Do you want to boost your online store’s conversion rate and increase your exposure in search results to draw in new customers?
Let’s examine three proven and tested ways that top online sellers boost their websites’ conversion rate and visibility by using social evidence such as User-generated Content (UGC) and website security. Find out how you can achieve the same.
3 Conversion Questions Online Retailers Must Answer
In the case of conversion rate optimization for online stores, there are three main questions to answer for you to get rid of doubt, build higher levels of trust, and turn more buyers into shoppers.
It would help if you converted more buyers into shoppers.
How?
There are three things that your users will be asking themselves while visiting your website:
- Do I have confidence in this website and vendor? Can consumers trust the seller to provide the product in the manner described, within an acceptable timeframe, and provide customer support should it be required?
- Do I have confidence in this item? Can consumers trust the product’s quality, specifications, functions, features, and results described?
- Do I believe in the legitimacy of this purchase? Can consumers trust that their details are secured at the time of checkout? Are they able to trust that their personal and financial data will be secure?
Your website needs to eliminate any uncertainty, which leads to abandonment. This is accomplished by answering all three of the questions. This will lead to more confidence.
Three crucial conversion questions can be addressed quickly and efficiently with Shopper Approved’s”the Traffic & Conversion Stack (T&C Stack).
Common Ways Ecommerce Retailers Convert Visitors
An analysis of the product pages of major online retailers shows that each utilizes similar trust-building features and user experience (UX) to ensure that the product, website, and transaction are reputable and reliable.
Amazon Product Reviews Increase Conversion
If you click on the title of the product on the Amazon listing above, you’ll find the exact links to the seller’s product reviews and ratings as well as product Q&A all in the same place each time. It’s a way to create a familiar and trusted UX.
The ratings and reviews serve as proof that people trust the product and the company selling it.
To better understand the customer’s impression and importance of this UX, specifically, the trust signals it generates, Shopper Approved conducted a nationwide survey of 600 U.S. adults. They found some fascinating results regarding the importance of consumer reviews the behavior of consumers.
- 61% of consumers believed review reviews of products to be crucial when they were researching their products.
- 66% of customers are significantly or highly affected by the number of studies of products.
- 72% of people are significantly or positively influenced by the average star rating of the item.
The Power of Q&A to Convert
Similar to reviews from customers, questions submitted by potential buyers regarding the product fit into the category of Content created by users. The searchable questions and answers (Q&A) section will allow prospective customers to seek answers that eliminate doubt and affect their decision to purchase the product.
The same survey of consumers that Shopper Approved verified that a Q&A section can increase conversions
- 94% of people will be more inclined to purchase an item if a Q&A is included on the product’s page.
- 75% of customers thought it was extremely or important that a page for a product contains questions and answers.
Visible Security Seals Increase Trust
In addition to the social proof and user-generated Content, Amazon offers an encrypted transaction link under the DDD to CART button. If you click on that link, you will feel confident and assured that your transaction is safe.
The same experience of building trust can be found in the Shopper Approved T&C Stack. If the customer clicks the “Secure transaction” seal next to the Buy Now or Add to Cart button, the customer will see a pop-up message from Trust Guard that ensures them the site is secure and has been checked within 24 hours for malware, and it has an SSL certificate in use.
Its Trust Guard website security seal is the only seal that has been independently tested through Conversion Fanatics to improve conversion rate (CVR) by 19% and the average value of orders (AOV) by 71%.
Regarding the security of websites, The Shopper Approved survey found the following.
- 88% of customers prefer to buy through a secured website with an SSL security seal on the website or a secure transaction link via clicking the “Add to Cart” button.
- 83% of respondents thought it was extremely or very crucial that a website’s product page has a security seal or a secure transaction hyperlink by clicking the “Add To Cart ” button.
More Impact When Used Together
To build confidence and ease of use, consumers prefer to see all three elements together on the page of the product.
- 91% of those polled said that they would be more inclined to purchase from a website that displayed Product Reviews, Q&A, and a Secure Transaction seal over a similar site that did not.
RV Upgrades
While the top e-commerce brands utilize an identical UX tested and proven successful by Amazon, any website can now use UX. Validated and tried to be effective by Amazon and other websites, all sites can now use the same high-converting UX, which is highly rated to 91% of polled customers. The configuration and UX that utilizes a T&C Stack by Shopper Approved have produced an average conversion rate of 75.
Home Depot
Is Amazon’s blend of social proof and user-generated Content considered to be proprietary?
