7 killer tips on how to optimize a Shopify website and Shopify sales funnel

Getting a good amount of traffic to your website is great but means nothing if your customers do not purchase anything. People visiting your site but not buying is a vast opportunity lost. This guide will show you how to optimize a Shopify website to boost customer conversion rates, and to do so through a great Shopify sales funnel. In just seven steps, this guide will give top tips to sell more products and increase the profitability of your Shopify website.‍

In 7 steps, here's how you can optimize a Shopify website and upgrade your Shopify sales funnel: 

1. Study and Analyze Your Sales Funnel For Shopify
2. Sales Funnel Networks and Upselling
3. Finding and Fixing Issues in your Shopify Sales Funnel
4. Reducing Cart and Checkout Abandonment
5. Make Your Product Pages More Effective
6. Customize Your Landing Pages
7. Customize Your Sales Funnel With Tontine A/B Price Testing and PriceBot

The most effective way to increase your Shopify conversion rate is to first improve your sales funnel. A sales funnel is the multi-step process a visitor takes that ends with them buying your product. At each section of the funnel, some customers may leave. An optimized sales funnel for Shopify reduces the number of customers leaving your website without purchasing and improves your sales. 

First, look for obvious lapses in your funnel. Are there pages with no call-to-action (CTA) button? Is your copy and messaging coherent? One of the best tools to analyze flaws in your sales funnel is the built-in reports and dashboards in Shopify. Specifically, the “Online Store Conversion Rate” dashboard tool works wonders because it shows you your checkout process at every step. When combined with more detailed analysis, this tool can provide you with all of the information you need for how to optimize your Shopify website and sales funnel for Shopify.

Shopify’s Funnel Report

There is another tool that lets you sort data by date and traffic type. It can also filter data by traffic source or landing page. The “Conversion Over Time” report tool lets you see the following:

• How many customers visited your store
• How many added an item to their cart
• How many reached the checkout

This tool also monitors daily changes in your sales funnel. Using this together with the “Sessions by Landing” report gives you an estimate of how well your funnel is performing.

Here’s a pro-tip for optimizing your Shopify website and sales funnels: Export all the relevant data you need into a CSV file. This makes it easier to see which parts of your funnel are working and which need improvement. It may take more initial effort, but adding more relevant columns saves you a lot of time in the long run. Furthermore, this might make verifying and analyzing your Shopify data easier as well.

Using Google Analytics’ Reports

This is similar to Shopify's "Sessions by Landing Pages" report. It shows you how visitors browse your website. Use the properties listed in your CSV file to input the specific parameters you want to analyze using Google Analytics. Setting specific goals and parameters will provide you with more relevant data in your reports.

The Landing Pages report can be found by clicking on Site Content in the behavior section. The generated report will show you how many visitors respond to your CTAs after landing on a specific page. 

While it is best to capture the buyer’s journey from start to finish, this may be a hit-or-miss endeavor. That is why recapturing as many abandoned purchases as possible is a major part of optimizing your overall Shopify website.

Another option is trying to upsell. This is convincing a buyer to shell out more money for a more valuable product. You may run the risk of overselling but it can mean more revenue for the same number of conversions. There’s a number of techniques to upsell such as exclusive discount offers for an upgraded version of a more expensive product.

Not only will a discounted upsell increase your store's average basket value, but it will also provide an incentive for your visitor to complete their purchase. Again, using apps can be one of the simplest ways to upsell your Shopify store. In the app store, there are a variety of upselling and cross-selling apps.

How to Use Abandoned Cart Emails in Shopify

Shopify includes an abandoned cart solution, which you can customize with custom HTML in the “Notifications” section of your Settings. After you've created the email, you can activate it in your "Checkout" Settings. You can copy the code into a viewing tool to make it easier to customize your email template. However, it is critical that you only change the text and not the dynamic variables.

Recovering abandoned checkouts

Abandoned shopping carts can still be a good source of sales. You can look at these instances as buyers who almost completed your sales funnel. They can be more easily persuaded to buy. Sending them a simple but unique discount for their abandoned cart can make them reconsider buying which increases your chances of recovering lost sales.

Shopify has an integration for recovering abandoned shopping carts. You can send automated recovery newsletters to lost customers by making sure your discount code is in the “Notification” section of settings. 

Once you've identified the issues in your Shopify sales funnel using analytics, you'll need to find ways to solve them. At each stage, you must increase customer motivation. Your pages should be able to answer their questions and erase their doubts. Here are some tips to gain your customers’ trust and boost conversion sales.

Optimize your website load time

A quick and snappy user interface is essential in retaining customer attention. Google’s built-in news aggregator takes into account a website’s core web vitals to consider whether they should be part of the top news of the day. Also, did you know that adding a single second to Amazon's loading time could cost the company $1.6 billion in sales each year?

