July 2, 2025 • 23 mins
In this episode of the Resilient Retail Game Plan, I’m joined by Shopify web design expert Pip Hounslow for a deep dive into website conversion rates.
We chat about what’s considered “normal”, why your conversion rate might be lower than you’d expect, and the small tweaks that can make a big difference to your sales.
Pip also shares tips on improving your add-to-basket button, ensuring your website works beautifully on mobile, and why your founder story could be the key to connecting with customers.
Whether you’re on Shopify or another platform, you’ll come away with practical ideas to help your product-based business convert more visitors into buyers.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
What is a great conversion rateand what is stopping your customers
from buying on the podcast?
Today I'm joined by Pip Hounslow,a Shopify expert and web designer
who's going to be talkingall things conversion rates.
Welcome to the Resilient Retail GamePlan, a podcast for anyone wanting to
(00:21):
start, grow or scale a profitable creativeproduct business with me, Catherine Erdly.
The Resilient Retail Game Plan isa podcast dedicated to one thing,
breaking down the concepts and toolsthat I've gathered from 20 years in
the retail industry and showing youhow you can use them in your business.
This is the real nuts and bolts ofrunning a successful product business,
(00:44):
broken down in an easy, accessible way.
This is not a podcast about learninghow to make your business look good.
It's the tools and techniques that willmake you and your business feel good.
Confidently plan, launch, and manageyour products, and feel in control of
your sales numbers and cash flow to helpyou build a resilient retail business.
(01:12):
Welcome to the podcast.
Today's episode is with PipHounslow, who is a small business,
Shopify web designer and has made.
How many websites do youthink you've made now?
I literally have no idea quite a lot now.
I was keeping count and it's got alittle bit of, because I dabble in
quite a lot as well, rather than justlike building the off from scratch.
(01:32):
So I help quite a lot of people as well.
Yeah, I don't know, overa hundred I'd probably.
So you've got a lot of expertisein Shopify and what we're gonna
be talking about today is aboutwebsite conversion in general.
Obviously, a lot of people listening willbe on Shopify, but I think everything
we're sharing will be relevant probablyno matter what platform you're on.
So let's start off bydefining a conversion rate.
(01:55):
How do you calculate it andwhat is "normal?" Quote unquote.
So these are Shopify's benchmarks.
So, and they're really, really goodconversion rate is sort of 3.5% up.
And then most people aresitting between 1.4 and 2.5.
But if you're on less than1%, then there's like a block.
(02:16):
There's usually some kind ofblock on there that's stopping
people from buying or making 'emhesitate that little bit too long.
But yeah, so you can work it out.
You can do it the long way ifyou want to know the actual
technical way of working it out.
So it's your total ordersdivided by your total visitors
and then times by a hundred.
So if you had 50 orders and 2000 visitors.
(02:37):
So it would be 50 divided by 2000 timesa hundred, and that would equal 2.5%.
That would be your conversion rate.
But you can also go, if you're onShopify, go into Shopify Analytics.
And there's a section in there whereyou can like do a comparison over days,
weeks, months, from different quarters orhowever you wanna, you want to measure.
(02:59):
You can see it, right?
It's right there on youranalytics dashboard, isn't it?
Yeah, which is great.
Makes it so much easierthan some platforms.
Yes.
I mean, that's it really interesting.
So basically I think people often, whenthey first start talking about conversion
rate, people are often really shocked byjust how low it, it really is, in general.
But obviously we know that if you're at3.5% and above, then that's really good.
(03:22):
Do you feel like it's related atall to the price of the products?
So do you find that people who'vegot higher, you know, for example,
if you're selling a 600 pound dress?
Do you think generally speaking,your conversion rate's gonna be
lower than someone selling, I don'tknow, stationary at sort of 10-15
Well, I think the people that aregonna go and look at a 600 pound dress
(03:43):
are not the same people that would belooking at sub 10 pound stationary.
I do know that if I'm on Instagram,if it's not the pricing's not clear,
I will go and have a little look.
It might be that if they're running ads,they will get a lot of clickthroughs
because their clothes are very pretty.
And then the oh my God,that's 600 pounds, click off.
(04:04):
So potentially if they're runningads would probably be a bit lower.
And with regards to like, I mean,I love stationery, so that's
a very good example for me.
I'm very likely to go and buy it.
But yeah, you get more of an impulse buy,it's more of like an impulse buy thing.
So if that wasn't an ad and youwere running and that came up and
you're like, "oh, I quite like that"you'll be more likely to impulse buy
(04:25):
it than you are a 600 pound dress.
So it depends who it's targeted at.
But yeah, I mean, probably a highercost item will be looked at a lot,
especially if they're running ads.
Not necessarily bought.
So it's not necessarily true that thehigher your price point, the lower
your conversion then necessarily.
Not necessarily.
It kind of depends.
I mean, like again, if it's ads andyou've got your targeting properly.
(04:50):
Then maybe you do havea good conversion rate.
It honestly just depends what you'reselling and who is looking at it.
And if you've targeting, right?
I mean, people targeting mefor a 600 pound dress, I'm
sorry, but they're out of luck.