Similar formulas are employed by other retailers on the internet, such as Home Depot.
Under the item’s title, there are hyperlinks to reviews for the product and the question and answers section on the particular product. While they don’t offer an encrypted transaction option beneath the “Add To Cart ” button, they do provide the option of buying through PayPal, a popular choice as a reliable source from eBay and other marketplaces on the internet.
Macy’s
Macy’s utilizes two kinds of social verification on their product pages. Macy’s has the following:
- Review links for the product are located under the name of the product.
- A total number of people who purchased the product beyond the add to cart button. This is a confirmation that the purchase is safe.
Tractor Supply Company
Tractor Supply Company uses the area below the product’s name to display user-generated Content and social proof and tabs to display product information as well as specifications and documents.
Under their Add to Cart button, links to an information page that clarifies the rules for pickup by contactless at their retail stores and delivery. While it does not increase the customer’s trust in their transaction, it can increase trust in the seller’s terms and conditions.
How Trust And Q&A Improves Search Visibility & Traffic
Google has become a vast question-and-answer engine. Search optimized Q&A is becoming more valuable as a tool for conversion on-page and an off-page traffic-driving method to provide the answers to questions asked by users on the first page of the search results.
The majority of people trust and click on the highest-ranking organic outcomes more often than those on the lower end of the search results. The Shopper Approved study found that:
- The majority of respondents believed that if a site answered the question they asked and came on the first page of Google sesarch results for searches, this website would gain more credibility.
- 73% of respondents said they were “highly likely” or “extremely likely” to visit the website.
Optimize For Long-Tail Keywords In Search
The thin Content will not be effective for SEO unless it’s optimized to address the question in question and be included in a Featured snippet. If you have hundreds or even thousands of these long-tail questions and their answers, you can drive high-purchase intention traffic to your website using the correct schema markup.
For instance, RVupgrades dominate the search results for particular RV components, beating out Amazon. This high-quality, highly optimized Q&A search engine is an integral part of Shopper’s Approved T&C Stack.
The thin Content of reviews and ratings could also be optimized to increase exposure in rich snippets of Content for product and brand searches.
Improve Your E-A-T
The strategies employed by Amazon and other big retailers listed above help you optimize your store for sales and increase visibility on Google results for searches.
To clarify how each part of the Traffic and Conversion Stack is E-A.T: Expertise, Authoritativeness, and trustworthiness, you need to look no further than section 2.6 (Reputation on the website or creator of Content) in Google’s Search Quality Evaluation Guidelines.
In this part of Google’s policies, humans who evaluate the website are advised to seek out the opinions of actual users about the website or the person or organization behind the site. The evaluators are instructed they should not make their decision solely on the information offered by the site but seek out reliable, independent sources for reviews and ratings.
As an official Google Review Partner, platforms such as Shopper Approved allow you to collect sellers’ ratings from an external source that is trusted and reliable. Actual customers.
Research on the Reputation of the Website or Creator of the Main Content
In this section in Google’s policies, they state that:
“Stores typically have reviews from their customers, which help determine a store’s reputation on the opinions of those who have visited the store. We view a high percentage of positive reviews by customers to be an indication of positive reviews.”
This is an excellent reason to use authentic reviews from actual customers gathered by a trusted external source. Some services will distribute your thoughts to review sites on the internet.
A portion from your clients to write reviews for the honest review platforms guarantees that your business’s name is listed on the most popular review sites such as Google, Sitejabber, the Better Business Bureau, and ResellerRatings. It will also ensure the quality of Google’s searches evaluators can find favorable reviews for your company.
A Top Level of Expertise/Authoritativeness/Trustworthiness (E-A-T)
In this part of Google’s evaluator guidelines, Google examines the use of Content created by users on forums and Q&A pages.
“Some types of information were found almost exclusively on forums & discussions, where a community of experts can provide valuable perspectives on specific topics.”
Another reason is to add a Q&A area on the pages of your products. Along with the addition of high-value long-tail keywords for SEO in your product’s Content, this section could aid in establishing your expertise in the field.
Key Takeaways
If you are looking to boost the revenue of your online store, look into installing your Traffic & Conversion Stack that addresses the three crucial trust-related conversion questions. Can consumers be confident in you, your product, and also the security of their data?
Suppose you provide social evidence, user-generated Content, and evidence of the security of your website. You can make sure that your customers are confident in their purchases. Likewise, search engines such as Google can be confident in your site’s competence, credibility, authority, and trustworthiness.
