"I’ve paid for traffic, but got no sales!"

In this video, I am going to review www.affordablecartridges.com - an eCommerce website that sells printer cartridges.

This eCommerce site has experimented with paid traffic - in fact, the owner behind affordable Cartridges has run Facebook advertisements to his website and are currently considering paying for Google Shopping results. Nevertheless, Affordable Cartridges have not generated any money after running paid traffic to their website. They’ve got traffic, but no sales.

Here’s the thing: if your traffic isn’t converting, you must look at the content on your website and think critically. What is stopping a prospect from purchasing on your site? What prevents them from getting to the checkout?

Here’s 5 things Affordable Cartridges needs to consider:

1. Reduce the size of your logo

Affordable Cartridges has used a large logo, which covers a lot of room in the first fold of the page. eCommerce giants, like Amazon and Apple, do not have huge logos. Your logo should be small and, when clicked on, it should take a prospect back to your homepage. You do not need to have ‘home,’ ‘about us,’ or ‘contact us’ in your main navigation - your logo should connect to your homepage and both ‘about us’ and ‘contact us’ can go in the footer.

2. Your About Us Page Needs to Contain the Correct Information

Don’t run paid media to your site without a clear, credible ‘about us’ page. Your ‘about us’ page is where a user will go to check that your company is trustworthy. Make sure you include testimonials and a clear story that focuses on the potential customer.

3. Put Your Primary Call to Action on the Homepage Hero

The first section of your homepage is called the ‘hero section.’ This section can’t be misleading, confusing or unexpected for your web visitors. It must clearly show what you do and clearly ask your web visitor to take action. A good option for affordable cartridges would be to put a search bar on their hero image stating ‘write your primer number here and we will find your toner with 60% discount.’ This clearly states what you can do for the customer, and asks them to take one, clear action.

4. Make Sure Your Search Bar Works

Search bars are especially important for eCommerce sites, if a web visitor searches for a product the results need to be clear - this is especially true for products such as Affordable Cartridges sell.

5. Your Product Page Must Be Detailed

Firstly, make sure that if you have a ‘star’ system, whereby customers rate your products using 1-5 stars - make sure you get people to actually give you reviews before making this live. Otherwise, it looks as though nobody has ever bought from you, which will surely stop a web visitor from buying. You also need to state whether the product is in stock, but you don’t need to write the stock number - especially if it’s a large number! This makes it look as though you never sell.

Your product page needs to be detailed. You must include all the benefits of each product, make sure you have a guarantee and an FAQ section on each product page.

Conclusion

Don’t spend any more money on paid media, until you’ve got the fundamentals right!