So yeah, it depends who's lookingat it, but yeah, it's not necessary.
(05:11):
Not necessarily.
Yeah, that's interesting.
That's good to hear.
So you mentioned there that ifyour conversion rate is, say lower
than about a 1.4 to 1.5, thatthere's gonna be something there
that's stopping people from buying.
So what are some of the most commonmistakes that you see on product business
websites where they are doing somethingthat is stopping people from buying?
(05:32):
Yeah, one of them, themain ones is photography.
And I'm not saying people should investin a professional photography free
session 'cause they can be expensiveand small businesses don't necessarily
have a budget, but everybody has awindow and most people have an iPhone.
So you can get some really good qualityin focus, bright images without spending
(05:57):
like hundreds or thousands of pounds.
But yeah, having a clear sortof high res images in use.
Like one that's in use, a lifestyleshot, somebody holding it to scale,
and then a on a plane background.
'Cause if you wanted to submit yourproducts for like gift guides and stuff,
then they'll want the plain image one.
So to have one of those is quite good.
(06:17):
And it also looks quitenice as a catalog of images.
So lots of people overlook that and willquite often have dingy and dull images.
And that's not, people can'timagine that in their house.
They want to imagine that thing intheir house or in their hand or on them.
And you need to get thatacross in the photography.
So lots of people just dooverlook that and just assume
(06:39):
any old picture or a mockup.
A mockup picture is not going to workeither 'cause there's no sense of scale.
The person that's putting, if youhave like a print and you put that
onto a mockup, you've got no idea.
And nothing to relate it to.
So yeah, photography is the main one.
(07:00):
So you would suggest having something,somebody holding it or somebody,
I mean, Amazon have got their kindof little diagram, haven't they?
It's like a outline of a personand the person is holding.
Yeah, the sizing thing.
Yeah, that definitely is, that'salways my biggest bug bear is when I go
onto jewelry websites and they've gotearrings and they just show the earring
and they don't show it on any ear.
(07:20):
And I'm always like, Idon't know what seven.
No idea.
Like, is that like a tinyhoop or is it a hoop hoop?
Or like, you've got no idea.
So giving some sense of scale, and giving people a chance.
I mean, the Amazon sizething does do its job.
It's not very pretty,but it does do its job.
So I would tend to put the thinglike in your hand or something.
(07:41):
Just as like a more personal.
So you think that, um, that's probablylike the biggest blocker then?
I mean, there's quite a few, but I'd sayprobably is one that people overlook when
it's just so important on your website.
It can like, make or breakthe design of a website.
Somebody's got bad photos, thenno matter what the layout or what
(08:03):
you are including, the photos justaren't selling your product for you.
So yeah, I think that one.
There's also, like product descriptionsare quite often overlooked.
Like people will just plunk anything in.
Yeah.
And it can be, and then have thesame thing over multiple products.
Which is not very good for SEOeither because you're not, you
(08:24):
are basically gonna rank for thesame thing on multiple products.
And there's no sort ofbenefits added to them.
Sort of like, why shouldpeople buy that product?
What problem is it solving?
Sort of a benefit led descriptionis, one again, that's overlooked.
Right.
Okay.
So, and I suppose going back to imageryfor a second, is that something?
(08:46):
Sometimes a difficult conversationyou have to have with people if you,
they you're redoing their websiteand then you're like, okay, well
I can redo it, but the imagery's.
Yeah.
I actually had that conversationvery recently with a brand and
their whole website was black, dark.
And I was like, that'snot, that's not the vibe.
(09:08):
And all their photos were dark,and they basically did a full
reshoot of all of their images.
And then we even got 'em to do likea video for the homepage at the top.
And it just completelychanged the whole look.
And they didn't, they werelike, they went with it.
They were like oh, we like dark.
And I was like, you don't wantdark, you're not having dark.
So they just went with,they look so nice now.
(09:30):
But yeah, they did a whole, a fullbrand, like a new photography thing.
Which was really good, really worthwhile.
Yeah.
So obviously we talked aboutimagery, we talked about product
descriptions, and we touched on that.
So having really good benefitled product descriptions where
people actually understand whythey should be buying something.
Yeah.
Yes, exactly.
(09:51):
And not the same ones.
No, no, not the sameones for every product.
So it is basically having like what yousell, who it's for, and why it matters.
That's quite a good sort of basisfor your product description.
So it can speak toparticular people, you know.
Even it's vegan or any sort ofanything that you maybe take
(10:13):
for granted about your products.
Other people might be like,"oh okay, so it's sustainable."
I might put that in there.
They're really pushing the benefits ofthat product onto a person like you.
You speak to people, buy from people.
And so you are actually speaking to aperson and they might just see themselves
in that issue and be like, "oh, thatwill solve my frizzy hair problem."
So I've also done that.
(10:39):
So I know that product descriptions is oneof those tasks that a lot of people just
find really, really tough and tedious.
Yeah, especially whenyou've got a big catalog.
Yeah.
But yeah, I mean, I'm all fornot trying to do it all at once.
Just work through and you startwith your best sellers and reassess
those and just make sure theindividual to the product, basically.
