Kristen Doyle 0:00
Having your own website shop comes with a lot of benefits from lower fees and commissions that let you keep more of the money you earn, to giving you complete control over your business. But are you making the most of it? Because setting up a shop is one thing, but optimizing it for sales is another thing altogether.
Kristen Doyle 0:22
Today, we’re talking about practical ways to make your shop more user friendly and increase your sales. Whether you’re using WooCommerce, like I do, or some other platform to sell from your website.
Kristen Doyle 0:37
Are you a digital product or course creator, selling on platforms like teachers pay teachers, Etsy or your own website? Ready to grow your business, but not into the kind of constant hustle that leads straight to burnout? Then you’re in the right place. Welcome to The Savvy Seller.
Kristen Doyle 0:54
I’m Kristen Doyle, and I’m here to give you no fluff, tools and strategies that move the needle for your business without burning you out in the process. Things like SEO, no stress marketing, email list building, automations, and so much more. Let’s get started y’all.
Kristen Doyle 1:16
There are five main things I want you to consider when it comes to optimizing your website to increase sales. The first one is sending your buyers signals to show that your website is secure and they can trust. You see people naturally trust marketplaces where they’ve shopped before, like Amazon or Teachers Pay Teachers or Etsy.
Kristen Doyle 1:41
But with individual websites, you have to build that trust quickly, because there are so many scammy sites out there. I know we have probably all been targeted by a Facebook or an Instagram ad and gotten over to the website and thought, oh my gosh, this looks like a total scam.
Kristen Doyle 2:01
There are so many of those out there that it is more and more important for us as reputable, trustworthy business owners to let our buyers know that they can trust us. So here are some ways that you can do that. First, take a peek at your shop, your cart and your checkout pages. Make sure that you are clearly indicating on those pages that this is a safe place to shop.
Kristen Doyle 2:26
You can do that by displaying security badges, by making sure that your website has a valid SSL certificate. That is what gives your website the HTTPS instead of just the HTTP in the URL. Now your host should take care of that for you, but you can check to make sure that your site’s SSL certificate is valid by opening it up in your web browser and then looking for the little lock icon that usually is just to the left of the site URL.
Kristen Doyle 2:57
It depends a little bit on what browser you’re using, but on Chrome, which is my favorite browser, you can click right on that lock and it will show you clearly that this site does, in fact, have a valid SSL certificate. It’s also really important from a security standpoint, that you choose payment processor options that people trust and that they recognize.
Kristen Doyle 3:21
So consider adding things like PayPal or Venmo to your site in addition to your regular credit card processor, which might be someone like Stripe, who you and I know is very reputable, but the average consumer who’s shopping doesn’t know that Stripe is one of the most widely recognized and trusted credit card processors out there, so they may be a little skeptical about putting their credit card number in on your site.
Kristen Doyle 3:47
So using those payment processors that they recognize and that they’ve already used in other places like PayPal, Venmo, Link, shop pay those can contribute to them feeling like your website is trustworthy as well. So if you’re using those payment processors, don’t feel like you need to kind of hide that you’re using them. Display those logos prominently, because it can help people to trust you.
Kristen Doyle 4:11
Another thing you can do is add some text on your checkout page that says, secure payment processing with whatever you’re using. Edit that text if you’re able to, so that people are clearly able to see that this is a secure way to check out.
Kristen Doyle 4:25
The second thing I want you to think about is how you can streamline the purchase process itself. So when you are thinking about streamlining, there are a couple places to look. The first one is on the checkout page. Take a peek at what fields are there that your buyers have to fill out and cut out any that aren’t really necessary. If you’re selling digital downloadable products, do you really need their phone number and their full address? Probably not.
Kristen Doyle 4:54
Maybe you need at least their zip code for tax purposes if you are collecting and remitting sales tax, but you probably. Don’t need a phone number, and you probably don’t need a full address. I will tell you right now, I’m a pretty prolific online shopper, but if a store is asking for my phone number, I am really not going to be happy about it, and I am a lot more likely to walk away from that purchase.
