The Ultimate Guide to Optimising Your eCommerce Site for Maximum Conversions

Previously, eCommerce success was built around getting traffic to your website. Now, a stronger approach to success is via conversion rate optimisation (CRO) to create sites with low bounce rates, high conversions, and sales.

CRO is about fine-tuning your website to convert traffic into customers by building trust. Position your unique value proposition (UVP) at the top of your homepage and landing pages to ensure your message is crystal clear. If visitors are unsure why they've landed on your site, they will bounce. High bounce rates break the sales funnel before customers have reached the checkout stage. 

If you're laser-focused on increasing customer sales, you'll want to look at positioning opportunities to drive conversions on every page above and below the fold. You'll need to optimise every step of the checkout process by analysing site architecture, design, and customer behaviour data and making targeted adjustments that streamline the user experience.

Building websites with high-impact visual appeal is no longer enough to survive the eCommerce game. A site's design must focus on optimising every step of the user journey for conversions. 

Analysing existing eCommerce sites and identifying areas for improvement based on data and past customer experiences gives insights to make informed decisions. Specific tools and techniques are required for practical implementation. Understanding user behaviour is key before overhauling your website's visual design. Tools like Google Analytics, Hotjar or Microsoft Clarity can be used to track bounce rates, exit points, heat maps, and session recordings. 

Heat maps are helpful for highlighting the areas of your site that get the most interaction, revealing where design optimisations are needed. For example, while 100% of people land on a web page, this figure drops significantly if they have to scroll down or click through to other pages to find the products they're looking for. 

We use these heat maps to assess your site and optimise your pages so that up to 80% more shoppers are likely to scroll to find the product. Focus on eliminating high bounce rates on key landing pages by honing in, analysing how users engage, adjusting design elements to match their expectations, and increasing the conversion rate at each step.

Your UVP and the most important elements of the web page should be arranged and organised clearly and logically to guide the viewers' eyes through the content in a specific order of importance. A clean, intuitive design is vital for building trust and steering users through the conversion funnel. 

Design Phase

Our team uses tools like Figma or Sketch to plan the hierarchy of key website elements—CTAs, product imagery, and trust badges—ensuring they are positioned for maximum impact. At this stage, we prioritise creating a clear and intuitive user experience that builds trust and guides visitors through the conversion funnel.

Post-Launch A/B Testing

Once the site is live, tools like VWO and Optimizely allow us to conduct A/B tests, refining design choices based on user behaviour. This helps identify which elements and layouts resonate most with your audience, allowing for ongoing improvements that boost conversions.

Avoiding the Bounce

Typically, a website hero section (the top section of a landing page) with just an image and title greatly increases bounce rates. All it takes is one strong, clear sentence that explains the purpose of your website to attract customers. This confirms that users are heading in the right direction following their SERPs. 

Tips for improving customer confidence include Trust Badges, Social Proof, and Partners or Brand logos high up on the page, which builds trust early on. For example, if you're an eCommerce site with technology partners, make it obvious you're selling reputable products such as Apple or Sony. 

Build credibility on your site by displaying social proof, which is a strong incentive for other shoppers to trust your products. User-generated content (UGC), including reviews and testimonials, helps visitors feel more confident about purchasing from your site. 

The LION team recommends integrating Yotpo or Trustpilot to showcase customer feedback directly on product pages. Highlight customer testimonials near your CTAs to reinforce buyer confidence. Best practice is to use reviews strategically. For example, on mobile, showing a small snippet of reviews with a link to “read more” can save space while leveraging the persuasive power of social proofing your eCommerce website.

Mobile commerce now accounts for more than half of global eCommerce traffic, going from 43% in 2018 to a predicted 63% by 2028. The growth in eCommerce marketplaces, such as Amazon, Temu and eBay, has led to 73% of Australians using their mobiles to shop online. 

Now, more than ever, your website has to be prioritised for mobile-first design with snackable content and easy navigation. To maximise conversions on mobile devices, design your eCommerce site with a mobile-first approach before building out the desktop experience. This will ensure faster load times and accessibility on smaller screens. Keep mobile CTAs large enough to tap easily and reduce the number of form fields to streamline mobile checkouts.