(11:01):
Don't just make them the same for ifyou've got like a conditioner and a
shampoo that are doing the same job.
Just try and tweak them a littlebit to be more about that, like
what that particular thing is doing.
Rather than just copy paste.
So when you are designing andyou are designing, presumably,
(11:24):
you know, the purpose of thewebsite is to convert, right?
So what are some of the keyelements that you want to see on
every homepage, every product page.
I'd say on the homepage is what you sell.
You know, who it's for and why it matters.
Like right up there on the, on thebanner that top that first bit.
Rather than like, welcome to my shop.
(11:45):
It needs to be sort of speaking to aperson like, I don't know, natural.
So I've got one here.
It's Natural Skincare for sensitive skin.
Made in the UK andbacked by dermatologists.
That sort of like coversall of them things.
It's very clear what they sell.
And then having a clear call to action.
But underneath that, so for thatone would be like shop skincare.
And all above the fold, veryclear what you do and you sell
(12:08):
and hopefully you'll get people inquicker 'cause it's super clear.
And along with that is having,making sure your navigation
is again, very, very clear.
Rather than shop and thena list of collection names.
It's like having it you know, like ifyou are doing skincare, it will be like
(12:30):
Shop Skincare in the top rather thanjust shop and then underneath a big list.
And then obviously we've talked aboutthe product photography, making sure
that top one is like really a reallynice showing of like either your
bestseller or a collection of yourproducts or something, or a video.
And having some of your best sellersis also good to have in your homepage.
(12:53):
I tend to put them fairly near the top.
With Shopify, you can get them toorder automatically by bestseller.
But quite often you'll have a load ofbestsellers, which are very similar
products, so you can actually go in andmanually adjust your bestseller list.
So you can move some of the thingsup so you're not stuck with like,
(13:13):
shampoo, shampoo, shampoo, shampoo.
Be like, "okay, I'll just move thebest selling conditioner up." You can
sort of like play with it a little bit.
And just make it, give a bit moreof a spread of your products.
So it's quite an easy way of showingsome of your products really early on.
Reviews always importantbit of social proof.
Yeah, just having review, like areview carousel on the homepage
(13:34):
is always very important.
And then I've noticed quite a few peoplein their footer leave out their policies.
Right.
Have all the sort of standard ones you.
And they're very easy to get, likewith Shopify, which will apply
to all, anybody could use them.
They have free templates.
But you'd need your shipping policyreturns and terms and conditions
(14:00):
and privacy policy, and you shouldjust have those in your footer.
It's a very simple thing to add.
So lots of people overlookadding that to their footer.
I've had quite a few peoplewhere I've been like well, how
do people know how much it is?
I suppose that all just helpswith the conversion, right?
It helps with people have that trust.
(14:21):
Absolutely.
It's all about gaining people's trust.
And if they trust you and they kind oflike you, then they're more likely to buy.
So I also like to add like a littlestory snippet on that homepage as well
so that links through to the homepage.
So it's a little bit more of like you asa person who's founded this business and
(14:42):
sort of why you founded it to start with.
'Cause the founder story isalways like quite inspiring.
And often just sort of hidden.
So I think it's really nice to have apicture, a face to put to the business
with a little bit of like a why.
'Cause it's often the whythat you've done that.
Is the why that people are buying it.
So you can say something, you canget some yeah, I can't think of
(15:04):
the word, but yeah connection.
Yeah, for sure.
That's such a good point.
I love that.
The why that you're doing it, you'redoing your business for is the why
that people are buying or the reasonthat they buy, and so don't hide it.
Yeah, don't hide it.
Never hide it.
Yeah.
Whenever I look at people's websitesand they don't have a picture of
(15:24):
themselves, I'm like, come on.
Yeah.
And I love what you said of thereabout making it really clear.
Just kind of going back to the wholepiece about the carousel on the first
image on the homepage, because Isuppose that's probably your first
biggest leak of people, right?
That they come onto the homepageand they bounce off immediately.
Yeah.
If they can't see necessarily whatthey want or like, you are not
(15:46):
aligning with what they thoughtyou were, and they'll be off.
only get a few seconds to convince them.
We're very fickle.
I always remember seeing a shop,and it was, on the homepage, they
had a lovely photo of a rose.
But they didn't sell roses.
It was just like, they thought,"oh, this is a nice image," but it's
(16:06):
like, "no, show me what you sell."
Yeah.
What do you want me to buy?
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Exactly.
So when it comes to driving conversion,then how important is mobile?
And what should smallbusinesses be checking for
when it comes to their mobile?
The website on mobile?
Mobile is so important.
(16:27):
But it's because I think, 'causemost people will edit and build
their websites on their desktop,it can be a little bit overlooked.
You do have, like in Shopify, I don'tthink, I think you probably have it
in other, I think you can get it inlike on the browser tools as well.
Where you can look at your website ondifferent screen sizes, which is not
100% proof and it's not a replacementfor an actual phone, but as a first
(16:51):
part it's quite good to check.
And just to make sure that your site isloading fast enough because, I dunno.
