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A few key things you need to know about improving site conversion:

• It’s about what NOT to do, as much as it is about what TO do.
• You have to know who you are (as a brand), and what your customer wants.
• You give it to them.

Sound simple? It is. Some of the most fundamental things you can do to improve conversion are the simplest. And yet, so many brands are missing out on fixing these key friction points in the shopping process. Here are the five key areas of focus you should get right before you consider anything else:

1. Navigation: This is where you need to take off your marketing hat, and put on your customer’s. Shop your own site. Make sure everyone on your team is doing it. Get feedback from everyone- especially real customers. A few must haves for your checklist:

• A prominent search box, with predictive results.
• Top navigation categories that are easy for a new customer to understand.
• Refinements and filters, to allow a customer to quickly drill down to what they want.
• Inspiration, by way of content, new products and/or solutions on your homepage to inspire the ‘browsing’ shopper .

2. Site speed: If your site is slow, it will hurt performance both from a conversion perspective (high bounce & exit rates), and from an organic perspective- a slow load time will affect your Google ranking, especially if your site is slow on mobile.  A few checkpoints:

• Check your mobile site speed using Google’s free tool, here. It will tell you your average load time for mobile- and your estimated visitor loss based on load time. Now see how your competitors stack up.
• Use your analytics tools to see page load time for key landing pages, and look at your top exit pages. This will give you some priorities for where to start.
• Work with your developers to optimize clunky code, pixels and functionality to improve.

3. Product info: There’s a time and place for everything. Provide the right info, in the right steps along the shopping path, to enable the next click. A few for your checklist:

• Crisp images, with zoom and alternate views.
• Thorough product descriptions, with practical info about how to wear, how it fits, how to choose a size, how to use and care for.
• Links to ‘live chat’ and ‘shipping’ info.
• Price: clear sale or promo info.
• Prompts to remind customer of value-propositions that will inspire confidence, i.e. “Fast, free shipping” or “Our guarantee” or “Easy returns”.

4. Shipping: Free and fast. Don’t give your customers a reason to buy it on Amazon. Enough said.

5. Checkout: Don’t get in your own way. Take a look at the metrics around your shopping funnel to see which pages of checkout are seeing the most attrition. Consider:

• Clear, uncluttered first page of checkout that offers Guest Checkout as well as Registered user checkout.
• Mobile payments: if the customer has to get out their wallet while shopping on a mobile device- you’ll lose momentum- and potentially the sale.
• Standard, fast, and faster delivery options showing cost and expected delivery dates.
• A minimum of interference- don’t get in the way of a customer’s intent to checkout. If you’re up-selling services or products- keep it simple, and keep it outside of the customer’s focused path.

Keeping your shopping path frictionless will take on-going care and vigilance. If you’re highly focused on these, you’ll be more likely to capture new customer sales- and less likely to annoy your loyal repeat customers. The rewards are great- for everyone. Improving the shopping experience will always serve you, and your customers well.