E-commerce game is pretty simple: companies need to get as many conversions as they can as it  provides sales and profits. While this plan sounds easy in theory, getting the needed amount of conversions is much more difficult in practice.

This is especially true for small businesses that cannot afford large marketing budgets to promote their products. However, even if your e-commerce site already uses a wide variety of tools to improve conversions, such as discounts, promo offers, and free stuff, there are some great ways to enhance your conversion effort.

Here, we are going to discuss some awesome methods that improve conversions for e-commerce. Are you in?

1. Improve the quality of product images

This trick is widely underrated and can do miracles for your performance. Just think about this: people always want to see the product they are purchasing, so the image of the product should be appealing. According to a conversion expert Jeremy Smith, the images should be big, have not-so-obvious features and background, and feature people on them in order to produce the desired effect. Use alternative and detailed views!

People shop with their eyes. See this example from ties.com to see how it’s done.

2. Use Social Media.

Your marketing effort might be ineffective if you’re not using social media. According to ProShops, 84 percent of online shoppers review social media site before making a purchase. This is huge! Companies that have built a presence on social media clearly have an advantage over those who have not. As the result, their e-commerce conversion rates are higher.

Increase your social media presence and provide links to your e-commerce store.

3. Use product videos

Another great idea for small businesses that doesn’t cost big money. As written above, people shop with their eyes, so having videos that demonstrate how the product performs is great for conversions. Gather your team and shoot some high quality videos of your products.

Sound interesting? Here is great Entrepreneur guide on how to increase conversions with product videos on some ideas.

4. Testimonials

New visitors to your e-commerce store expect a great experience with your company and quality products. To let them know that you are able to help them, use testimonials from previous clients. “Video testimonials are a big hit in the e-commerce game right now,” says Debra Curry, a senior online marketer. “One of my latest projects involved video testimonials for essay writing service, and they performed beautifully because they helped to build credibility.” Testimonials are therefore a must in online promotion because they “humanize” your business, make it easier to relate to, and build trust and credibility in those who view them.

Here are six simple ways product testimonials can increase sales.

5. Use context

Context is very important because it shows how the product might be used. As a result, the customer can use their imagination and come up with some own uses for it, which definitely impacts the decision to buy! For example, if you are selling jewelry, you may provide some photos of people wearing it with different clothes, which might persuade the viewer to buy if he/she has similar clothes. Furniture companies are another great example: they often show their products in the context of home designs, so the viewers can see how they can furnish their home with these items.

For example, see how Venus online store presents its clothing for women in context (there are two photos, front and back).

6. Enhance the store search

More than the half of online visitors spend less than 15 seconds browsing them. This means that nothing is attractive to them, so they leave for other sites where they continue the search. One of the main reasons why people leave so soon is that they do not get what they need. For example, they typed a keyword into your search bar but it did not provide any suggestion and instead showed irrelevant stuff. This cannot happen!

Remember ties.com that we included above as the example of great product images? Well, their site is great to use as an example in terms of search as well because it has a sophisticated menu segmentation and search bar quickly yields variants. Excellent customer experience, indeed.

7. Simplify the checkout process.

One 2013 study revealed that more than 70 percent of online shoppers abandoned their cart. This is an incredible stat because it showed how ineffective checkout processes are. Moreover, it means that yours should be as simple as possible to make sure that the customers stay and finish the purchase. Perhaps one of the best examples of great checkout processes is Amazon One Click. It has very few steps, does not require a lot of information from customers and allows to complete a purchase easily. This is an example for you to follow!

Simplify your checkout and remember: ask for less, sell more!

8. Improve the quality of the call-to-action (CTA) button

Making CTA buttons stand out on the product pages is critical to increasing conversations (and making sales). These are the buttons that the viewers click to convert, so they should have a different color, size, and font than others. If the CTA button does not stand out, the customers might feel like you are a store without a register. That should be avoided because it undermines a good customer experience on your site.

Have a look how Best Buy does this: the CTA button is large, has different (and very unusual but effective) color and is placed where the customers see it. As the result, it stands out perfectly!

Over to you!

If your e-commerce store needs some changes to improve conversions, use these great tips. Many of them do not even require investment, so you can try them today. Also, you need to remember that there is no magical method that will improve conversions on your e-commerce store overnight, so using different techniques is the best strategy. To find out what strategy works the best, just try it and test the results afterwards.

Happy selling!

Tom Jager is professional blogger. He works at A-writer.  He has degree in Law and English literature. Tom has written numerous articles/online journals. You can reach him at G+  or  Facebook.