The doom scroll is a, is a real thing.
So if you're not quick enough.
Yeah.
It doesn't load, they'lljust go do something else.
And again, having like thatnavigation that works, on a mobile
(17:11):
'cause sometimes again, on Shopify.
Sorry, this is Shopify specific.
You can have a different navigation foryour mobile as you do on your desktop,
All right, okay.
On a desktop, you maybe you've gotlike a couple of dropdowns which
won't work on a mobile 'cause you'llhave to click through a few times.
So just to make sure that your navigationworks on both platforms like just no,
(17:35):
it's, no use it looking really lovely onyour desktop if it's not gonna get people
through to the product pages on a mobile.
Yeah.
And then text sizes is really important.
Quite often people forget to thattext sizes, if it's teeny tiny,
people can't read it necessarilylike so quite, so easily.
Yeah so I would check all those things.
(17:57):
Product pages.
And also I had quite a goodtest where you, if you have to
pinch your screen to buy it.
To like, to find the button.
That's not, you don't wanna haveto pinch or scroll sideways.
Sometimes it's not quite fitting.
Yes.
That applies more I'd say toplatforms and not Shopify,
The Shopify like official themes.
(18:19):
But that's definitely something tocheck that you don't have to pinch
or like, or scroll sideways tolike get your add to cart button.
Yes.
I always remember a story of someonesaying that they'd done some work on their
website, and what had happened was that itmeant that there's something over the add
to cart button in their mobile version.
(18:40):
But they didn't realize it for agesbecause they were just waiting on
and just like notice their sales weredropped off and they just hadn't checked.
And then eventually they took a lookand they realized what had happened.
But it was like, yeah.
Dropping off at my product page.
Oh, it's so frustrating.
They can be fiddly and sometimesthey, you know, websites just
(19:03):
do stuff and you are like, why?
I don't know what, why it's doing that.
But yeah, so it's always, it'sdefinitely worth checking every single
page and obviously, especially yourproduct pages and your checkout.
Cart and checkouts.
Just to kind of wrap us up.
If someone's listening to this and they'rethinking right, I'm not ready for a full
(19:24):
web design, but I really want to improvemy conversion, what can I do differently?
What would maybe be two or threesmall tweaks that they could make
right now to improve conversion?
I would say like changingyour add to cart button color.
Okay.
(19:45):
The built in on Shopify andprobably on all of them.
You don't necessarily think aboutit and it doesn't really stand out.
It will get hidden.
Especially 'cause you've gotlike either Apple Pay or Shop or
something else you're fighting.
Your button is fightingwith, to stand out.
It's to give it a pop of colorbasically, is to make it really
obvious and bring it up the page,like go above the description.
(20:06):
That when they land on the page, theycan go like, okay, I want that done.
Yeah, and then having, I'd sayimprove and reorder your description,
your product description slowly.
If you have a big catalog, obviously.
But start with like your bestsellersis to like, try and sort of
make it into bite size section.
(20:26):
So people can like skim read itand get the gist of like what
your product does, that's wherethe benefit led thing comes in.
So make sure that's right at the top.
So you'll lose people's attentionif you have, like I've seen people
have like really chunky descriptionswhere everything's in there.
Like shipping, ingredients, size.
It's all in this one massive block oftext, which is just unreadable to people.
(20:48):
So going in and like separating out andmaking sure it's people can get what they
need out of it quickly is really good.
I'd say those two things, yeah.
Is that where they use?
It's useful to have the buttonswhere you can to expand it.
Yeah, the expanding ones.
So I tend to put like materialsize ingredients or they all have
their own little tabs so thatit's quite intuitive to find them.
(21:12):
People know where to look for them,so they just scroll down and have
a little browse through there.
Yeah, okay.
I love that about andabout the pop of color.
That's really interesting.
So making it stand out, moving ithigher up, making your web, just
making your descriptions easierto read, easy to understand.
And of course, as we've touchedon, make sure that you are
happy with your photography.
(21:32):
Yes, of course.
And your photography very important.
How quickly do you see changesto conversion, I suppose?
Is it pretty much instantaneous?
If it's the same, it really depends.
I mean, I've done them where they havebeen just changed almost immediately
and just gone up by like one or 2%.
Which is amazing like that.
But that, I mean, that waswith like a theme redesign.
(21:55):
So quite often people come to me havingdone the first stage of their business
with their website and they're like,okay, we're ready to step it up now.
And they have built theiraudience and grown and stuff.
The redesign just, I dunno, itjust cements in the sort of.
I dunno, it gives them a bitmore, maybe a bit more like trust.
Mm-hmm.
Sort of thing, because it's sort oflaid out a little bit differently
(22:15):
and all the trust elements are there,which weren't necessarily there before.
Excellent.
Well, thank you so much,really fabulous to talk to you.
Do you wanna finish off by tellingpeople where they can find out
more about working with you?
Yeah, you can find me onwebdesignandstuff.com.
That's my website.
Same handle for Instagram.
(22:36):
Always happy to have a chat.
Yeah, and you can book a callif you want to have a chat about
your website via my calendarlink, which is also on my website.