Knowing this, the average loading times for all commerce websites have significantly improved. If one of your pages has an unusually high exit or bounce rate, you can use Google’s PageSpeed tool to analyze your core web vitals. If you do encounter a problem with your loading speed, there are several free guides available online to help your Shopify store.

Offer a unique product or sales proposal

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A unique value proposition is one of the best ways to boost sales in any business. However, if you own a Shopify website selling thousands of different products, this may be difficult. If you notice a specific product listing or landing page with lots of traffic but little to no sales, try to provide a one-of-a-kind offer that stands out from competitors. This may be a discounted shipping fee, a bundled discount, or anything to improve the value of your product.

If you or your products are the same as everyone else, you simply won’t stand out.

Faster delivery and shipping

Delayed gratification is one of the most prominent disadvantages of online shopping when people don’t want to wait for delivery. That is why Amazon Prime's next-day delivery is one of the e-commerce giant’s major keys to success. If you suspect that slow delivery time is affecting your conversion rate, it may be worthwhile to find alternative carrier management systems. A simple “Receive by” indicator may help your sales more than you think.

Improve your website security

Customers must feel that they can entrust their money and sensitive personal information to your Shopify store. If you are experiencing a high number of abandoned shopping carts, you should consider investing in a more robust security framework. A trust badge from a reputable security service provider may be the difference between a completed sale (and helps further boost trust) and someone that leaves without buying.

Shopping cart pages and checkouts are vastly important, as getting your customers there likely means they will become buyers. That is why it is crucial that these pages are working perfectly. Optimizing these vital pages has a greater impact on revenue as they are closer to the point of transaction. As a result, the most immediate way to boost conversions is to focus on lowering your cart abandonment rate.

An unusually high number of site exits from a shopping cart page or checkout page indicates that something is wrong with your site, not your offer. At this point, customers are already sold on your product. That is why you should focus on reducing friction to ensure a purchase. 

Reducing transaction obstacles and minimizing friction

Checkout pages should be as smooth as possible. To ensure a customer presses the final checkout button, you must satisfy the value of their spending every single time they buy from you. Convincing a first-time buyer is usually harder but once you have repeat customers, convenience and consistency are key to making them stay.

When a checkout page has a high exit rate, it is usually because visitors encountered unexpected obstacles such as hidden fees, additional costs, or credit card problems. The solution, in this case, is to be upfront about any possible obstacles.

“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” Benjamin Franklin

This emphasizes the advantages of providing value offers such as free shipping. Removing one friction-causing obstacle helps ensure a smooth transaction. If that isn't an option, you can simply include shipping costs in the price of your products earlier in your sales funnel. A customer might feel betrayed when the cost of something they want suddenly goes up after they already get excited about a value deal. 

Effortless transaction on checkout pages

Making your checkout smooth and easy to use is the quickest way to improve your sales funnel on for Shopify. Try to limit the number of response fields in your checkout form. While you cannot change other necessary fields, the ones you do include have a significant impact on your conversions. Update your checkout settings to reduce mandatory prompts.

Keeping in line with the importance of visual presentation, simply matching the checkout page with your website’s branding and style can promote brand continuity. A consistent checkout page and sales funnel should continue to reinforce the decision to purchase.

Guest Checkouts

A registered account can be useful when running analytics and targeting ads. Nonetheless, there should always be an option to checkout as a guest. A converted sale now is worth more  than an individual’s buying profile.

The way you present your products on landing pages has a significant impact on your sales funnel for Shopify. First impressions last a long time. Many of the most successful Shopify product listings are relatable, readable, and skimmable pages.

You must find ways to captivate a customer in a single glance. At the same time, you must also provide all of the necessary information to make a purchase. Accurate images and summaries of a product’s best selling points are some of the most effective conversion rate boosters. 

Summarizing your products best qualities

Customers expect to know immediately what makes your product different from its competitors. As such, it may be effective to start summaries with details of your product that make it stand out. This will be different across your variety of products and services but here are a couple of elements that are usually good to highlight. 

• Benefits and Features – A feature is something your product has. A benefit is how a customer’s needs can be fulfilled by this feature. It might be more effective to say that a phone charger can “charge within 30 minutes for when you’re on the go” instead of an “incredibly fast-charger.”
• Specifications and Technical Details – To avoid returns and RMAs, include exact information about your product's specifications. This is usually the size, materials, and usage instructions. If possible, try to show comparative visuals as some buyers like to skim through written text. This is an extremely underrated element that many e-commerce store owners neglect.
• Social Proof and Ratings – A product with more reviews is chosen more often. A product with an average 4-star rating with 200 reviews looks more desirable than a product with one single 5-star rating. 
• Product Reviews – Showing that other people have bought and used your product is an effective way to build confidence in your store. Testimonials from review sites like the Wirecutter or reputable press outlets can boost sales to a surprising degree. Just make sure your product’s quality is up to par or else you risk negative publicity.
• Final Checkout Price – Emphasize the full and final cost of the product, with any discounts or additional fees already taken into account.
• Visual cues – Do you know why malls are so well lit? A bright environment makes products more attractive. In the same way, try to reinforce a shopping environment online by using inviting colors, wish lists, shopping carts, and catalogs of related items.
• High quality and relevant visuals – Show what your customers are getting. For example, if it is a tool, you can show it in action or show the outcome.
  

