How Top Shopify Stores Optimize for More Sales: 4 Must-Know Conversion Principles — Claus Lauter | Why Conversion Optimization Matters for Ecommerce, The Four Key CRO Principles, Why Simplifying Content Boosts Conversions, How to Improve UX (#338)

In this podcast episode, I (your host, Claus Lauter) share the 4 Conversion Rate Optimization principles you need to know to optimize your store for more sales and revenue.

Download your copy of the Conversion Rate Optimization Handbook. Instant download here: https://ecommercecoffeebreak.com/conversion-optimization-handbook/

Topics discussed in this episode:  

• Why conversion rate optimization is crucial for ecommerce businesses
• What cognitive load is and how simplifying your content can boost understanding and conversions
• How doubling conversion rates can potentially quadruple your business without additional marketing costs
• What the four key principles of conversion rate optimization are and their importance
• How minimizing visual load can improve user experience and conversions
• Why reducing motor load is essential for easier navigation and increased sales
• How decreasing memory load can prevent users from getting lost on your website
• Why providing the right information at the right moment is critical for conversions

Links & Resources

Website: https://ecommercecoffeebreak.com
Download: https://ecommercecoffeebreak.com/conversion-optimization-handbook/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clauslauter/

Get access to more free resources by visiting the show notes at
https://t.ly/RaAgq

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Transcript

Welcome to the e commerce coffee break podcast. In today's episode, I share four conversion rate optimization principles you need to know to optimize your store for more sales and revenue. So let's dive right into it.

This is the e commerce coffee break. A top rated Shopify growth podcast dedicated to Shopify merchants and business owners looking to grow their online stores, learn how to survive in the fast changing e commerce world. With your host, Claus Lauter, and get marketing advice you can't find on Google.

Welcome. Welcome to the show. Hey, it's Claus here of the e-Commerce Coffee Break podcast. Today I'm here with a solo episode, no guest today, and I want to dive into conversion rate optimization. We had a lot of interviews with experts in the field of SEO in the last couple of months, talking about strategies and tactics on how to optimize your store for higher conversions.

In this video, I want to dive a little bit more into the principles behind e commerce conversion rate optimization, so that you understand What you need to have in mind or why we actually do conversion rate optimization and what you should look for in a thinking process when you optimize your website.

Now, generally speaking, a e commerce conversion rate is somewhere between one and 4%. That varies a little bit by industry. And depending on where your traffic is coming from. Now, most stores might have a conversion rate that is somewhere in the range of 2. Something percent. And just imagine you double that.

So you bring it to 4%. You basically double your business. Only by optimizing your conversion rate. So that means you're not spending more money on paid ads, on traffic, on any, any other marketing activities. You just optimize your website in a way that more people buy from you on your website. So if you get it from one to 2%, you double your business.

From two to four percent, you double your business. From one to four percent, you quadruple your business. So you see, that's why the, is the reason why it is so important that to have a optimized store that basically takes the visitor, the potential buyer, step by step through the process and is optimized in a way to provide the right information in the right moment.

Now let's talk about conversion rate optimization principles. So there are a few of them. Basically what they do is to minimize the visual motor cognitive and memory load. So what does that mean? So when you're optimizing, you want to minimize the visual load and that pertains to your design of your website.

So in other words, how much strain are you putting on the user to visually understand your pages. If you have a website, a web store with Tons of moving animations with pop ups, with slide ins, any kind of element on your website that blinks, that moves, that is a video, then people will have an overload when it comes to what they can visually process.

So you want to make sure that your design is very clean and straightforward and focuses on the main elements of what a user should do on the website. Um, so think about new apps, For instance, you put in a fear of missing out app in there that pops up somewhere, ask yourself, does it really help? Or is this just distracting on the key elements of your store of your product detail page?

So key there is to minimize the visual load. Keep that in mind when you're picking a design and keep that in mind when you're adding more features. Design features to your store when that's mainly coming from apps and Shopify that might be a pop up where you asked for an email a pop up for push notification and so on and so forth.

So you want to minimize these as much as possible, which then leads us to the second. Conversion rate optimization principle that is the motor load and that's about movement. In other words, how much strain are you putting on your user to use the mouse, pointer, keyboard, keypad to get something done. If you have a website where you basically need to use the mouse or scroll around a lot to do to get certain things done.

basically get to the next category collection page, um, find the checkout button, start a video. So if you have to move around a lot on the page, this is called motoric load, and you want to keep this as little as possible. So you want to make sure that the main key elements that people should use above the fold and they are close to each other.

Um, so you want to make sure that they don't need to use the mouse or the finger if they're on a mobile device too much to get certain things done. Hey, Claus here, just a quick one. If you liked the content of this episode, sign up for our free newsletter and become a smarter Shopify merchant in just seven minutes per week.

We content from more than 50 sources, saving you hours of research and helping you stay on top of your e-commerce game with the latest news, insights, and trends every Thursday in your inbox, a hundred percent free. Join now at newsletter dot eCommerce coffee break.com. That is newsletter dot e-commerce coffee break.com.

And now back to the show. Next optimization principle is cognitive load, and that's about the amount of mental processing. That is required to make sense of a page. In other words, how much intellectual burden are you imposing on the visitors to understand what they're trying, what you're trying to say?

