In this Q&A interview series, our very own Hot Mess Head Dreamer, Angela Froschl, and Project Manager Karla Bouwer answer top questions we get asked by store owners about conversion rate optimization.

In the first installment, we are diving in at the beginning of this very important story - what is conversion rate, and why does it matter?

We will also be covering these handy tips:

❓ Where can you find your conversion rate stats in Shopify?

❓ What time span should you be looking at for conversion rates?

So without further ado, let's look at what a conversion rate is!👀

Conversion rate is the percentage of visitors who visit your store and take an action, e.g., make a purchase. It is worked out as the number of orders divided by the number of visitors. As an example, if you have 1000 visitors and 100 orders, your conversion rate would be 0.1% (100 / 1000). Before you start panicking🤯 - the benchmark conversion rate in ecommerce is actually lower than you might think - 2%. So this is what you can compare yourself against, mkay?

Now, there are many factors that contribute to conversion rates including website design, how easy it is for customers to complete the conversion, and how your site looks on mobile. We will be diving into more of that later in this series.

The bottom line here is that you want to make sure that your website is set up in such a way that it is as easy as possible for your visitors to be navigating, and as easy as possible for them to take the action you want them to take, like make a purchase!

Here's the thing - you need to truly understand conversion rate as well as all the other factors like traffic volume and average cart total before you start tweaking around with conversion rate optimization.

So slow down there, boutique owner, let’s not rush ahead!

To find your conversion rate🕵️‍♀️, Shopify has conversion rates built directly into their Analytics dashboard! To find your conversion rate on Shopify hover over “Analytics” then select "Conversion Rate" from the drop-down menu. You can also search for conversion metrics like revenue per visitor to see how much each customer spends in your store.

But where your traffic numbers are low, like less than 100 visitors a day, checking in your conversion rate over one month or 90 days will give a better idea of your true conversion rate. Otherwise you are just not getting enough orders to give an accurate picture of what's going on.

The takeaway here is that you need traffic in order to have enough data to make decisions. If you aren’t there yet, check out our resources on Driving Traffic. 

And you want to be checking in regularly to monitor results, right? Every little change can make a difference, positively and negatively, so you need to be checking up on how any changes you make affect your conversions.

Every single thing counts - even just changing the color or the placement of a button. So keep an eye on it, and make sure that you just make one change at a time, otherwise you will never know which change was the thing that made the difference.

Makes sense, huh?😃

We really hope this is landing for you.

Conversion rate is massively important because it has a direct bearing on your sales and revenue. And a tiny increase in your conversion rate can make a huge difference when it comes to your revenue and your sales!

You definitely don’t want them landing on your store and then bouncing off without making a purchase. Obviously that is part of ecommerce, but the point is you want to optimize this as much as you can to make the most of that investment.

Optimization is also about staying ahead of how your customer is evolving. You need to make sure that your customer journey reflects what your customer is looking for and what they need, and that the expectation translates in their experience of your store - all the way through to a purchase. That needs to be as smooth and as optimized as possible. So you need to know what your customer wants, and what barriers there might be in their mind to making that purchase, and then you do as much as you can to remove those barriers in your store.

Make it easy for them to buy from you!