back-end to ensure that both human users and search engine crawlers can view your content.

More than the technical side of SEO, you should also consider the personal touch that’s required to reach your human audience.

One of the ways to leverage user intent for your sales is to look at the People Also Search For (PASF) section for your target keywords. It can help you create more personalized content that will capture and retain the attention of potential customers.

If you have a high bounce rate for your site, which means that people click on it initially, but return to the SERPs for a second opinion, you might need to improve your content. It would signal to search engines that your website isn’t the best source of answers for the queries of your customers. With this, your rankings in the SERPs might suffer, and people won’t click on your link for lack of perceived credibility, which will damage your brand’s reputation and lead to revenue losses.

2. Be Mindful Of Your Sales Copy

While you should emphasize the benefits that your products and services can provide to customers, you must also remember to be honest in your sales copy. This means avoiding exaggerated promises that you know your company can’t fulfill.

Because today’s generation of consumers grew up being marketed to, they can spot inauthentic claims from a mile away. Be straightforward and transparent in your dealings with customers, even when you’re only interacting with them through your website.

3. Leverage Customer Testimonials

Honest feedback from real people can boost the reputation of your brand. Most consumers want to know what they can expect from your company before they purchase your products and services.

Publishing your current buyers’ experiences on your website can improve online sales since potential clients can get first-hand knowledge of how your merchandise can help them.

4. Know Your Target Audience

One of the fundamentals of sales and marketing is to identify your target audience. However, these days, it takes more than just knowing their demographics and basic info. Again, you have to understand them on a more intimate level, which means being aware of their intentions, needs, and buying habits.

These are useful in ensuring that you spend your resources on highly-qualified prospects. Plus, they serve as guides on product development to make sure that your goods and services suit the needs of consumers.

The primary use of a buyer persona is to help you craft content and sales copies that will pique your target customers’ interest. It’s also valuable for the personalization of your marketing campaigns for the different categories of your audience.

Here are some ways to gather information for developing your company’s buyer personas:

• Check Your Contacts Database – Go through your contacts database to evaluate how leads or customers find and consume your content. You can also check your website for blog posts that are popular among your current buyers and subscribers.
• Maximize Your Form Fields – The form fields that you publish on your website must capture crucial data for persona creation, without being too intrusive. Web visitors also need to understand why you’re gathering their personal information. There should be a reason for each entry.
• Collect Feedback From Your Sales Team – Since your representatives are the ones who interact the most with your leads and customers, you should get their assessment of the different segments of your consumer base. They can provide valuable insights that you can use to create conversion-increasing content.
• Interview Customers And Prospects – Talking directly with your buyers and leads is the most straightforward way of getting the information that you want. Surveys and interview questions are the best tools for this process.

5. Remove Any Checkout Hindrances

If you run an e-commerce website, you should pay attention to possible hindrances right before a customer completes their purchase. Make sure that your checkout process is a seamless one. Don’t give potential buyers a chance to change their minds about the transaction.

One major hindrance is requiring customers to sign up or log in before completing their purchase. When you obligate people to register to your website first before they can enjoy your products and services, you’re providing an obstacle to your own company by preventing a sale. People can abandon their carts just as easily and take their business elsewhere.

As such, you need to master the timing of your call-to-action (CTA). It’s much better to have them finish the transaction first before you encourage them to sign up for your website. You can also automate a little pop-up before they add an item to their carts and place an incentive if they register now, like giving them a discount on their purchase.

6. Find A Workaround For Shipping Fees

Hefty shipping fees can also be a hindrance to online sales since these increase the overall cost of products and services. As a business owner, you must look for a courier that offers a good deal, especially for bulk deliveries, so that your customers can enjoy a lower price.

Another solution is to set a minimum purchase threshold for your customers to enjoy free shipping. This can even encourage them to buy more items so that they can avail of this perk.

7. Improve Your Website

You must remember that Google and Bing aim to deliver high-quality results to web users. The implication is that people’s experience comes first and that you should do all that you can to cater to their needs and preferences.

Make sure that the structure and navigation of your website are intuitive. This means that your pages must follow a logical sequence. For instance, most websites make their logos clickable, which, typically, direct web users to their homepage. If you deviate from that unspoken rule, you might confuse and, worse, put off potential customers.

Losing traffic because of technical inconsistencies in your site can affect your sales. Make sure that you look into each element in your domain to provide an excellent experience for web visitors.

8. Take Advantage Of Live Chat

Another way to improve your customer’s experience on your website is to offer a way for them to contact you and get an immediate response.

You can even invest in a chatbot to serve as a 24/7 representative. This way, you can, still, respond to customer queries even outside of working hours, which is valuable if you’re aiming for a global audience.

9. Offer A Guarantee

You may be hesitant to add a money-back guarantee for your products and services. After all, you might end up losing revenue if people return their purchases. However, this claim would show customers that you actually believe in the quality of your merchandise.

Additionally, you don’t have to worry so much about the guarantee because not a lot of people would go through the trouble of packing and shipping the item again.

Often, customers just bear with the product or sell it to others nearby at a lower price.

Conclusion

As a business owner, you should keep up with the times, especially with the ever-changing demands and preferences of consumers worldwide. You must pay particular attention to your online sales since more customers are experiencing the joy of e-commerce. Follow these tips to help you increase your revenue and scale your brand to new heights.