Thank you so much for listening.
If you have a moment to rate andreview the podcast Inside Apple
Podcast, that would be amazing.
And if you like, follow or subscribe,depending on the platform that you're
(22:57):
listening to, you'll be the first toknow about every new episode, which
comes out every Thursday morning.
See you next week.
What is a great conversion rateand what is stopping your customers
from buying on the podcast?
Today I'm joined by Pip Hounslow,a Shopify expert and web designer
who's going to be talkingall things conversion rates.
Welcome to the Resilient Retail GamePlan, a podcast for anyone wanting to
(00:21):
start, grow or scale a profitable creativeproduct business with me, Catherine Erdly.
The Resilient Retail Game Plan isa podcast dedicated to one thing,
breaking down the concepts and toolsthat I've gathered from 20 years in
the retail industry and showing youhow you can use them in your business.
This is the real nuts and bolts ofrunning a successful product business,
(00:44):
broken down in an easy, accessible way.
This is not a podcast about learninghow to make your business look good.
It's the tools and techniques that willmake you and your business feel good.
Confidently plan, launch, and manageyour products, and feel in control of
your sales numbers and cash flow to helpyou build a resilient retail business.
(01:12):
Welcome to the podcast.
Today's episode is with PipHounslow, who is a small business,
Shopify web designer and has made.
How many websites do youthink you've made now?
I literally have no idea quite a lot now.
I was keeping count and it's got alittle bit of, because I dabble in
quite a lot as well, rather than justlike building the off from scratch.
(01:32):
So I help quite a lot of people as well.
Yeah, I don't know, overa hundred I'd probably.
So you've got a lot of expertisein Shopify and what we're gonna
be talking about today is aboutwebsite conversion in general.
Obviously, a lot of people listening willbe on Shopify, but I think everything
we're sharing will be relevant probablyno matter what platform you're on.
So let's start off bydefining a conversion rate.
(01:55):
How do you calculate it andwhat is "normal?" Quote unquote.
So these are Shopify's benchmarks.
So, and they're really, really goodconversion rate is sort of 3.5% up.
And then most people aresitting between 1.4 and 2.5.
But if you're on less than1%, then there's like a block.
(02:16):
There's usually some kind ofblock on there that's stopping
people from buying or making 'emhesitate that little bit too long.
But yeah, so you can work it out.
You can do it the long way ifyou want to know the actual
technical way of working it out.
So it's your total ordersdivided by your total visitors
and then times by a hundred.
So if you had 50 orders and 2000 visitors.
(02:37):
So it would be 50 divided by 2000 timesa hundred, and that would equal 2.5%.
That would be your conversion rate.
But you can also go, if you're onShopify, go into Shopify Analytics.
And there's a section in there whereyou can like do a comparison over days,
weeks, months, from different quarters orhowever you wanna, you want to measure.
(02:59):
You can see it, right?
It's right there on youranalytics dashboard, isn't it?
Yeah, which is great.
Makes it so much easierthan some platforms.
Yes.
I mean, that's it really interesting.
So basically I think people often, whenthey first start talking about conversion
rate, people are often really shocked byjust how low it, it really is, in general.
But obviously we know that if you're at3.5% and above, then that's really good.
(03:22):
Do you feel like it's related atall to the price of the products?
So do you find that people who'vegot higher, you know, for example,
if you're selling a 600 pound dress?
Do you think generally speaking,your conversion rate's gonna be
lower than someone selling, I don'tknow, stationary at sort of 10-15
Well, I think the people that aregonna go and look at a 600 pound dress
(03:43):
are not the same people that would belooking at sub 10 pound stationary.
I do know that if I'm on Instagram,if it's not the pricing's not clear,
I will go and have a little look.
It might be that if they're running ads,they will get a lot of clickthroughs
because their clothes are very pretty.
And then the oh my God,that's 600 pounds, click off.
(04:04):
So potentially if they're runningads would probably be a bit lower.
And with regards to like, I mean,I love stationery, so that's
a very good example for me.
I'm very likely to go and buy it.
But yeah, you get more of an impulse buy,it's more of like an impulse buy thing.
So if that wasn't an ad and youwere running and that came up and
you're like, "oh, I quite like that"you'll be more likely to impulse buy
(04:25):
it than you are a 600 pound dress.
So it depends who it's targeted at.
But yeah, I mean, probably a highercost item will be looked at a lot,
especially if they're running ads.
Not necessarily bought.
So it's not necessarily true that thehigher your price point, the lower
your conversion then necessarily.
Not necessarily.
It kind of depends.
I mean, like again, if it's ads andyou've got your targeting properly.
(04:50):
Then maybe you do havea good conversion rate.
It honestly just depends what you'reselling and who is looking at it.
And if you've targeting, right?
I mean, people targeting mefor a 600 pound dress, I'm
sorry, but they're out of luck.
So yeah, it depends who's lookingat it, but yeah, it's not necessary.
(05:11):
Not necessarily.
Yeah, that's interesting.
That's good to hear.
So you mentioned there that ifyour conversion rate is, say lower
than about a 1.4 to 1.5, thatthere's gonna be something there
that's stopping people from buying.
