Why most e-commerce websites don’t convert as well as their owners want them to?

The answer is simple — brand owners are trying to do too much at once. Too much on the homepage, too much on the product page, too much in the header… but is that even enough?

Thinking that you have to do “everything” you’ve set your mind on (or saw on your competitors’ pages) puts you in the wrong mindset—you think that all the items you’ve listed to include on your website are equally important for your visitors. But they aren’t.

And the more items you have on your list to put on your pages, the more distractions you have for yourself and for your visitors.

You get distracted

…by trying to make the sections/elements better, thinking what more could you put in, instead of researching what is the one thing that is the biggest contributor to people buying from you.

Your visitors get distracted

…by the content of your pages. Content in itself isn’t distracting. But the existence of content, when you are in the search for specific information, could be distracting. How come?

People hope that somewhere on your website lie hidden the answers they’ve been looking for. When in “search mode” they keep they eyes peeled for potential keywords, icons, images. Anything that may hint the answer is near.

That’s why they click here, tap there… but after a few tries, if they haven’t gotten the information they needed, they lose hope. And leave.

The solution lies at the intersection between the goals of you two

You and your potential customer both want a certain problem to be solved.

And you have the solution — your product. Creating it was your first job in your entrepreneurial journey.

Once they’ve landed on your website, visitors want to know if the solution works and is the right one for them.

Their job is to find the answers to the above questions.

Your new job, after creating your product, is to help people find these same answers, so that they could confidently add to cart and survive through your checkout.

You both have a common playground — your website

Your visitors scroll and click around, as if they are playing a treasure hunt.

You, on the other hand, are the designer of the treasure hunt game.

In the case of e-commerce, both parties win if the “treasure hunt” is as obvious and as easy as possible.

How could you make your website easier for your visitors? How could you make it clearer for them what is your brand about? How could you make it obvious what does your product do and how would they benefit from it?

That’s your new job as a brand manager.

If you’ve read this far, you’ll like my guide to discovering missed revenue opportunities on your Shopify store!