Increase Conversion Rate by Showing Personality and Building Trust

Want to increase your conversion rate* just by changing one page? Of course you do. Silly question on my part. I recently read a case study featured on Marketing Sherpa about a ski & snowboard sporting goods store that saw a 30% lift in conversion rate for shoppers that visited a particular page (compared to users that did not visit the page) you most likely already have on your site right now. Can you guess which page they changed?

Evogear, the site for the case study, redesigned their “About Us” page with a few key elements beyond the basics:

• Photos of the staff
• Employee profiles that include product recommendations
• Links to employee and company photos

The article has a full description as well as links to the site so you can see for yourself.

Why I Think It Works

Such a dramatic lift in conversion rate compared to those that did not view the page would seem to indicate Evogear is on to something with this. Here are a few theories on my part:

• Anti-big box store sentiment: There are plenty of consumers that want to buy from smaller business rather than give their money to a faceless mega-box store. Take advantage of this sentiment by showing your face and your personality.
• Product expert: By having employees express opinions of products they like and use, these employees take on the role of product expert. When a buyer comes to your site and all products seem equal, how will they know which one to buy. Add content to your product pages with your own product recommendations. Search engines just love original content and buyers that may be undecided may find the push they need to purchase.
• Community: Related to both of the above points, is buyers are more likely to be repeat visitors (and customers) if you can demonstrate you are not just a retailer that has some products they may want, but rather are part of a community. If you are a dog product store, show photos of your pets, or your informal dog play group.

Take all of the three together, and your store will start to project a brand identity that will allow you to build a loyal group of repeat customers who may likely be your best source of new customers.

One Yahoo! store that does this well is Base Gear. You can read not only about their policies, but why you should buy from them, and also about their values. So if you have redesigned your About Us page so it oozes with personality and a community feel, add a comment below to tell other merchants what you included.

Paul Boisvert
Yahoo! Small Business

* Conversion rate: The number of visitors to your site that completed a purchase as a percentage of all visitors to your site. For example, if your site received one hundred visitors, and five completed a purchase, your conversion rate would be 5%.