So what are some of the most commonmistakes that you see on product business
websites where they are doing somethingthat is stopping people from buying?
(05:32):
Yeah, one of them, themain ones is photography.
And I'm not saying people should investin a professional photography free
session 'cause they can be expensiveand small businesses don't necessarily
have a budget, but everybody has awindow and most people have an iPhone.
So you can get some really good qualityin focus, bright images without spending
(05:57):
like hundreds or thousands of pounds.
But yeah, having a clear sortof high res images in use.
Like one that's in use, a lifestyleshot, somebody holding it to scale,
and then a on a plane background.
'Cause if you wanted to submit yourproducts for like gift guides and stuff,
then they'll want the plain image one.
So to have one of those is quite good.
(06:17):
And it also looks quitenice as a catalog of images.
So lots of people overlook that and willquite often have dingy and dull images.
And that's not, people can'timagine that in their house.
They want to imagine that thing intheir house or in their hand or on them.
And you need to get thatacross in the photography.
So lots of people just dooverlook that and just assume
(06:39):
any old picture or a mockup.
A mockup picture is not going to workeither 'cause there's no sense of scale.
The person that's putting, if youhave like a print and you put that
onto a mockup, you've got no idea.
And nothing to relate it to.
So yeah, photography is the main one.
(07:00):
So you would suggest having something,somebody holding it or somebody,
I mean, Amazon have got their kindof little diagram, haven't they?
It's like a outline of a personand the person is holding.
Yeah, the sizing thing.
Yeah, that definitely is, that'salways my biggest bug bear is when I go
onto jewelry websites and they've gotearrings and they just show the earring
and they don't show it on any ear.
(07:20):
And I'm always like, Idon't know what seven.
No idea.
Like, is that like a tinyhoop or is it a hoop hoop?
Or like, you've got no idea.
So giving some sense of scale, and giving people a chance.
I mean, the Amazon sizething does do its job.
It's not very pretty,but it does do its job.
So I would tend to put the thinglike in your hand or something.
(07:41):
Just as like a more personal.
So you think that, um, that's probablylike the biggest blocker then?
I mean, there's quite a few, but I'd sayprobably is one that people overlook when
it's just so important on your website.
It can like, make or breakthe design of a website.
Somebody's got bad photos, thenno matter what the layout or what
(08:03):
you are including, the photos justaren't selling your product for you.
So yeah, I think that one.
There's also, like product descriptionsare quite often overlooked.
Like people will just plunk anything in.
Yeah.
And it can be, and then have thesame thing over multiple products.
Which is not very good for SEOeither because you're not, you
(08:24):
are basically gonna rank for thesame thing on multiple products.
And there's no sort ofbenefits added to them.
Sort of like, why shouldpeople buy that product?
What problem is it solving?
Sort of a benefit led descriptionis, one again, that's overlooked.
Right.
Okay.
So, and I suppose going back to imageryfor a second, is that something?
(08:46):
Sometimes a difficult conversationyou have to have with people if you,
they you're redoing their websiteand then you're like, okay, well
I can redo it, but the imagery's.
Yeah.
I actually had that conversationvery recently with a brand and
their whole website was black, dark.
And I was like, that'snot, that's not the vibe.
(09:08):
And all their photos were dark,and they basically did a full
reshoot of all of their images.
And then we even got 'em to do likea video for the homepage at the top.
And it just completelychanged the whole look.
And they didn't, they werelike, they went with it.
They were like oh, we like dark.
And I was like, you don't wantdark, you're not having dark.
So they just went with,they look so nice now.
(09:30):
But yeah, they did a whole, a fullbrand, like a new photography thing.
Which was really good, really worthwhile.
Yeah.
So obviously we talked aboutimagery, we talked about product
descriptions, and we touched on that.
So having really good benefitled product descriptions where
people actually understand whythey should be buying something.
Yeah.
Yes, exactly.
(09:51):
And not the same ones.
No, no, not the sameones for every product.
So it is basically having like what yousell, who it's for, and why it matters.
That's quite a good sort of basisfor your product description.
So it can speak toparticular people, you know.
Even it's vegan or any sort ofanything that you maybe take
(10:13):
for granted about your products.
Other people might be like,"oh okay, so it's sustainable."
I might put that in there.
They're really pushing the benefits ofthat product onto a person like you.
You speak to people, buy from people.
And so you are actually speaking to aperson and they might just see themselves
in that issue and be like, "oh, thatwill solve my frizzy hair problem."
So I've also done that.
(10:39):
So I know that product descriptions is oneof those tasks that a lot of people just
find really, really tough and tedious.
Yeah, especially whenyou've got a big catalog.
Yeah.
But yeah, I mean, I'm all fornot trying to do it all at once.
Just work through and you startwith your best sellers and reassess
those and just make sure theindividual to the product, basically.
(11:01):
Don't just make them the same for ifyou've got like a conditioner and a
shampoo that are doing the same job.
Just try and tweak them a littlebit to be more about that, like
what that particular thing is doing.
Rather than just copy paste.
