by Arianne Foulks

Aeolidia has a reputation for transformative work. The ROI for our website
design is substantial, when backed up by a strong marketing strategy. The
biggest thrill for me is when our projects result in a huge leap to the next
level for our clients. We aim to be a step towards 10x-ing a business, not just
a 10% improvement.

This document is the basics of what I've learned from 15 years of building
online shops for creatives. I've watched some businesses crash, some tread
water, and some soar ever higher. Through this, I've gotten a good idea of
what works and what doesn’t. Here’s what I’ve learned.

Table of Contents
Get More Traffic, Make More Sales 3
Consider Both Traffic and Conversion Rate 4
How Much Traffic Can You Expect? 6
What Kind of Conversion Rate Can You Expect? 7
Should I Focus On Traffic First, or Conversion First? 10
5 Ways to Get More High Quality Traffic 12
#1: Search Engine Optimization: 13
#2: Online Press and Publicity: 14
#3: Social Media: 15
#4: Offline Press & Publicity: 15
#5: Return Visitors and Word of Mouth: 16
5 Ways to Get Press and Publicity That Leads to Sales 17
1) Content Marketing 17
2) Pitching Your Business and Networking 18
3) Paid Traffic 18
4) Being Remarkable 19
5) Strategy 19
5 Ways to Make More Sales From Your Online Shop 20
1) Make high quality, strategic website content 20
2) Have a purposeful marketing strategy & evaluate traffic sources 22
3) Make the path to purchase clear 22
4) Be realistic about your product 24
5) Focus on website strategy 25
What Are Your Next Steps? 28
Getting Help 30
Resources 31

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Get More Traffic, Make More Sales

Your online shop has great potential, but I'm willing to bet it's underused
right now. The problem is figuring out how to make your website a steady,
profitable sales channel.

I've found that the answer to this problem is straightforward:

• You need more people to visit your website

• You need a higher percentage of those people to purchase

Get more traffic, make more sales.

Because the solution is simple doesn’t

Website traffic is how many
mean the process to get there is easy.
people visit your site.
It’s one thing to say you need more
traffic and a higher conversion rate.
Calculate your conversion rate by
It’s another thing to get there. Getting
finding the percentage of those
more traffic and increasing
visitors that purchase.
conversion rates are both long-term,
ongoing projects.
2 sales divided by 100 visitors
equals a 2% conversion rate.
This document will help you get
started with both: get more visitors to
your website and get more of them to buy something.

First, I want to explain how powerful combining more traffic with a higher
conversion rate is.

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Consider Both Traffic and Conversion Rate

Many growing businesses neglect their website, because it's working "well
enough.” But have you considered that if your website is only performing half
as well as it should, all your marketing efforts will be half as effective?

At a healthy 4% conversion rate, instead of 2%, every Facebook ad could

make you twice the money. Every influencer mention would double in value.
All your social media efforts would pay off twice as well as they are now.

Imagine you get 4,000 visitors a month at a 1% conversion rate. That’s 40

sales, and you want 200 sales per month. Here are three things you could try:

A) Drive more traffic: at a 1% conversion rate, you need 20,000 visitors.

B) Improve conversion rate: at 5%, you only need 4,000 visitors.
C) Do both: 20,000 visitors are now 1,000 sales at a 5% conversion rate.

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Option A and Option B each increase sales by five. If you do both options
(Option C), you go from 200 sales to 1,000 sales by multiplying traffic x
conversion. Optimizing both results in 25 times as many sales.

To seriously boost online sales, you need these two things working in
partnership. Yes, you need more traffic. But you also need to increase your
conversion rate.

That’s the formula for success.

So, are you ready to get started?


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How Much Traffic Can You Expect?

The sky is the limit when it comes to traffic. But how do you know what is
reasonable to expect?

To figure out how much traffic you

Now that we've learned a bit about
need, work the equation this way:
conversion rate, we can use that
information to see how much traffic
(Sales you want) ÷ (Your real or
we need.
expected conversion rate) =
(Visitors you need)
Let's assume a 1% conversion rate
for a new business that hasn't
Example:
optimized their site or grown a
30 sales ÷ 0.01 = 3,000 visitors
customer base yet.

