How Ecommerce Website Optimization Increases Sales

With a few techniques, you can optimize your ecommerce website to better capture users’ attention, decrease cart abandonment, and boost sales.

There’s a reason professional race cars need a team of engineers and mechanics behind the scenes. Adjusting a wing by half a degree or changing tire pressure by even 0.1 PSI can shave precious seconds off lap times and mean the difference between champagne showers or watching from the pit lane.

Similarly for ecommerce businesses, behind-the-scenes action helps improve your website so internet browsers turn into website visitors, and visitors turn into buyers. And while perfection is unattainable, website optimization helps close the gap.

Here’s an ecommerce website optimization guide to improve your site’s user experience, visibility, and ultimately, conversion rate.

What is ecommerce website optimization?

Ecommerce website optimization involves refining key areas, like content and usability, to improve your website’s performance. Michael Steele, CEO and founder of growth marketing agency Flywheel Digital, cites two main optimization categories: conversion rate optimization (CRO) and search engine optimization (SEO).

Ecommerce CRO involves improving web pages to increase the percentage of visitors who take a desired action, like making a purchase or signing up for a newsletter. The goal of SEO is to improve a website’s content and structure to boost visibility and rankings on search engine results pages (SERPs) to attract more organic traffic.

10 ways to optimize your ecommerce website

1. Unbundle your conversion rate
2. Gather quantitative and qualitative data
3. Improve site speed
4. Optimize for mobile
5. Improve the checkout process
6. Use A/B testing
7. Update metadata
8. Optimize content for SEO
9. Personalize the shopping experience
10. Consider brand personality

Here are 10 tips to optimize your ecommerce store, combining CRO and SEO principles. Some can directly lead to more sales, while others contribute to long-term growth:

1. Unbundle your conversion rate

The average ecommerce conversion rate is 2.5% to 3%. If your ecommerce store has a low conversion rate, you need to understand exactly where shoppers are dropping off on their path to purchase—also known as an ecommerce funnel. Michael suggests unbundling your conversion rate into four component parts:

• View product rate. How many visitors look at a product page?

• Add-to-cart (ATC) rate. How many visitors add a product to their cart?

• ATC to checkout rate. Out of the visitors who add a product to their cart, how many reach the checkout page?

• Checkout-to-purchase rate. Out of the visitors who reach the checkout page, how many complete their purchase?

Analyzing these components separately can help you identify exactly where potential customers are dropping off and prioritize optimizations accordingly. For example, you might find that your view-product rate is high, but your add-to-cart rate is low. This could indicate an issue with product descriptions, brand trust, or button placement.

“Unbundling the metric helps make it actionable,” Michael says. “For example, if you have a low add-to-cart rate, are there UX or value proposition tweaks you can make to encourage people to add things to their cart?” Or, if many visitors are reaching checkout but the purchase rate remains low, there may be issues with your checkout flow.

2. Gather quantitative and qualitative data

Use Shopify analytics and Google Analytics to gather quantitative performance data, like traffic and product page views. Michael says segmenting and comparing your data is an effective way to understand where your specific friction points lie. Some examples include:

• Comparing mobile versus desktop performance in the checkout funnel

• Analyzing conversion rates from social traffic versus search traffic

• Reviewing data for new versus returning customers

Then, delve into qualitative data, including screen recordings (which allow you to monitor how users navigate your site) or feedback from online shoppers.

Once you analyze these performance metrics, you should have a clear picture of what needs your attention. For example, if you find desktop users completing their purchase more than mobile users, you may want to optimize your mobile checkout. Or, if new customers convert better than returning customers, you could implement a loyalty program to encourage repeat purchases.

3. Improve site speed

Google recommends a page load speed of less than two seconds. In fact, a visitor’s bounce rate almost triples if your page takes more than three seconds to load.

Check your site performance metrics using Shopify’s Web Performance Dashboard or Google Search Console’s PageSpeed Insights tool. These tools also give you strategies for improving page speed, including optimizing images, using a content delivery network (CDN), or implementing lazy loading.

4. Optimize for mobile

Seventy-eight percent of online retail traffic comes from mobile visitors. That means if your website isn’t optimized for mobile devices, you could be alienating the majority of your customers. Additionally, Google prioritizes mobile-friendly websites in its search results, so your rank could be suffering.

Michael notes that most designers work in Figma, which allows you to tailor your website’s layout, content, and functionality for smaller screens with responsive design, touch-friendly navigation (like hamburger menus and large buttons), and vertical orientation. This creates a seamless customer experience from desktop to mobile.

“When you’re designing in Figma, you should be designing in mobile first and then porting that to desktop. When you’re testing, you should be testing in a mobile development environment first,” Michael advises.

5. Improve the checkout process

Have you ever gone into a store, picked out a few items, and then abandoned your purchase because the checkout line was too long? This also happens online, but it’s even easier to leave. If your checkout page is slow or confusing, customers can simply click away.

Simplify your checkout flow by offering multiple payment options, removing unnecessary form fields, allowing guest checkout, or offering an accelerated checkout option like Shop Pay.