So when you are designing andyou are designing, presumably,
(11:24):
you know, the purpose of thewebsite is to convert, right?
So what are some of the keyelements that you want to see on
every homepage, every product page.
I'd say on the homepage is what you sell.
You know, who it's for and why it matters.
Like right up there on the, on thebanner that top that first bit.
Rather than like, welcome to my shop.
(11:45):
It needs to be sort of speaking to aperson like, I don't know, natural.
So I've got one here.
It's Natural Skincare for sensitive skin.
Made in the UK andbacked by dermatologists.
That sort of like coversall of them things.
It's very clear what they sell.
And then having a clear call to action.
But underneath that, so for thatone would be like shop skincare.
And all above the fold, veryclear what you do and you sell
(12:08):
and hopefully you'll get people inquicker 'cause it's super clear.
And along with that is having,making sure your navigation
is again, very, very clear.
Rather than shop and thena list of collection names.
It's like having it you know, like ifyou are doing skincare, it will be like
(12:30):
Shop Skincare in the top rather thanjust shop and then underneath a big list.
And then obviously we've talked aboutthe product photography, making sure
that top one is like really a reallynice showing of like either your
bestseller or a collection of yourproducts or something, or a video.
And having some of your best sellersis also good to have in your homepage.
(12:53):
I tend to put them fairly near the top.
With Shopify, you can get them toorder automatically by bestseller.
But quite often you'll have a load ofbestsellers, which are very similar
products, so you can actually go in andmanually adjust your bestseller list.
So you can move some of the thingsup so you're not stuck with like,
(13:13):
shampoo, shampoo, shampoo, shampoo.
Be like, "okay, I'll just move thebest selling conditioner up." You can
sort of like play with it a little bit.
And just make it, give a bit moreof a spread of your products.
So it's quite an easy way of showingsome of your products really early on.
Reviews always importantbit of social proof.
Yeah, just having review, like areview carousel on the homepage
(13:34):
is always very important.
And then I've noticed quite a few peoplein their footer leave out their policies.
Right.
Have all the sort of standard ones you.
And they're very easy to get, likewith Shopify, which will apply
to all, anybody could use them.
They have free templates.
But you'd need your shipping policyreturns and terms and conditions
(14:00):
and privacy policy, and you shouldjust have those in your footer.
It's a very simple thing to add.
So lots of people overlookadding that to their footer.
I've had quite a few peoplewhere I've been like well, how
do people know how much it is?
I suppose that all just helpswith the conversion, right?
It helps with people have that trust.
(14:21):
Absolutely.
It's all about gaining people's trust.
And if they trust you and they kind oflike you, then they're more likely to buy.
So I also like to add like a littlestory snippet on that homepage as well
so that links through to the homepage.
So it's a little bit more of like you asa person who's founded this business and
(14:42):
sort of why you founded it to start with.
'Cause the founder story isalways like quite inspiring.
And often just sort of hidden.
So I think it's really nice to have apicture, a face to put to the business
with a little bit of like a why.
'Cause it's often the whythat you've done that.
Is the why that people are buying it.
So you can say something, you canget some yeah, I can't think of
(15:04):
the word, but yeah connection.
Yeah, for sure.
That's such a good point.
I love that.
The why that you're doing it, you'redoing your business for is the why
that people are buying or the reasonthat they buy, and so don't hide it.
Yeah, don't hide it.
Never hide it.
Yeah.
Whenever I look at people's websitesand they don't have a picture of
(15:24):
themselves, I'm like, come on.
Yeah.
And I love what you said of thereabout making it really clear.
Just kind of going back to the wholepiece about the carousel on the first
image on the homepage, because Isuppose that's probably your first
biggest leak of people, right?
That they come onto the homepageand they bounce off immediately.
Yeah.
If they can't see necessarily whatthey want or like, you are not
(15:46):
aligning with what they thoughtyou were, and they'll be off.
only get a few seconds to convince them.
We're very fickle.
I always remember seeing a shop,and it was, on the homepage, they
had a lovely photo of a rose.
But they didn't sell roses.
It was just like, they thought,"oh, this is a nice image," but it's
(16:06):
like, "no, show me what you sell."
Yeah.
What do you want me to buy?
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Exactly.
So when it comes to driving conversion,then how important is mobile?
And what should smallbusinesses be checking for
when it comes to their mobile?
The website on mobile?
Mobile is so important.
(16:27):
But it's because I think, 'causemost people will edit and build
their websites on their desktop,it can be a little bit overlooked.
You do have, like in Shopify, I don'tthink, I think you probably have it
in other, I think you can get it inlike on the browser tools as well.
Where you can look at your website ondifferent screen sizes, which is not
100% proof and it's not a replacementfor an actual phone, but as a first
(16:51):
part it's quite good to check.
And just to make sure that your site isloading fast enough because, I dunno.
The doom scroll is a, is a real thing.
So if you're not quick enough.
Yeah.
It doesn't load, they'lljust go do something else.
And again, having like thatnavigation that works, on a mobile
(17:11):
'cause sometimes again, on Shopify.
Sorry, this is Shopify specific.