How many sales do you want per month? If you want 30 sales, you'll need
3,000 visitors in a month.

If you have a 1% conversion rate, you can't expect ANY sales until you're
getting at least a couple hundred visitors to your site per month. When your
traffic is very low, it’s often a result of a poor (or no) marketing strategy, which
means your random visitors aren’t likely to become customers.

No fear, though, we’re going to get to the bottom of how to get visitors who
are excited to be on your site, and ready to shop!


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What Kind of Conversion Rate Can You Expect?

An average ecommerce website will have a conversion rate of around 1-3%.

Ideally, you want your website’s conversion rate to exceed that. A good
conversion rate would be around 4%. We’ve seen our clients with great
marketing strategies and a serious work ethic have higher conversion rates
of closer to 5-7%.

The best conversion rate I have ever seen on one of our client's sites was an
absolutely stunning 12%.

At 12% instead of 2%, you're now getting 6 times the sales and making 6
times the money. Wouldn't that be amazing?

Here's the thing, though. You aren't going to get a 12% conversion rate.
Do you know why this particular business did? It was because their website
was basically a secret when we launched it. All their traffic was loyal farmers'
market customers who visited their site to re-order.

The only way for them to keep this miraculous conversion rate would be to
not promote their business to anyone but their most loyal customers. This
obviously is not going to grow their business. Instead, the smart thing to do is
increase traffic. This causes the conversion rate to drop way down and sales
to go way up, which is how it should be.

What is a bit tricky about your conversion rate is that it is not one solid
number. Different segments of data have different conversion rates, and it’s
often more helpful to look at these individual conversion rates. You can do
this if you have ecommerce stats set up in Google Analytics.

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Take a look below at a small slice of a real report for one of our clients. See
how many conversion rates there are?

There are so many ways to look at segments of your traffic:

• Desktop / Mobile
• Traffic coming from Google / social media / email
• Men / Women
• Age groups
• Geographical locations
• ...and many more!

All these different traffic streams will have different conversion rates. If, for
instance, Instagram traffic converts at 1% and Facebook traffic converts at
5%, it might be time to up your Facebook game and spend less time on
Instagram. Or to come up with a better Instagram strategy.


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If men buy your product like crazy, but you've been talking to women, it may
be time to be more inclusive with your marketing.

If you see that your desktop traffic converts at 3% and people on a phone
convert at 0.5%, it may be time to improve how your site works on mobile.

Maybe not, though. It could be that you've just been sending a terrible
mobile traffic stream to your site, and the site itself is fine.

For example, if 50% of your traffic came from poorly targeted Facebook ads
that converted at 0.2%, that drags down your overall conversion rate. Even if
the other half of your traffic converted at 4%, your overall conversion rate is
2.1%. But you can expect well-targeted traffic streams to convert much better
than that.

Newsletter/email traffic often has a very high conversion rate—these are

your repeat customers, and the backbone of your business. Don't neglect
your mailing list strategy!

You can't always change one thing and expect it to dramatically improve your
conversion rate. You may get lucky—maybe your shipping costs were the
only thing stopping people from purchasing. But more often, it will take
multiple optimizations.

Conversion rate is an important thing to be aware of, but your main focus
should be on actual income; the dollar amount your website makes you.

Remember: conversion rate indicates where you can make improvements.

Your sales and profit are how you gauge your business’ health.


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Should I Focus On Traffic First, or Conversion First?

Helen on our team does stats analysis for each of our clients before and after
our website redesigns. This way, we can see where opportunities are being
missed and improvements can be made. She tells me that our clients tend to
fall into certain buckets, and this is her approach to conversion rate
optimization based on traffic:

Under 1000 visits per month: It is too early to be optimizing. If you have an
absolutely dreadful website, bring it up to a basic standard of best practices.
Focus on getting traffic and gathering data. Make sure you're set up to collect
good data that won't lead you astray.

When we analyze sites at this level of traffic, we offer caveats about making
assumptions based on preliminary data. We work with many business
owners at this level, making sure to add in traffic-generating support services.

1000-2000 visits per month: You can start looking at what is working well
and what is yielding poor results. You can begin using this information to
focus your traffic-generating efforts.

