9 Flaws Keeping Your eCommerce WordPress Site from Generating Sales

Do you need help generating sales on your eCommerce WordPress site?

You’re not alone.

Many eCommerce business owners struggle to turn their online store into a profitable endeavor. That’s why in this guide, we’ll cover eight common flaws that may be holding your WordPress eCommerce site back from generating sales.

By addressing these issues and implementing the right strategies, you’ll end up with a great eCommerce site that generates loads of sales.

Table of Contents

• Poor website design
• Inaccurate shipping estimates
• Lack of compelling product descriptions
• Poor search engine optimization 
• Lack of trust
• No social sharing buttons
• Poor user experience
• Poorly written content
• Slow loading times

1. Poor website design

Poor website design is a common flaw that can prevent your eCommerce WordPress site from generating sales.

Poorly designed websites are difficult to navigate, visually unappealing, and confusing for users. These factors can lead to a high bounce and low conversion rates, making it difficult for you to generate sales.

Several aspects of website design can impact the user experience and, in turn, the success of your eCommerce site. These include:

• Layout and organization. Is your website easy to navigate? Are products and categories clearly labeled and organized? Is the layout clean and uncluttered?

• Visual appeal. Is your website visually appealing? Does it have a consistent color scheme and brand identity? Is it easy on the eyes?

• Mobile optimization. Is your website optimized for mobile devices? With more and more users accessing the internet on their smartphones, your website must look and function well on mobile.

We’re just scratching the surface, of course.

But by addressing the issues above and designing a website that is user-friendly, visually appealing, and optimized for mobile and desktop devices, you are bound to see an increase in sales.

2. Inaccurate shipping estimates

When customers shop online, they want to clearly understand how much it will cost to have their purchases shipped to their doorstep.

If your site provides inaccurate shipping estimates, it can frustrate customers and lead them to abandon their shopping carts.

To avoid this issue, ensure your shipping estimates are accurate and up-to-date.

It’s easy to calculate shipping costs manually. However, you’d be better off using a shipping calculator plugin to automatically calculate shipping rates based on the customer’s location and the weight and size of the products being shipped.

In addition to providing an accurate computation, be transparent with your shipping estimates.

Show the estimated delivery date and shipping costs clearly on your product pages and at checkout.

Quick tip, using a free shipping strategy will help improve your conversions.

3. Lack of compelling product descriptions

Without compelling product descriptions, potential customers struggle to understand the value and benefits of a product, causing them to choose a competitor’s product instead.

Several key components should be included in your product descriptions.

• Provide a clear and concise overview of the product’s features and benefits. This should include any unique features or technologies that make the product stand out from its competitors. Additionally, it’s helpful to include details about the materials and construction of the product, as well as any relevant size, color, or style options.

• Use persuasive language and storytelling. By highlighting how the product can solve a problem or enhance the customer’s life, you create a compelling reason for them to make a purchase.

• Include high-quality product images and videos that showcase the product in action. This helps customers visualize themselves using the product and further enhance the product’s appeal.

4. Poor search engine optimization (SEO)

SEO is about optimizing your website and its content to improve its ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs).

When your pages rank well on the SERPs, you’ll get organic, free, relevant site traffic—therefore, more sales.

If your eCommerce WordPress site has poor SEO, potential customers won’t find your site through search engines like Google. That means you’ll get fewer site visitors, leading to fewer sales.

To improve your eCommerce WordPress site’s SEO, regularly update your site with fresh and relevant content, use appropriate keywords and tags, and optimize your website’s structure and navigation.

As of this time of writing, Google considers over 200+ ranking factors. Expect a dogfight if you want to rank for relevant keywords.

So your site can snag rank-worthy keywords, consider hiring an SEO agency that knows its way around your niche.

To streamline your collaboration with the agency, choose an easy-to-use collaboration platform, such as monday.com. (There are alternatives to monday.com, but they’re hands-down one of the best collaboration platforms online.)

With monday.com, you can assign tasks, set up approvals to your workflows, view reports, share documents, set up automation, etc. These features make working with your agency a breeze. Instead of sending several emails back and forth to learn the status of your SEO campaigns, log in to monday.com, or your preferred collaboration platform, to review reports.

5. Lack of trust

Lack of trust can be a major barrier to sales.