You can also implement exit intent technology at this stage, which triggers a pop-up if a customer is about to leave. It might offer free shipping or another incentive to encourage customers to complete their purchases.

6. Use A/B testing

A/B testing compares two different versions of a page or element to see which performs better. This allows you to test a hypothesis on a small segment of site visitors before making a change that impacts all your traffic.

To create an A/B test, start by defining your goal, like increasing add-to-carts or purchase completions. Then, choose an element to test and create two versions: a control (A) and a variant (B). Run the test for at least two weeks to gather meaningful data, then analyze the results to determine which variation outperformed the other.

You can run A/B tests to compare:

• Different product images on product pages

• Single page versus multi-step checkout

• Search bar versus no search bar on category pages

• Add-to-cart call-to-action (CTA) copy

You can also conduct split testing, which compares two completely different versions of a webpage, navigation structure, or other site element. 

7. Update metadata

Well-optimized metadata—descriptive data about webpage content—helps search engines better understand your site content and encourages potential customers to click through from SERPs.

Conduct keyword research with a tool like Ahrefs or Semrush to find target keywords for each of your high-value landing pages, such as the homepage, product, and collections pages. Make sure each page is optimized for the target keyword by reviewing the following:

• Title tags. Title tags distinguish what a page is about and how it appears on SERPs. These are usually 60 characters or fewer.

• Meta descriptions. Meta descriptions are brief summaries, up to 155 characters, that describe the page’s content.

• Image alt text. Image alt text is descriptive text assigned to an image to improve accessibility.

Your title tag and meta description are prime real estate to sell your product on SERPs because they’re the user’s first touchpoint with your brand. Keep title tags under 55 characters and meta descriptions between 135 and 155 characters. Include your unique selling proposition (USP) and a compelling CTA to encourage users to click to your site.

Here is an example of a title tag and meta description from DUER, which follows best practices:

Title tag: DUER: The World’s Most Comfortable Pants

Meta description: DUER offers comfortable pants made with Stretch Canvas, providing flexibility and freedom. They have 30,000+ 5-star reviews, free shipping over $99, and a 1-year warranty.

Additional metadata to review includes:

• Structured data. Structured data enables rich results like star ratings and FAQ on SERPs.

• Canonical tags. A canonical tag is an HTML tag that tells search engines which is the original version of a page. These help improve search visibility and prevent ranking cannibalization—when multiple pages on your website compete for the same search rankings, reducing your overall visibility.

8. Optimize content for SEO

Publishing blog content can help drive traffic to your website, but be sure to optimize it for search engines and update it regularly. Over time, advice becomes outdated, stats become stale, and search intent shifts.

Search engines reward comprehensive, fresh content, so regular updates don’t just improve rankings but position you as a trusted source within your niche. Some SEO strategies for content include:

• Aligning content better with user intent

• Updating keywords, title tags, and meta descriptions

• Adding fresh insights from subject matter experts (SMEs)

SEO gets users to your page, and CRO gets them to take action. Here are three conversion-related additions to consider:

• Action-driven CTAs

• Multimedia, including infographics and videos

• Blog-specific pop-ups

9. Personalize the shopping experience

Seventy-one percent of customers expect a personalized shopping experience. You can tailor your messaging, product recommendations, and even ad creatives to your customers’ preferences and behavior. For example, if your skin care company knows it takes about 60 days to finish a tub of eye cream, send a tailored refill reminder 50 days after an initial purchase.

You can also tailor your website and collections pages to show products based on customer status (new or returning) or location, like summer clothing for warm regions and winter jackets for colder areas.

10. Consider brand personality

“Not all gains in the website’s conversion rate are experiential,” Michael says. “People are ultimately going to buy because your brand resonates with them. If you can improve how they connect with your brand, your conversion rate will improve.”

If your brand doesn’t resonate with your target audience, they’re unlikely to make a purchase, even with a smooth, frictionless checkout flow. Brand personality includes your visual identity, brand values, and storytelling. Ensure your brand personality comes across clearly in all your messaging and that it makes sense when paired with your products. For example, if you sell novelty hats but your brand messaging is serious, your fonts and website elegant and staid, you may not appeal to your target demographic.

Brand personality can be hard to quantify, but you can evaluate it through brand recognition, customer loyalty, and sentiment analysis.

Ecommerce website optimization FAQ

How do I get my ecommerce site noticed?

Improving your site’s SEO can help get it noticed on search engine results pages (SERPs) through blog content and keyword-targeted product descriptions. It’s also important to consider social media, marketing campaigns, and influencer partnerships that can draw your target audience to your website.

What is CRO in ecommerce?

In ecommerce, CRO stands for conversion rate optimization. CRO involves improving pages to increase the percentage of visitors who take a desired action like making a purchase or signing up for a newsletter.

How long does it take to optimize a website?

There is no set amount of time it takes to optimize a website. It could take as little as 10 minutes to change a CTA’s copy or take weeks to implement a new design. Ecommerce optimization is an ongoing process with no specified end date.