For our clients at this level, we're able to identify problems that could be
lowering conversion. We can identify content that is working especially well
and should be highlighted. The data usually inspires many hypotheses to test
and other strategic next steps.

Business owners at this stage often don't know where to focus to get to the
next level and our data-based recommendations are a big help. This is a
great time to optimize your website to improve conversions, either with or
without our team.


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Over 2000 visits per month: This seems to be an unofficial threshold that
indicates an established business. At this point we usually have meaty data,
diverse traffic sources, and fascinating insights. It's also a point at which
moving the needle even a little can make a big difference in revenue.

Business owners at this stage are often overwhelmed by their growing

business. They may not have realized that some things that were working
before aren't working anymore. Or they might discover untapped potential in
areas they had overlooked.

Sites at this level should have stats analysis and conversion rate optimization
as part of their ongoing ecommerce strategy. Aeolidia's initial report helps
provide a framework for doing that.

Businesses at this stage usually see notable improvement from their

investment with us in strategically redesigning their websites. At this point,
it's best to call in professionals to take your site from okay to amazing.


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5 Ways to Get More High Quality Traffic

More traffic is great. But take some time to consider the quality of your
traffic. Keep in mind that your conversion rate will be high when your
marketing efforts are targeted to your perfect customer. Conversions will go
down if you advertise in the wrong places. Getting 30,000 new visitors from a
motorcycle enthusiast website isn’t going to help a ceramicist.

You want visitors to your site who understand the type of products you sell.
It’s easier to distinguish yourself by not appealing to the masses, and instead
speaking to your own group of likeminded people.

For instance, consider Finspo, a business that creates wearable mermaid

tails. You can’t just tell a random person on the street about Finspo and
expect them to bust out their wallet. Advertising someplace for everyone to
see will likely be a waste of Finspo’s ad dollars. Advertising in places where
they know mermaid tail lovers are hanging out will pay off well, such as a sci-
fi/fantasy conference where people dress in costume, or a mermaid-loving
Facebook group.

Your business doesn’t need to be wildly unusual to want targeted traffic.

Most readers of a blog like Design*Sponge, for example, are interested in
design, so a business selling design-oriented products would much prefer the
targeted traffic of a Design*Sponge editorial post than a mention on a
website that caters to an audience that doesn't value design.

To reach a targeted audience that works for you, try these five things:

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#1: SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION:

Search engine traffic is great. For one thing, people on search engines are
looking for what you sell—they can be very motivated customers. Search
engine visitors are, by nature, searching for something.

For another thing, once you get some momentum with search, it feels like
free traffic. You've done the work optimizing your site and creating content,
and now search traffic just comes to you steadily.

Take a look at what people are searching for to find you. If it's mostly the
name of your business or the name of your products, that tells you that your
search traffic is people who already know about you. Ideally, you'd be getting
a lot of traffic from people who haven't heard of you, but want what you sell.

Have a strategy for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and getting ranked
highly for your most important keywords on Google. You will want to target
niche keywords; the ones your very best customers would use to find you.

"Flaxseed body lotion" is a much easier keyword to rank highly in Google for
than "lotion" or "skincare," for instance. And people searching for "flaxseed
body lotion" are much more likely to buy your flaxseed body lotion than
people who were searching just for "lotion"—they may have had something
else in mind.

• Check out Shopify's video series about SEO

• Learn more from Google
• Set up a Google Webmaster Tools account

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#2: ONLINE PRESS AND PUBLICITY:

This is any time someone with an audience of their own is talking about you.
There is a lot of buzz about "influencers" now, and an influencer is a person
with an audience.

Maybe they have a blog with a readership. Maybe they write a popular
newsletter. Maybe they have an Instagram or Facebook account with a high
following. If they can influence a large group of people, they're an influencer.

It is hard to grow when you keep to yourself. Communicating with your

existing audience can only take you so far. Having influencers link to your
website is an effective way to expand your reach and introduce yourself to
new potential customers.

Get editorial features, do giveaways on Instagram, or guest post on blogs

that you know your perfect customers are reading.

