As an e-commerce merchant, you would assume that the more website traffic you get, the more money you make, right. However, the number of people visiting your site does not provide enough information to determine its profitability. The number of conversions your website generates as well as how long it takes your customer to make the purchase are just as important.
Not Enough Time
If your customer does not spend enough time on your website, two things may be happening: You have a high-performing site and your customer makes purchases very quickly or your customer did not find what they wanted fast enough and left your site.
If the latter is the problem, then you need to spend more time on user experience.
The Three-Second Rule
The three-second rule refers to the length of time you have to capture the attention of a new website visitor. To receive feedback on your website, conduct a survey and ask a handful of test subjects the following questions:
- What brought you to the website?
- What product(s) is the website selling?
- How long did it take you to find what you wanted on the website?
- On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate the website’s visual appeal?
- On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate the product/service descriptions?
- What aspect did you find most frustrating about the website?
- Would you recommend this website to a friend?
For more survey questions, visit UXfortheMasses.com. Depending on the answers you receive, you may need to work on your website usability to streamline your purchasing pathway.
Too Much Time
In this day and age, most businesses have blogs that build customer trust, attract new website visitors, and build search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine results pages (SERP). However, this can also be harmful. People may visit your website simply to read news and end up not buying anything.
If this is your problem, consider increasing the links between your blog posts to your e-commerce website to guide customers to the point of sale. Make sure that once customers your shopping cart, they are only one page away from checkout.
The Sweet Spot
There are many factors to consider when figuring out the perfect amount of time people should be spending on your website. As a business owner, you need to determine what works best for your specific business model.
Sumall, a data analytics business, takes e-commerce conversions to a new level by computing the time spent on an e-commerce site with its sales. It concluded that you could calculate a sweet spot based on the products or services you offer. Dane Atkinson, the CEO of Sumall, says, “For most businesses, that sweet spot is around 3 minutes and 20 seconds.” He adds that an excessive amount of time, such as 14 minutes, can imply that the customer is more likely to browse your site than make a purchase.
Website Launch to Monthly Monitoring
Although it is easy to launch a website and hope that it performs well, it is also a horrible idea to do so without appropriate development and planning. Just like a retail store, you need to know where your customers come from and what compels them to make purchases. Even if you are absorbing this information for the first time, I suggest that you design your website with your users’ sweet spot in mind.
People were on my website for about 3 minutes on average and it’s gone downhill ever since. Not good for someone who works in the I.T. field everyday in hopes of gaining new clients. It’s very frustrating!
Making sure your website attracts visitors and converts well is a never-ending job. I’ve been frustrated too, but you can use that frustration to push yourself to make your website better. Good luck!