How to optimize your checkout page for more sales

Are you interested in improving your checkout page? If so, you're not alone. There's no doubting how important this part of the sales process is to your success. For context, a prospect's last stop before becoming a full-fledged customer is a brand's checkout page.

It doesn't matter how well you deliver in other areas of business; if your checkout page is lackluster, sales will suffer. One of the reasons for this trend is due to cart abandonment. Globally, the average abandonment rate is a staggering 67%, and that number is expected to remain the same in the coming years.

Today, my goal is to show you how to reduce your individual cart abandonment rate and optimize your checkout page for maximum conversions. I will share several strategies we use across our brands to keep visitors engaged through the end of their purchase.

I firmly believe that the following strategies can help business leaders and marketers across all industries. So, if you're interested in securing more sales, keep reading!

Create a Smooth Checkout Experience

A smooth checkout experience can make or break sales with new customers. If visitors have trouble navigating your forms or staying focused on the checkout process, they will likely leave before completing their order. You have to focus on getting them back while keeping new visitors engaged. Sounds overwhelming, right?

The good news is this doesn't have to be a typical experience with your visitors. The first thing I suggest changing is the look of your checkout page. Instead of making it look like every other page, you should make it as minimalistic yet stylish as possible.

For instance, you should consider removing promotions for your products, Google Ads, and your traditional navigation bar. Removing distractions is a great way to keep users on task, which can dramatically reduce the number of people who leave without paying for what they added to their cart.

You'll also want to make it easy for customers to give you their information and pay for their orders. Keep your forms minimal and only ask for what you need. If possible, enable autocomplete and allow customers to choose from multiple payment options. These accessibility features can result in a smoother checkout experience and help you turn more visitors into customers.

Show Customer Support Options

Another way to make your checkout page more approachable is to show easy-to-access customer support options. For instance, you can include a FAQ section in a drop-down format so users can see answers to the most common questions.

There are also benefits to including an option to talk to an agent directly from your checkout page. If visitors have a question and can't find an answer, they may leave and go to a competitor's site. However, if your live chat team is there to help them when a problem comes up, there's a good chance they will go through with their order.

If you're wondering how much of an impact this can have on your business, consider this; 63% of online shoppers claim they are more likely to return to an online store that has easily accessible chat options.

Highlight Social Proof

You'll have an excellent chance to improve your conversion rate by including social proof within your checkout page design. Social proof is any piece of content designed to show that your brand is trusted and respected by consumers and other well-known businesses.

Common forms of social proof include reviews, trust badges, live sales notifications, and testimonials. I suggest sticking with trust badges and live sales notifications for your checkout page.

Trust badges are seals of approval from reputable businesses, such as McAfee Antivirus and PayPal. The purpose of trust badges is to show that these companies have confirmed that your business is reputable. This type of validation can ease the mind of new visitors and result in more sales. In fact, we found that adding trust badges to our payment forms resulted in 42% more conversions!

Live sales notifications are small alerts that appear when another customer takes action on your site. For example, if a visitor completes an order or subscribes to your email list, everyone else currently on the site will see what they did. This type of social proof can help show visitors that your brand is trusted by other customers, which will likely lead to additional sales and engagement opportunities.

Don't Forget about Smartphone Users

One mistake I've seen many new business leaders make is forgetting about smartphone users when designing their checkout page.

The reality is there are over 5.16 billion mobile users, and the average person spends around 3.5 hours on their device every day. If your checkout page isn't optimized for these users, you will see fewer sales and more abandoned carts.

You'll want to build and test a mobile-responsive checkout page. Remember, people browsing your site from their smartphone will need to see slightly different button placement and form design. We've all visited a website with the intention to make a purchase, only to get derailed by a poorly designed checkout process. You never want your customers to feel this kind of frustration when browsing your site.

Another way to streamline the process for mobile and desktop users is to include a progress bar so visitors can see how close they are to completing their order. Shoppers are far less likely to leave if they know that they are only one step away from submitting their order.

Ask Users to Join Your Email List

Finally, let's talk about how you can eventually convert users who are determined to leave. The best course of action is to ask if they would like to join your email list so you can catch up with them later. This tactic is beneficial if a customer is in a hurry and wants to finish their order at a later time.

Not only will this strategy help you get more subscribers, but it will also help you forge stronger connections with your audience, which is known to lead to more sales and engagement.

I recommend using popups that appear when visitors are getting ready to hit the X on their browser and close your site. You can try one last time to get them to sign up by offering an engaging lead magnet, discount, or even just an offer to hold their order for another time.

Once people start subscribing to your list through this channel, you can automate email campaigns designed to drive them through your sales funnel. In some situations, automated emails can boost your revenue by an impressive 320%! I believe this could be one of those situations for some business leaders.

When crafting campaigns around customers that decided to exit your site, think about why they chose to leave. I suggest using customer segments to design campaigns that match the needs of each visitor. For instance, if someone signed up for a content-based lead magnet, you could send them a welcome email with other helpful posts from your blog.

Final Thoughts

You'll never convert 100% of the people who visit your checkout page, but there's a good chance you can do better than you are now. I've run one of our sites for over 10 years, and I'm still finding ways to fine-tune our checkout flow every quarter.

My last piece of advice to you is this; always review your results after making changes to your checkout page. Often, you'll find ways to further improve on what you built and design a more well-rounded experience for your audience.