Pitch your business to niche publications. You want to find just the right
people when you reach out like this, so make sure to focus on influencers
who have an audience that is a good fit for your product.

One single mention isn't going to catapult your business (unless it's
something like a just-right Oprah-style mention—and even then, you'll need
to keep momentum going). You'll find that attention online fades rapidly, so
having a plan for repeated exposure to new audiences is key. Build on your
previous publicity.

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#3: SOCIAL MEDIA:

There are two ways to attack social media. The one that comes to peoples'
minds first is setting up social media accounts and posting regularly yourself.
This is an important thing to do, but also consider making the content on
your website easily shareable, too. Let your customers do some of the work
for you.

If your customers and fans can share content from your site on their own
social media profiles, you expand out of your own circles and meet new
people. Make sure to encourage social sharing from your site, and consider
providing tools to let people do this automatically.

When marketing on social media, make sure you are where your ideal
customers are, and that you're sending a message that resonates with them.

#4: OFFLINE PRESS & PUBLICITY:

Create general brand recognition by promoting your business offline, in print

publications, at in-person events, and/or your own brick and mortar store.
This could include TV appearances, podcast ads or interviews, or any
publicity that isn't clickable straight to your site.

This is one of the trickier methods. Getting people from print or TV over to
their phone or computer to type in your URL or to Google you is a lot to
expect.

When you do meet customers in person, be sure to have marketing materials

to direct them back to your site. This could be a postcard or business card, or
a newsletter signup sheet.


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I call this "brand recognition" rather than considering it a direct method of
driving traffic. This tends to be more about people having heard of you. They
may not take action at the time, but if you appear on their radar more than a
time or two, they will feel familiar when they do finally interact with you
online.

#5: RETURN VISITORS AND WORD OF MOUTH:

Bring in return visitors by making good use of your mailing list and providing
a great customer experience. This is absolutely vital for an ecommerce
business. When we analyze our clients' stats, their repeat visitors nearly
always have a higher conversion rate than any other stream of traffic, and
they often spend more. In many cases, a brand's most loyal customers will
spend huge amounts of money over many years.

The first step to customer retention is to make sure that your customer's
experience is worth talking about. This means the ease of use of your
website, the email followup about orders, the speed of shipment, the
unboxing experience, and the product itself.

Once your customer has made a purchase, you're not done! Your
relationship has just begun. Stay in touch with your customers by using a
mailing list, offering special incentives, and showing that you value them.
Always be approachable and engaged with customers on social media. You
may want to share customer photos on social media or your website.

If you exceed your customer's expectations, they're not only likely to come
back to order again, but they may tell their friends. A word of mouth
recommendation is golden, and you should strive to be remarkable.


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5 Ways to Get Press and Publicity That Leads to Sales

I can think of five main ways to get the wheels in motion for all the above
types of traffic:

1) CONTENT MARKETING

"Content" is the information you put out in the world that people can engage
with. This could be blog posts, videos, photos, website text, social media
posts. Basically anything anyone can view in some way.

A helpful or entertaining blog on your site, for instance, can help with every
one of the five ways to get traffic. Google loves blogs. Influencers can share
your blog posts. Blogs work hand in hand with social media. Magazine and
TV opportunities can be sparked by topics on your blog. Return visitors may
keep coming back to read your blog.

Post regularly to a blog on your site that is specific to what your target
customer is interested in. This will make you show up on Google when these
people are searching for their interests or trying to solve problems.

Adjust the copy/content on your website to speak directly to your target

customer, and remove anything that’s trying to pander to a wide audience.
This will help with retaining the traffic you get, and making sure Google
shows your site to the right people.

If you don't want to blog, there is other content that can be optimized for
Google and social sharing. Optimize your About page, product descriptions,
and any informational pages on your site.


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2) PITCHING YOUR BUSINESS AND NETWORKING

Pitching is when you introduce yourself to someone to let them know why
they may be interested in your business. Rather than waiting for opportunity
to strike, get to know the people who can be a valuable resource to you. Help
them out, make a deal, provide value. Pitching can help with online and
offline press, social media, and word of mouth.

Pitching like this can include sending emails, calling stores, introductions on
social media, trade shows, and other opportunities to directly sell.

