Before digging into the checklist, I always bear in mind 2 ultimate goals to optimize conversion and enrich user experience. The first one is to address customer anxiety. Users have no one to talk to as they browse your products and decide if they should buying from you. They are unsure if buying that product will bring them real benefits or more trouble. They need to be assured that every single step along their checkout path is safe and they are making the right decision to buy. The second one is to improve trust on your store. Show users they are well protected by various things your site provides to protect them. It’s always important to let your visitors know how much you care about their money and privacy.

I categorized the checklist items into those you can do on the product pages and those on the checkout pages. On the product pages of your online store, consider the following items.

1. Product Information

Do you provide enough quality info on your products to facilitate your site visitors’ buying decision? Would it be too simple or technical to understand how to use your products? Are you having the product specifications in a language that talks to your target audience? Do you address the users’ concern on exactly how they should use your products and benefits they would receive?

2. Product Images

A picture is worth a thousand words. Quality images and 360 degree view of your products would be ideal, but technically please don’t make it too long to download (too high resolution) or require an external plug-in to view it.

3.  Customer Reviews

Once again it’s often the community that speaks loudly on your products than you do. Both good and bad comments from people who bought the product are essential to establish a level of trust on your site and usefulness of the reviews. But what’s more important is monitoring the comments to avoid unfair, irrelevant opinions to disturb the quality of the contents.

I will continue on the items on the product pages in my next post.

If you are an advertiser who needs a vendor to install and maintain GA on your website, you may check out Google Analytics Authorized Consultant program. You will see a list of GA Authorized Consultants located in US, Canada, Europe, Asia Pacifica and so on.

Say if you work in the ad agencies, you may want to equip yourself knowledge of GA. Afterall GA is free and you are likely to be asked some common questions when you talk to your clients. Go to Analytics Troubleshooter if you have some specific technical questions on installing tracking code or setting up filters. Visit Analytics Help if you want to get an overview on what GA is.

Some of my favorite articles about how GA can help improve Conversions are found on the Conversion University. Check them out to make sure you understand GA not just on theories, but in practice as well.