Integrating Social Proof on Product Pages

An unanswered question or detail can break an otherwise guaranteed sale. These issues can be difficult to identify as user intent and preferences can vary so much. One simple solution is to do audience research. Ask your visitors what exactly they are looking for using a live chat widget. You can also read and review customer comments for further feedback.

Visitor metrics are one of the subtle ways to say that your product is being considered by many other buyers. This can include page views or recent purchase dates. Numerous social proof  apps offer this feature. 

The landing pages are pages that have the greatest impact on your revenue. The checkout  landing page is also a big factor in conversion rates. A lopsided product listing or confusing price could dissuade would-be buyers.

Landing pages are high-priority because, without the proper landing page elements, a significant portion of your traffic will never even visit your site. A good landing page will raise ad quality scores on Google Ads as well. This increases your click-through rate and saves you a bit on cost per click. 

This is also why landing pages are notoriously one of the most difficult pages to design and optimize. You must be able to add a lot of viable information, in the right order, within a limited amount of space. A well-designed landing page and CTA will persuade your visitors to proceed to the next stage of your sales funnel.

How to Improve the Performance of Your Shopify Landing Pages

There is no exact checklist for making every single landing page perform its best. Each landing page must be appropriate to the products you are selling and to which buyers you are selling them.

While there’s no exact recipe for making a perfect landing page, there are elements that will almost always be in a well-designed landing page.

• Value Proposition – Tell your customers what they will get when they continue on your sales funnel. Sometimes an image or a visual cue may implicitly achieve this requirement.
• Message Match – Consistent branding and phrases in your H1 title that also matches ad text or search queries will reduce customer bounces.
• Focused CTAs – A clear call-to-action will show customers exactly what they will get when they interact with a page or button. Try to make a “one button, one outcome” design. More than that will confuse your visitors.
• Effective Directions – Most landing pages employ visual cues to assist visitors in navigating. This could include loading icons, progress bars, or other visual cues. Using visual hierarchy allows you to highlight important details like your value proposition without crowding your Shopify website real estate with text.
• Social Proof – Verified badges, icons, reviews, and testimonials all help to build customer confidence much more quickly than content written by yourself. This may help increase customer session times and improve bounce rate.
  

If you think all of these elements are covered in your websites, then you are probably on the right track. However, if it still doesn’t reflect in your Shopify sales and conversion rate, something else (like your possible ad targeting or SEO strategy) may need improvement.

At the end of the day, while it’s great to improve your Shopify sales funnel piece by piece, everything really comes down to making more sales. The problem for Shopify store owners looking to gain immediate traction is that margins can still be very slim in e-commerce. Small gains at every step are beneficial but they don’t always move margins as quickly as is necessary.

What Tontine allows customers to do is verify the best prices for their products and create margins that ignite profits.

Sometimes that means a reduced price (and higher volume), or it could mean a higher price that brings in more immediate margins (and no loss in conversion rates). At the end of the day, what matters is the 15-17% revenue increases Tontine has proven itself capable of delivering.

Now, we know other A/B testing tools can allow for price testing. Here’s the thing, they don’t always do this discreetly nor ensure that customers will only ever see one price.

Obviously, that can lead to a number of issues. Tontine is built specifically to avoid these problems.

Even better, Tontine is 100% full-service and all the hard work gets handled by the team instead. This means you can actually grow your business while focusing on your business, instead of having to stress out over more metrics that need to be verified. Store owners want to make money, not constantly worry about ad creative, or whether code has been implemented correctly.

P.S. We can implement and start moving your numbers within 3 days.

Optimizing Your Shopify Website and Shopify Sales Funnels

So if you’ve been trying to verify how to optimize your Shopify website and upgrade your sales immediately, it’s vastly important to know what to prioritize first. Your Shopify sales funnel’s effectiveness is only as strong as the weakest link.

Remember that the funnel is a multi-step process that must be followed through until the end and diligently looked at throughout. However, with careful and constant analysis you can systematically improve your Shopify website’s conversion rates and sales.

It's a good idea to use an A/B testing tool to verify how you can create a better Shopify sales funnel and grow your margins fast. Tontine allows for discreet testing, fast implementation, and leads to solid 15-17% revenue increases.