One tried and true method of expanding your reach is to collaborate with a
non-competing business owner. If they have a just-right audience, you can
promote each other's work in a win-win way. Create a joint product, sell your
products bundled together, do a giveaway, or write on each other's blogs.

3) PAID TRAFFIC

You can pay for almost any kind of traffic. Google search ads, retargeting ads,
Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest ads. You can pay influencers to mention
your product, and you can pay for ads in magazines, billboards, and on TV.

Remember that the more targeted your paid traffic is, the better it's going to
pay off. Don't start spending a lot of money on paid traffic until you find a
formula that works for you. Get the right channel, the right message, the
right audience.

You should evaluate the return on investment for each paid ad so you can
make wise advertising decisions.

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4) BEING REMARKABLE

There's no underestimating what having a remarkable business does to

boost traffic in all these areas. If your business makes people want to talk
about it, the effort you have to expend in each of the categories above is
minimized.

That's why we don't cut corners at Aeolidia. We make sure each project we do
for each client is transformative, remarkable, and able to take them where
they want to be next.

Most of being remarkable is about understanding your target customer. Be

familiar enough with your audience that you can keep them engaged with
your newsletter and your social media feeds, and make them want to share
your business with their friends.

5) STRATEGY

The businesses that do well don't sit back and wait for all this to happen.
They target the areas they want to focus on, then pursue specific goals in
each area.

Getting ranked highly in search engines, for example, isn't usually an

accident. Hire an SEO expert to guide you through finding the right keywords
and applying them to your site.

Create a mailing list strategy and design your site to funnel traffic through
your newsletter to checkout and back again.

Analyze your data to see what's working and what to improve or drop.


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5 Ways to Make More Sales From Your Online Shop

Once you have great products, great content, and great traffic, you'll want to
make sure your website is in tip top shape. Without an optimized website,
you are losing sales every day.

Conversion rate is a combination of so many factors. The website itself, yes,

but also where the traffic is coming from and what the potential customers'
expectations are. The communication in the marketing and on the site. The
pricing, the photography, the cost of shipping, and the type of product. Why
isn’t your website converting as well as you'd like? Let’s look at 5 main ways to
improve it.

1) MAKE HIGH QUALITY, STRATEGIC WEBSITE CONTENT

Maybe your website design and layout is fine, but your content is not doing
its job. Your photography and all the text on your site needs to be the next
best thing to seeing your product in person and trying it out. You need to
interest people and draw them in. Consider the quality and desirability of
everything on your site.

Product photography: You need clear, detailed, and beautiful pictures of

your products from all angles, and in use. Don’t skimp on this! Make sure
photos help your customer picture the item in her life. Photos should make
the size of the item understandable, and show the true colors.

Unless you’re an expert, hire some help. Dark, small, blurry pictures will be
the death of your online business. That’s why we we have a photographer on
our team, and won't start a project until we're sure the photography is top
notch.


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Product descriptions: People want to know what size things are, what
they’re made of, and what colors you offer, sure. But you also need to tell the
customer a story that will help her picture owning your product. All text
needs to be readable: left aligned, with type a comfortable size, and with
paragraph breaks.

Storytelling: Selling is, at its heart, storytelling. Your customers don't want to
know about features, they want to know the benefits. They want to feel that
your product will solve their problem or improve their situation in some way
—or just light up their day.

Home page: Can a new visitor tell exactly what it is you sell, and why it's right
for them? The text and photos on the homepage should be compelling and
clear. Too often, I end up on a website and I just don't get it. What is your
business about, and why should we care?

Video content: High quality video can be a great way to sell your product
when you can't do it in person. Make sure it's not too long, it provides
valuable information, and that it gets your point across.

Social proof: Adding customer reviews or testimonials to your site is a

fantastic way to build trust. Customers have come to expect reviews on
ecommerce websites. You can also find ways to show how many fans you
have or how devoted they are on your site. Do you have any endorsements
by celebrities, experts, or leaders in your field?

Signs of life: Make sure all your news or dated content is up to date. If I see
the last blog update was five months ago, I wonder if the shop is still in
business. Make sure any blog posts, news, social media feeds, lists of events
and sales, etc. are current. If people see virtual cobwebs, they'll leave.