Kristen Doyle 5:15
So take a look at those things you’re collecting and make sure you’re not asking for more information than you actually need. If you use WooCommerce, you can edit what information you’re collecting by going to the customizer and then clicking on WooCommerce and looking for the checkout options.
Kristen Doyle 5:32
And what you’ll do is change any that you don’t want to collect from required or visible to hidden. The next thing to think about is making sure that it is easy for your buyers to find the cart and the checkout pages. So my favorite ways to do this is to use an icon or a pop up of some sort that shows up in your header area, plus adding a regular menu link to your header and your footer of your website.
Kristen Doyle 5:58
What you don’t want is for people only to be able to access the cart when that little View Cart button pops up right after they add a purchase to their cart, because if they’ve shopped around a little bit, they need to be able to easily get to their cart from any page on your website.
Kristen Doyle 6:12
I love using either a pop up or a slide out side cart that comes out from the side of the page, because those usually have a little icon that shows up in your menu bar. It either looks like a cart or like a shopping bag, something like that that is very easy and obvious for people, and a lot of times, depending on what you’re using, those icons will show either the total value of the cart, or it might show the total number of items in the cart as well.
Kristen Doyle 6:40
The one that I prefer is from Elementor, and it shows both of those things. When people click on it, that cart slides out right on the side of the page they’re currently on, and then they can go to the checkout from there. It makes it really easy for people to locate their cart and complete their purchase.
Kristen Doyle 6:55
Speaking of completing their purchase, make sure that you are removing all the distractions you can from your cart and checkout pages. Those pages really should not have any pop ups, email opt ins or even sidebar content on them. They should be as simple and straightforward as possible, making it really easy for people to check out.
Kristen Doyle 7:15
Your checkout pages should really have just one goal, and that is to get people to take the next step to completing their purchase. So don’t give them too many options outside of doing those things.
Kristen Doyle 7:26
The third area to look at in terms of optimizing your website store is how you’re organizing your products. It’s really important to make it easy for your customers to find exactly what they are looking for. Here’s a couple of ways that you can do that.
Kristen Doyle 7:41
First, make sure that you are creating a logical category structure. You want each category to have lots of items in it, so don’t create a category that you know is only going to have one product. Try to create bigger categories with more products in them and use fewer of them. And then set up product tags so that people can easily filter by the things that they need.
Kristen Doyle 8:04
I know, for me, when it comes to personal shopping, I love being able to filter things by sizes and colors and all of those different options, maybe even filtering by price, sometimes. When it comes to your products, add in tags that people can use to filter out the things they don’t want and narrow in on just the things that they do, whether that is certain grade levels for your teaching resources or certain types of products if you are selling something else.
Kristen Doyle 8:33
When you do this, creating your categories and tags is one thing, but how you show them to your buyers on the shop page is another. The native ways to do that in your WooCommerce store is just to add a list of categories and tags. These are typically just listed in alphabetical order or maybe about popularity, and when you click on them, you’re only going to see that one category or that one tag.
Kristen Doyle 8:59
But you can, with some third party plugins enable filtering and sorting options so that people can choose multiple categories or tags and really narrow down to the things that are most important to them. The more products you have in your store, the more important it is to do something like a filtering system so that people can find what they’re looking for and don’t get distracted or confused by all the other options that are out there.
Kristen Doyle 9:23
Another thing to think about on your shop page is where you’re putting search functionality. Even if you have a search icon at the very top of your website or maybe in the footer, you want to make sure right on the search page that there is a specific search box for your products.
Kristen Doyle 9:40
You can put that at the top of your sidebar where your filters are, or just above the product catalog. Either way, just make it really prominent and easy for people to search products.
Kristen Doyle 9:50
The fourth area I want you to think about is how you’re presenting the products themselves. First of all, when it comes to your product images, there is no limit to the number of images you can upload in your WooCommerce store. So use that to your advantage. Don’t just upload the same four thumbnails that you might be putting on other marketplace sites, but use those extra thumbnails to show multiple views of things, to show different examples of it in use.
