Want to turn more first-time visitors into paying customers?
All websites attract traffic. Traffic doesn’t generate revenue – sales do. And here’s the unpleasant reality – most visitors will leave without making a purchase.
The good news?
It’s not rocket surgery. Some simple design decisions can relax a skittish browser and become a happy customer. Most require little to no money, just common sense.
Here’s how to do it…
In this guide, you’ll discover:
- Why First Impressions Make Or Break A Sale
- How Speed Quietly Kills Your Conversions
- Building Instant Trust With New Shoppers
- Making Your Checkout Painless
Let’s jump in!
Why First Impressions Make Or Break A Sale
A first-time visitor decides whether to stay or leave in just a few seconds.
Consider. They’ve never heard of you. They don’t know if they can trust you. And there are 100 other stores literally one click away.
So your store needs to make a strong first impression — fast.
It means having a clutter-free layout, high quality product photos and no gimmicky design. Someone should be able to glance at your homepage and know what you sell and where to go next in a matter of seconds.
Which leads nicely onto performance optimisation. A gorgeous store isn’t any use if pages take ages to load or it feels sluggish when navigating. Intelligent BigCommerce store development prioritises speed and slickness from the start. So the design you want and your performance optimisation aren’t battling against one another. When you get it right you’ve given every new visitor the incentive they need to stay on your site long enough to make a purchase.
Speed Is The Silent Conversion Killer
Here’s something most store owners completely ignore…
Site speed hugely affects your conversion rates. If your site is slow visitors will be annoyed and go to your competitor.
How big is the issue? According to Google, 53% of mobile shoppers leave a site that takes more than three seconds to load. More than half of your potential buyers disappearing before they see your product.
And it gets worse on mobile, where most shopping now happens.
But what can you actually do? Performance optimisation should be number one on your list. Let’s cover the basics:
- Compressing large images so pages load quickly
- Removing bulky code and any unused plugins
- Using a content delivery network (CDN)
- Keeping your design lightweight and clean
The less time it takes for your page to load, the more people will stick around. The more people who stick around, the more sales you will get.
It really is that simple.
Make Your Store Easy To Navigate
Imagine walking into a shop where nothing is labelled and the aisles lead nowhere.
You’d walk straight back out, right?
Exactly the same principle applies on the web. If a visitor to your site is unable to find what they want fast they’ll go away. Well planned navigation leads people through your site to the checkout without too much conscious thought.
Menus should be streamlined and intuitive. Organize your products into easily navigable categories. Include a functioning search field. And ensure your core pages are never more than a few clicks away.
Breadcrumb navigation helps as well. It lets consumers know where they are and allows them to jump back one step without becoming lost. Small features like breadcrumbs encourage customers to continue forward rather than click the back button.
A puzzled consumer will never become a customer. Therefore, ensure your purchasing process is as clear as possible.
Build Trust From The First Click
New customers are tentative. They’re trusting someone else with their money and personal information.
Your job is to remove that fear.
Here’s how you do it:
- Show genuine customer reviews and ratings
- Display trust badges and secure payment icons
- Add clear contact details and a real returns policy
- Use professional, high-quality product photos
These small details communicate to an apprehensive customer that you’re a legitimate business they can trust. They silently reassure the questions going through a new visitor’s mind before they even think to ask. The more trust you establish, the more likely a first time visitor is to whip out their card and purchase.
PRO TIP: Trust signals are most important on your product pages and checkout pages. And guess where people begin to feel doubt? Bingo. That’s where your trust signals belong.
Make Your Checkout Painless
This is where so many stores throw away their sales…
You’ve built it. The customer loves your product and wants to buy. Then checkout blows it all up.
A long and complicated checkout process is one of the primary reasons why shoppers abandon their carts. In fact, nearly 70% of shoppers abandon their carts prior to purchase — with a cumbersome checkout being a leading culprit.
So keep it short and sweet:
- Ask only for the details you actually need
- Offer a guest checkout option
- Show all costs upfront with no nasty surprises at the end
- Provide several different payment methods
Each additional action is another opportunity for a prospect to hesitate. Reduce the steps between “add to cart” and “order complete” and watch your conversions soar.
Design For Mobile First
Most of your visitors are shopping on their phones.
Therefore, if your store isn’t mobile-friendly, you are literally losing money daily.
Mobile-first means buttons are easily tapped, text is easily scrolled and images don’t take forever to load on a small screen. The easiest way to test mobile-first? Take out your phone and try to purchase something from your store. If it feels clunky or slow for you, your customers will experience that too.
Combine that with robust performance optimisation and you’ll turn your mobile store into a selling machine rather than a leaky bucket.
Bringing It All Together
Converting new visitors into customers is never a gamble. It’s making sure there is zero reason for them to leave.
To quickly recap, a store that converts:
- Makes a strong first impression in seconds
- Loads fast thanks to proper performance optimisation
- Is simple and logical to navigate
- Builds trust straight away
- Has a quick, painless checkout
- Works beautifully on mobile
Master these fundamentals and you’ll see more of your valuable traffic converting.
The reality is good design and intelligent performance optimisation will do most of the work for you. So spend some time looking at your own store today, shore up the weaknesses one at a time and give every visitor a reason to purchase.