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2) HAVE A PURPOSEFUL MARKETING STRATEGY & EVALUATE
TRAFFIC SOURCES

When driving traffic to your site, you can be broad or you can be targeted.
Being targeted is a smart method. If you’re talking only to your perfect niche
of people, your conversion rate will be high. Those people already get it, and
need less convincing.

Before writing off un-targeted traffic completely, weigh the quality versus the
quantity. For example, if Google sends you a huge amount of un-targeted
traffic, it may be okay that the conversion rate is low. Because the overall
number of people who convert is good.

Even if Google is your lowest converting stream of traffic, it could make you
the most money. And since search engine traffic (once you’ve built it up) can
be low cost and low maintenance, you may be very happy with your low
conversion rate there.

3) MAKE THE PATH TO PURCHASE CLEAR

Review the path from home page to checkout to increase the number of
customers who make it through to purchase.

Clear navigation: Make your shop categories boringly obvious. No “cute”

category names, please! Do you have a jewelry category? Call it “jewelry,” not
“baubles.” Have a section for children? Call it “children” or “kids,” not “minis.”
Adding personality to your site is good, but not when it masks needed
information. The names of each of your product lines may be meaningful to
you, but imagine how someone new to your business will interpret them.

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You don't need a lot of product categories in your website navigation if you
don't sell many products. It can get frustrating for customers to only get a
few results on each click. If you have thousands of products, don't make
customers wade through a category like "gifts." Instead, break it down by
price, recipient, occasion, etc.

User experience and trust: Make it simple for customers to shop, find info,
and ask questions. Make the shopping cart/checkout link easy to find. People
are expecting this in the top right corner, with a cart icon. Don’t hide it, move
it, name it something else, or give it a confusing icon.

Particularly for small businesses, your customer may feel anxious ordering
from you. Will you really ship the product? On time? What if they don’t like it
when they get it? Make sure that your return, exchange, and shipping policies
are easy to find (usually a link in the footer). And easy to read (cut out the
jargon and be straightforward about how things work).

Answer questions before they’re asked, with sizing charts, secure checkout
padlocks and a FAQ.

Your customers need an easy way to get in touch with you if they have
questions or concerns. Provide contact information: a customer support
phone number, live chat, and/or email contact. A FAQ can also be helpful for
self-service.

Shipping options & cost: High shipping costs are one of the top reasons
people abandon carts. Lowering shipping costs can be a huge help.
Customers decide what they'll pay for your product when you set the value
on the product detail page. Then, when it suddenly costs more at checkout, it
can feel like too much.


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Payment options: Offer payment options that your customers prefer to use.
For instance, if you only offer PayPal, you could be losing a lot of people who
don’t use that service. Accelerated checkouts like Apple Pay and Shopify Pay
make it easy for mobile users to check out.

Ease of checkout: If there is anything on the path to purchase that could

confuse or distract your customers, you are losing some people.

Is there anything you can do to make checkout easy and understandable? Do

you ship internationally? Do you offer gift wrap? Is it simple to change
quantities or remove things from the cart? Do you require customers to
create an account? Your keyword here should be “foolproof.”

4) BE REALISTIC ABOUT YOUR PRODUCT

Average ecommerce sites are selling products that are easy to buy. If your
product has a higher barrier to purchase, you can't expect an average
conversion rate. For instance, the higher the cost of a product, usually the
lower the conversion rate. There are just more people ready to drop $30 than
$300.

You can still make good money with a low conversion rate. Maybe your
product price is high enough that you don't need as many people to
purchase. Or you get enough volume that it's okay if conversion rates are
low. Here are some examples of how to make tricky products do better:

Products that take work on the customer’s end. For instance, if you sell a
personalized product based on your customer’s photo, you’re asking them to
do a lot of work to place the order. They may put it off or decide not to do it
at all. Can you think of some ways to make customizing easier?


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Products that appeal to the other senses. Do you have a product that
people need to touch, smell, or taste to know if they want it? You need to
work hard to get past those barriers online. Samples, testimonials, videos, a
satisfaction guarantee, beautiful photography – all these things could help.