So that's the official version there. Give you an example here. If you are using difficult language, means specific industry words. That in layman terms, the normal person on the street does not know, does not understand. Um, if you try to make things complicated by the wording, means you have long blocks of texts, long paragraphs, long sentences, sentences with more than 10 words in a sentence.

something, a complicated image that explains something about your product. This will all increase the cognitive load. So that means people need to have more processing power to mentally understand what the page is about. So you want to limit that. How you do this, again, is to write in a simple language, a language that your user will understand.

Guideline there usually is to write for an eighth grade readability level. Unfortunately, the readability levels worldwide are relatively low. And also write in a simple, easy to understand language. And then try to make your product detail page as easy, understandable as possible. Videos usually work well because they explain, but also in the video, don't use industry terms, don't use complicated language, try to make it as easy as possible.

Now you as the website owner, as the expert in that field, specifically if you're selling to a specific audience, um, you might be biased in what copywriting, because obviously you know the topic, you know your niche. But always keep in mind there might be people interested that are far behind you when it comes to their experience or know how and they still should understand what you are offering.

If you lower the cognitive load, um, we'll have a massive impact on your website and you can broaden your potential audience that will understand what you're doing, what you're offering and will feel understood and then probably will buy from you. Now come to the last of our Optimization principles, and that's the memory load that pertains to the amount of work users have to perform when recollecting something in order to use your site.

In other words, how much strain on the user's memory does it to take to use your site? Give you a simple example here. So in view, for instance, have a product detail page and The shipping information or the return information is somewhere else and you put a link in there to your shipping policy page or your returns policy page and people have to click that go over load this page, go over the page, read your shipping terms and then they have to go back it.

To the product detail page, um, or even worse, they have to find the product detail page. So basically I got lost in your website because they have to do something to get information. They were looking for at one point in your store, in your website, and now I need to find the point where they left off.

Now this is difficult. People have to really memorize or remember where they have been and how they got there in the first place. And this increases the memory load. And also there, you want to keep this as low as possible. So people should not really have to memorize anything when they have to go through step by step through your website and getting the right information.

Now, key there is to provide them with The right information in the right moment and was my example from before put the shipping information and to return information in short words, you can still have a link to a longer page there, but in short words directly on your product detail page on every product detail page so that people do not have to leave the product detail page and still have the information they need.

Don't overload the page. Really think about is like, what is my user, my visitor, my potential customer thinking about in that moment? And what kind of information, what kind of questions will they have? And then try to answer them directly on the product detail page. The same for the homepage, for instance, on a homepage, you want to have more trust building elements.

Say about logos, awards, qualifications, customer testimonials, all of that. You want to have these on the homepage because that's where you build up trust and people want to know more about who you are and if you are a trust. worthy store that they can trust with their credit card. So here we have it. So you have the four conversion rate optimization principles, minimize visual, motor, cognitive, and memory load.

How do you put these in place? Now I have put together a ebook with 60 pages, which gives you not only an overview about the conversion rate optimization principles, but Actually goes through page by page of your store, starting with the homepage and going to the collection page, product detail page, cart page, checkout page, and gives you tips, strategies, and proven implementation, um, steps to put this into your store.

So very straightforward, basically a very long checklist, but also explaining why you do something that you can work your way through and implement all of these conversion principles in your store. And this will lead, if you do this and put everything into place, into a conversion rate optimization tool.

Shopify or online store works for every platform. Not only Shopify, if you're on WooCommerce, not a problem. Works the same, exactly there. On top of that, you get more tips on how you can optimize your thank you page, your 404 page, your about us page, and how does all of this work with the mobile version of your store.

So this ebook is now available. It's a 17 right now. Price will go up over time. So if you buy it now, um, you get it. cheaper than it will be in a couple of weeks and will be a instant download. So just go ahead. Link is in the show notes in the description. Click the link. You can download immediately and start implementing.

And I would recommend to do this before Q4, before the busy season, so that your store is optimized by the time really traffic hits. And I said, if you increase your conversion rate with all of these tips by just 1%, you probably double your store revenue. So that's it for my site. I will venture off in a few days to Southeast Asia, still do some interviews, but there will be probably a few less interviews in a couple of weeks because I will explore a couple of countries starting with Thailand and will be on the road for a while.

And then in October, mid end of October, I will be back in full work mode. So I hope I could help you a little bit here with optimizing or understanding conversion rate optimization principles. Dive into the episodes of the e commerce coffee break podcast for more episodes that we had in the past with more experts on conversion rate optimization.

And you should have all the information you need to get a store optimized to the maximum and get more customers through law. I hope that helps. I see you in the next video and have a great day. Hey, Claus here. Thank you for joining me on another episode of the e commerce coffee break podcast. Before you go, I'd like to ask two things from you.

First, please help me with the algorithm so I can bring more impactful guests on the show. It will make it also easier for others to discover the podcast. Simply like comment and subscribe in the app you'll enjoy. using to listen to the podcast and even better if you could leave a rating. And finally, sign up for our free newsletter and become a smarter Shopify merchant in just seven minutes per week.

We create content from more than 50 sources, saving you hours of research and helping you stay on top of your e commerce game with the latest news, insights, and trends. Every Thursday in your inbox, 100 percent free. Join now at newsletter. ecommercecoffeebreak. com. That is newsletter. ecommercecoffeebreak.

com. Thanks again, and I'll catch you in the next episode. Have a good one.