Kristen Doyle 10:17
If you have a product preview from Teachers Pay Teachers, for example, you might use those thumbnails to show the pages from your preview. Make sure that you’re taking advantage of all those additional images so that people can get a better feel for what that product is when they purchase it.
Kristen Doyle 10:36
When it comes to your description, write longer, more detailed descriptions focus on the benefits of your product and not just the features. And what I mean by that is, don’t just list what’s included. Obviously, that’s important, and you need to do it. But along with that list of what is included, explain why it is included, or how it helps your customer. What’s in it for them when they get these things?
Kristen Doyle 11:02
And then, since we are writing a little bit longer, more detailed descriptions, make sure you’re using clear, scannable formatting for the description. So think about adding headings bulleted lists and writing shorter paragraphs, short, easy to read sentences. This way, people are easily able to skim your description and find the parts that are most important to them.
Kristen Doyle 11:27
All right, last but not least, I want you to think about what else we can do to, first of all, keep people happy with their purchases, and second, encourage them to come back. One of the biggest things that people struggle with when it comes to purchases on their own website is customers who don’t know how to access the thing that they’ve purchased, especially if you are selling digital products that people need to download.
Kristen Doyle 11:51
So make sure that you are making the Account Login and the download access links for any digital products prominent and easy for your buyers to find the way that I do this is I actually include two links on the website, and they’re in the header and the footer.
Kristen Doyle 12:07
One is for the account login page, and the second is for the downloads page itself. And yes, if you are logged out and you click the download link, it’s going to take you to the account Login page, but once you log in, it will redirect you straight to the downloads.
Kristen Doyle 12:24
Of course, people could click the account login, and then they could click downloads, but what I find is that sometimes people don’t, for some reason, don’t think that they need to log into their account to access their downloads. They just want that download button. This is just another way to make it really easy for your buyers to find what they need without having to think too hard.
Kristen Doyle 12:45
Another thing to check, and if you’re using WooCommerce, they do this for you, but check and make sure that there are download links being sent in your confirmation emails. Look at what’s in those emails and maybe how you can edit them. I have edited the beginning of my confirmation email for purchases to direct people back to that downloads page so that they know if they don’t click the link in the email to download, they know where to go to find that down the road.
Kristen Doyle 13:12
And one last thing that you can do to support your customers and keep them happy is create a really great FAQs and support page. Think about what questions customers might have or questions customers have asked you on your marketplace platforms, and answer them before they need to ask.
Kristen Doyle 13:29
Even if people don’t read the FAQs page, having an FAQs and support page listed in your website navigation is a good indicator to people that you’re a legit business that is going to stand by the thing that you have sold them, and that they’re going to be able to get answers if they have questions, that there will be someone to reach out to if they need support for their purchase.
Kristen Doyle 13:50
All of these things are really helpful for keeping your buyers happy, but they can also reassure new customers that your site is legit and they’ll be able to find what they’ve purchased or get help whenever they need it. This week, I want you to take a look at your shop through your customers eyes.
Kristen Doyle 14:06
Start with three things. First, go through your checkout process thinking as somebody who is really skeptical about making online purchases. Are you reassuring them every step of the process that your site is safe and secure and that they can trust you when they make this purchase?
Kristen Doyle 14:23
Second, review what information you’re requiring them to give you at checkout and get rid of anything that you don’t really need to know about them. And then third, ask for feedback from friends, from other business owners, or ask your web designer for their guidance on what can be improved on your site.
Kristen Doyle 14:43
Sometimes, when we look at things ourselves, it’s easy to think that things are obvious that just aren’t to other people. So ask for some feedback from someone else and see what you can be doing to improve your shop process. If today’s episode helped you optimize your shop, would you take just a minute to rate and review the show?
Kristen Doyle 15:01
Your reviews help other savvy sellers like you find the show so they can learn these practical strategies for growing their business without the burnout. You can leave a review right in your podcast app, and I will appreciate it more than you know.