Non-impulse buy products. Maybe you sell a luxury item with a high price
point. Or an enormous item that is complicated to ship. If the purchase feels
daunting to your customer, you’ll need to work harder than a business that
sells products that can be purchased on a whim.

There isn’t a large enough market for your product. Perhaps your product
is so niche that you aren’t able to find enough of the right people to want to
buy it. Before you blame your website, have you validated your product
itself? If people buy it at craft fairs, markets, pop-up shops, at trade shows
and/or on Etsy or Amazon, you know you can sell it yourself online. What if
selling online is your first step, and you don't yet know if people want your
product? It's worth testing the waters before driving traffic to your website.

5) FOCUS ON WEBSITE STRATEGY

Of course, it will be harder to sell even the most amazing products from a
website that’s not user-friendly. People need to immediately understand
what’s going on when they see your site. It has to be mobile-friendly. The
layout can't be confusing–these are all things that could be losing you sales.

Remember that people are distracted and have short attention spans online.
Merely adding your products to a pre-made design theme is usually not
enough. Aeolidia steps in with our clients to create websites that are
designed to lead your customers from home page through checkout.
How do we do this, and how can you improve your own site? Read on!


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Add site functionality: One of the things that we like about Shopify is that
you can add functionality to your site through their app store. Shopping cart
abandonment apps are a good way to get someone who dropped off of your
site with products in their cart to come back and finish checkout. Adding
cross-sells, up-sells, promotions, or bribes may be a way to get more value
out of a single customer.

Optimize site speed: Don’t let slow web hosting drive your customers away.
Is your site loading quickly? If not, find out if there is a problem with your
code, your host, or your content. Sometimes slow loading can be caused by
images or videos on your site.

Google's PageSpeed Insights is a useful free tool to see how your website is
performing.

Evaluate and improve user experience: User experience, or UX, is how it

feels for your visitors to interact with your website. If you are the only person
who has evaluated your website, there is probably a lot you're missing. Have
some people test it out!

You can do this the old school way – grab a friend or neighbor or your
grandma and sit her down with your website. Assign her a task, such as “find
and purchase some turquoise leggings.” Have your tester talk out loud about
her thought process as she shops. You can uncover some interesting things
doing this. Sometimes something that makes perfect sense to you can be
confusing to people new to your site.

Is the “add to cart” button nice and big? Can customers find their cart after
they add something to it? Are choices during checkout clear? Pay attention
during the cart and checkout steps. Here is where you can see what may be

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making customers abandon their cart. Go through the full shopping and
checkout process on your site yourself. This way, you’ll be able to catch
anything that is confusing, surprising, or broken. Don’t rely on your cart
software blindly.

You can also do this on a larger scale with sites like UserTesting. There are
also services, such as Mouseflow and Hotjar that will create video depictions
of your actual customers using your actual site. So you can "see" where they
get confused, dither, or give up.

If your audience is engaged with you, you may want to try a survey. Be sure
each question on your survey is written so that the answers will be
actionable. Avoid filler questions which will waste people's time (and yours!).

Bring in the pros: If you've moved on to steering your ship, rather than
tackling website work, bring in your A-team, Aeolidia! We'd love to take care
of website strategy and data analysis for you.

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What Are Your Next Steps?

If reviewing your data feels like hard work, keep in mind that analyzing your
data lets you figure out how to work smarter, not harder. Take a good look at
the traffic sources and pages on your site that are converting well for you,
and see how to maximize those. You're likely to find that you're putting effort
into a traffic source that isn't profitable. Which gives you license to drop that
work entirely!

You may think you aren’t getting enough sales, but it’s going to be hard to get
where you want if you don’t know where that is. Is there a number of sales or
a dollar amount which will be sustainable for your business? What about a
second goal number that would feel like success to you? Before you start
getting into the math of website conversion, get clear on what you need (the
minimum) and what you want (the sales goal). You can then take that range
and see what can be changed to get there.

What efforts are you making now to reach your goal? What do you feel is
working, and what may be a waste of time? How much money do you bring
in now, and how much of an increase will take you to where you want to be?
What’s a reasonable timeline to try to accomplish this in?