When customers visit your site, they want to feel confident that their personal and financial information is safe. If they don’t trust your site, they’re less likely to push through with the purchase.

To build trust with your customers, show your site is secure by using an SSL certificate and secure payment methods. Also, display trust badges and certifications on your site to show that you are a reputable and trustworthy business.

Another way to build trust is by being transparent with your customers. Provide detailed product descriptions and include high-quality photos to give customers a clear understanding of what they are purchasing.

If you have a returns policy, make it easy for customers to find and understand.

6. No social sharing buttons

When your site visitors see a product they like, they often want to share it with their friends and followers on social media.

By including social media sharing buttons on your site, you make it easy for them to do so.

Add social sharing buttons, and the next thing you know, several Instagram reels are posted about your product, increasing your views, audience engagements, and site traffic.

However, if your eCommerce WordPress site lacks social media sharing buttons, you make it difficult for your customers to share your products with their social circles.

That’s not a good thing, of course. After all, the more eyeballs you bring to your products, the higher your chances of generating sales.

Additionally, social media sharing buttons help improve your search engine rankings.

When your content is shared on social media, it can increase backlinks to your site, which then improves your site’s authority and rankability in the search engine results pages.

7. Poor user experience

Prioritize user experience and regularly evaluate and optimize your site to ensure it’s easy to navigate and enjoyable for your users.

Ignoring user experience leads to high bounce rates and low conversion rates, hindering your site’s ability to generate sales.

Users who have a difficult or frustrating experience while navigating your site are more likely to leave without purchasing.

Various issues, such as slow loading times, cluttered layouts, confusing navigation, etc., can cause poor user experience. 

8. Poorly written content

Customers want to feel informed and confident about their purchase decisions before they push through with their online transactions.

If your product pages or blog content is poorly written, it creates confusion and uncertainty for your customers, leading them to abandon their cart or look elsewhere for information.

To avoid this issue, ensure your content is well-written, easy to understand, and free of spelling and grammar errors.

In addition to improving the quality of your content, be mindful of the tone and style of your writing.

For example, if you’re selling high-end luxury goods, you’ll want to use a more formal and sophisticated tone in your writing.

On the other hand, if you’re selling more casual or fun products, adopt a more playful and informal tone.

By tailoring your content to your audience and your brand, you create a more engaging and persuasive experience for your customers.

Also, remember to optimize your content pieces for search engines. Don’t just write for your readers, write for the search engines, as well. You can do both without compromising the quality of your write-ups.

To write more quicker, use an AI writing assistant. You’ll be surprised how well-polished the output of these writing tools has become.

A popular AI writing assistant is WordHero. WordHero is widely used by marketers, writers, and even agencies. The platform supports over 100 languages and allows you to create content 10 times faster with just a few clicks.

Make no mistake, WordHero, among other AI writing tools, is far from perfect. You should always review the content it produces to ensure they’re cohesive, makes sense, and is relevant.

9. Slow loading times

When a website takes too long to load, it’s frustrating for users and may cause them to leave the site before making a purchase. This leads to a high bounce rate and a lower conversion rate, ultimately resulting in lost sales.

Several issues can cause sites to have slow load times. It could be due to a high number of large images or other media files that are taking a long time to load. It could also be caused by a poorly optimized database or server issues.

Optimize your images by compressing or using a plugin like WP Smush to fix slow loading times. Also, optimize your database by using a plugin like WP-Optimize. If the issue is with your server, you may need to upgrade your hosting plan or consider switching to a faster hosting provider.

Ultimately, it’s important to monitor your site’s loading times regularly and address any issues as soon as possible. Slow loading times can harm your eCommerce business, so it’s worth taking the time to optimize your site for speed.

What’s next?

Many flaws can keep your eCommerce WordPress site from generating sales.

By identifying and addressing these issues, you can improve your site’s performance and increase your chances of generating sales.

Whether it’s improving your site’s speed, optimizing your product pages, or building trust with your customers, there are many strategies you can implement to turn your eCommerce business into a success.

If you’ve experienced any of the issues discussed in this article or have additional insights to share, we’d love to hear from you in the comments below.

Share your experiences and let us know what has worked for you in increasing sales on your eCommerce WordPress site.