If you build a desktop-first design and then try to fit mobile responses, you have to make certain compromises. However, starting with a mobile-first design makes the process seamless for building out your desktop design. Using tools like BrowserStack helps to test designs across different devices and browsers.

A seamless checkout process is high on the list for CRO-focused websites. Many eCommerce stores lose potential sales due to complicated checkout processes. Simplifying the process reduces friction and increases conversion rates. As a Shopify Plus Partner, LION Digital recommends Shopify sites, which are already optimised for conversion, and our team can migrate your site seamlessly without any downtime. 

Optimised Checkout Platforms

With so many shopping platforms out there, the checkout process must be optimised. Too many steps are distracting, and shoppers tend to drop off. Only using 1 to 2 steps with pre-filled data helps make it easier to buy. Amazon has Buy Now and completes orders via express checkouts, while Shopify 2.0 has a single-page checkout process. So rather than having to enter details, shipping, and confirm the sale, all the information is on a single page with pre-filled data.

Minimise Customer Effort

One primary reason for cart abandonment is forcing customers to create accounts, making express and guest checkout options vital on your website. We use tools such as Funnel.io to analyse your checkout funnel and identify where users drop off. We recommend increasing conversions by drawing traffic to land directly on product or collections pages rather than the homepage. Product page SERPs that lead to pages with an “Add to Cart” button above the fold offer more chances of sales. 

Ensure Secure Checkouts

Customers need to feel safe and secure when shopping online. So use trust signals like valid SSL certificates, trust badges and clear return policies to reassure customers they can safely shop with you. Ensure that all transactions are encrypted, and integrate one-click checkout options via Shopify's Shop Pay or PayPal Express to streamline the process. Also include a clear and concise privacy policy that outlines how you collect, use, and protect customer data.

Faster websites rank better in SERPs. Site speed is a critical factor in both user experience and search engine rankings. Slow load times can drastically impact conversions. 

The LION team uses tools such as GTMetrix, Google Lighthouse, Cloudflare and Google PageSpeed Insights to identify bottlenecks in your site speed and performance, so we can deliver recommendations for improving load times. We distil specific data into a digestible format for eCommerce business owners.

Many clients choose their eCommerce store's online themes based on appearance, yet a great-looking online store design with a slow load time will only repel customers. At LION, we clearly identify what the client is looking for visually and decipher the information before developing a concept design that performs. 

Personalisation enhances the user experience by tailoring product recommendations, promotions and onsite and offsite content based on previous customer behaviour. Implementing personalisation tools like Klaviyo for email marketing or Nosto for onsite personalisation can lead to higher engagement and conversions. 

Personalisation targets specific audiences with relevant onsite ads based on their verticals, named accounts and buyer behaviour and enhances the customer journey over time.

Klaviyo is an advanced email marketing and automation platform that analyses user behaviour data to send personalised messages and flows, while Nosto is a Shopify personalisation app that can provide real-time product recommendations based on user browsing and purchase history. Nosto is automated and much less complex to install, so when you next visit a site, you'll see your custom AI-generated product recommendations.

A well-optimised site requires regular evaluation to ensure it meets the current demands of the eCommerce market. This involves a checklist that helps you keep track of your competitors' optimisation practices, changing user habits, technical updates and eCommerce digital marketing trends. 

Another key aspect of CRO is testing different pages and elements split-tested with targeted audience segments. By starting with smaller groups, you can gather insights into what works best. Once certain changes are proven to boost conversions, you can gradually expand the test to be scaled up to a 50/50 split. When you're confident in the results, you can roll out the changes to your entire audience. 

Only focus on one element at a time, such as CTA colours or the wording of the headlines, to ensure you can accurately track which particular change led to noticeable improvements in conversions.

Redesigning your eCommerce site for conversions is much more than aesthetics. It's a strategic, data-driven process that requires continuous refinement. By leveraging the right tools and focusing on key areas, including user experience, trust, and personalisation, you can significantly boost your conversion rates and drive more sales for your online store.