If you’ve done your math, let’s think about what's next:

Okay, barely anyone visits my site. Now what?

If your website is terrible and no one knows about it, use this time to make a
website that’s worth sending people to. If your website is pretty good, but no
one knows about it, it’s time to increase your marketing efforts.

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I have a lot of visitors, but low sales. Now what?

Congrats, you’re getting the word out and the website is pretty busy. But why
aren’t they buying? Your website needs some adjustments in user-
friendliness and in how engaging it is. If you have the budget to hire our
team, this is a great way to capitalize on that traffic. If your business hasn't
been profitable enough yet to be able to invest, you can use the ideas in this
document to make improvements yourself.

My site is good, I get a lot of traffic, and my conversion rate is average.

How can I improve?

Congratulations! You’re average! Wait, I’m sure you don’t want to settle for
average, right?!

Rather than trying to get more people to your site, it would be wise to try to
convert more of the people you’re already getting. Once you’ve improved
your site (and thus, your conversion rate), any new visitors you’re able to
bring in will be more valuable to you. More visitors AND a higher conversion
rate would be great.

This can be a fun spot to be in, because you’re no longer struggling, but can
instead refine, improve, and watch those numbers go steadily up. This is
when working with Aeolidia's strategic design team can pay off the most.

There are other pieces of this puzzle once you've mastered traffic. Aeolidia
works with you to raise conversion rate, increase average order value, and
improve customer retention. Let's talk about how we can build on your
success!


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Getting Help

Do you want to know the real way to increase online sales? It’s not a tweak
here, a tweak there, or any kind of fiddling around.

There are no good shortcuts.

The real way to grow your business is to review your entire online presence
as a cohesive unit. Then, rather than tweaking what’s there, build a new tool
that will propel you toward your goals. The tool I’m talking about is your
website. It’s also your brand identity: your logo and all the strategy that goes
into the look and voice of your brand.

Adjusting what's ineffective is only going to create incremental change. To

see BIG change, you need to look at where your business stands now.
Consider your goals, then build the tool that will get you there.

That’s where we come in! Are you wondering if we’d be a good fit?

• Do you own a creative or design-oriented product-based business?

• Are you gaining traction in growing a customer base?
• Would you like to be making more sales online?
• Are you ready to get to the next level with your business?

Yes? You can’t afford not to invest in your business right now. Things change
quickly, and what worked a few years ago is not going to keep you
competitive now.

Your business is at that tipping point where the return on investment for
hiring Aeolidia can be huge. Let’s talk!


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Resources

See an example of how strong traffic and a great conversion rate lead to
fantastic sales in this case study of Handcrafted HoneyBee.

If you don't know who your ideal customer is, or what she values, my online
course about building a strong brand foundation will set you on the right
course. It's the first step to take before tackling anything in this document.

Our Facebook group for creative business owners is a great place to get
some peer support and advice from people who have solved the problems
you’re having now. Request to join here.


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 MEET YOUR A-TEAM
Better yet, your A-Z team. We’re the complete package because we can’t bear to imagine a
beautiful website without a cohesive brand identity, a pretty design wrapped around poor
content, or a perfect website with no customers.

Brand Identity: You—yes you—are more than a beautiful logo. We design those,
too, but more importantly we create thoughtful and engaging brand identities that
last and last. We also help with business naming.

Print & Packaging Design: We delight in creating real experiences for customers
using business stationery, product packaging, and printed marketing materials, as
well as surface design for the products themselves.

Product Photography: Oh, snap! Presentation is everything, and photography is

essential in bringing your product to picture-perfect life as your customer decides
whether or not to make a purchase.

Copywriting: You have a story and a mission, but how will you tell it? Professional
copywriting gets your message across in a way that speaks truth about you, your
voice, and your brand.

Website Design & Development: We know that for a creative business like yours,
an online shop is not just a site, it’s a home. Aeolidia is peerless when it comes to
creating websites that engage visitors and boost sales.

Marketing & SEO: Your ideas are too amazing to keep to yourself. Launch them
with laser-beam precision using a tailored marketing plan that’ll help better your
presence and boost your media exposure and sales.

Please email hello@aeolidia.com to ask how we can transform your business!