You can have a different navigation foryour mobile as you do on your desktop,
All right, okay.
On a desktop, you maybe you've gotlike a couple of dropdowns which
won't work on a mobile 'cause you'llhave to click through a few times.
So just to make sure that your navigationworks on both platforms like just no,
(17:35):
it's, no use it looking really lovely onyour desktop if it's not gonna get people
through to the product pages on a mobile.
Yeah.
And then text sizes is really important.
Quite often people forget to thattext sizes, if it's teeny tiny,
people can't read it necessarilylike so quite, so easily.
Yeah so I would check all those things.
(17:57):
Product pages.
And also I had quite a goodtest where you, if you have to
pinch your screen to buy it.
To like, to find the button.
That's not, you don't wanna haveto pinch or scroll sideways.
Sometimes it's not quite fitting.
Yes.
That applies more I'd say toplatforms and not Shopify,
The Shopify like official themes.
(18:19):
But that's definitely something tocheck that you don't have to pinch
or like, or scroll sideways tolike get your add to cart button.
Yes.
I always remember a story of someonesaying that they'd done some work on their
website, and what had happened was that itmeant that there's something over the add
to cart button in their mobile version.
(18:40):
But they didn't realize it for agesbecause they were just waiting on
and just like notice their sales weredropped off and they just hadn't checked.
And then eventually they took a lookand they realized what had happened.
But it was like, yeah.
Dropping off at my product page.
Oh, it's so frustrating.
They can be fiddly and sometimesthey, you know, websites just
(19:03):
do stuff and you are like, why?
I don't know what, why it's doing that.
But yeah, so it's always, it'sdefinitely worth checking every single
page and obviously, especially yourproduct pages and your checkout.
Cart and checkouts.
Just to kind of wrap us up.
If someone's listening to this and they'rethinking right, I'm not ready for a full
(19:24):
web design, but I really want to improvemy conversion, what can I do differently?
What would maybe be two or threesmall tweaks that they could make
right now to improve conversion?
I would say like changingyour add to cart button color.
Okay.
(19:45):
The built in on Shopify andprobably on all of them.
You don't necessarily think aboutit and it doesn't really stand out.
It will get hidden.
Especially 'cause you've gotlike either Apple Pay or Shop or
something else you're fighting.
Your button is fightingwith, to stand out.
It's to give it a pop of colorbasically, is to make it really
obvious and bring it up the page,like go above the description.
(20:06):
That when they land on the page, theycan go like, okay, I want that done.
Yeah, and then having, I'd sayimprove and reorder your description,
your product description slowly.
If you have a big catalog, obviously.
But start with like your bestsellersis to like, try and sort of
make it into bite size section.
(20:26):
So people can like skim read itand get the gist of like what
your product does, that's wherethe benefit led thing comes in.
So make sure that's right at the top.
So you'll lose people's attentionif you have, like I've seen people
have like really chunky descriptionswhere everything's in there.
Like shipping, ingredients, size.
It's all in this one massive block oftext, which is just unreadable to people.
(20:48):
So going in and like separating out andmaking sure it's people can get what they
need out of it quickly is really good.
I'd say those two things, yeah.
Is that where they use?
It's useful to have the buttonswhere you can to expand it.
Yeah, the expanding ones.
So I tend to put like materialsize ingredients or they all have
their own little tabs so thatit's quite intuitive to find them.
(21:12):
People know where to look for them,so they just scroll down and have
a little browse through there.
Yeah, okay.
I love that about andabout the pop of color.
That's really interesting.
So making it stand out, moving ithigher up, making your web, just
making your descriptions easierto read, easy to understand.
And of course, as we've touchedon, make sure that you are
happy with your photography.
(21:32):
Yes, of course.
And your photography very important.
How quickly do you see changesto conversion, I suppose?
Is it pretty much instantaneous?
If it's the same, it really depends.
I mean, I've done them where they havebeen just changed almost immediately
and just gone up by like one or 2%.
Which is amazing like that.
But that, I mean, that waswith like a theme redesign.
(21:55):
So quite often people come to me havingdone the first stage of their business
with their website and they're like,okay, we're ready to step it up now.
And they have built theiraudience and grown and stuff.
The redesign just, I dunno, itjust cements in the sort of.
I dunno, it gives them a bitmore, maybe a bit more like trust.
Mm-hmm.
Sort of thing, because it's sort oflaid out a little bit differently
(22:15):
and all the trust elements are there,which weren't necessarily there before.
Excellent.
Well, thank you so much,really fabulous to talk to you.
Do you wanna finish off by tellingpeople where they can find out
more about working with you?
Yeah, you can find me onwebdesignandstuff.com.
That's my website.
Same handle for Instagram.
(22:36):
Always happy to have a chat.
Yeah, and you can book a callif you want to have a chat about
your website via my calendarlink, which is also on my website.
Thank you so much for listening.
If you have a moment to rate andreview the podcast Inside Apple
Podcast, that would be amazing.
And if you like, follow or subscribe,depending on the platform that you're
(22:57):
listening to, you'll be the first toknow about every new episode, which
comes out every Thursday morning.
See you next week.
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