I decided to write about this after sitting at a conference table with six executives of a global web-based artist signature discovery service (known as ArtistsSignatures.com) in an emergency meeting held to solve a “serious issue” that was on the brink of virtually wiping their operation out.

Their sales were dropping at double digit percentages each month, fewer members were signing up for new subscriptions, and none of the brilliant minds at the table had a clue as to why this was occuring, nor what to do about it.  There was an endless list of improvements they assumed would help get the site get back on track, ranging from a complete web design overhaul, to more huge advertising investments – all of which wouldn’t have put a dent in their actual problem, and would have driven them further into the hole.

After reviewing their site and doing some simple 10 minute tests on their conversion process, very obvious and in some cases ridiculous issues became clear.  Most of which could have been solved and avoided very easily if some simple tests were done more frequently.

You might find some of these tips obvious or even irrelevant to your business, but surprisingly I’ve come across all of the issues listed below in both small businesses and seasoned corporate machines. Failure to address these aspects of your web projects will almost guarantee you a great deal of grief at some point down the line.

1. Test your payment processing / product delivery mechanism frequently

One common problem eBusiness operators fail to keep in mind is that components of your sales process will break at random.  Spawning from changes made by third party payment processing systems, expiring SSL certificates, all the way down to automated software version upgrades, there’s an endless list of components that comprise your sales process that can change with virtually no notice to you, leaving you without a clue as to why your customer base is taking a sudden nosedive.

When running the conversion test on the ArtistsSignatures.com sales process, I was hit with two minor, easily solved issues that composed their “major problem” – they couldn’t actually accept payment from their customers!

The first, and more obvious issue was an expired SSL certificate.  When most modern browsers land on a page with an expired or misconfigured security certificate the browser will usually prevent access to the page with a notice stating something along the lines of “This site is not trusted, and your identity is at risk” in bolded red text, accompanied by a big red stop sign graphic.  Basically, a few pages into the payment process (and no sooner) this site was telling its own prospects not to trust the web site it was attempted to make a purchase from, and to leave now to avoid a security/identity threat.

This act of negligence came solely as a result of the site managers failure to update the email address on file with the SSL certificate provider, eliminating the possibility of receiving e-mail notices when it came time to renew.  Unbelievably, the site still managed to make a few sales here and there, even with a scary notification in place convincing their prospects to leave the “untrusted site”. Now that’s a motivated purchaser!

2. Configure your payment processing solution for international purchases

The second, and less obvious issue was that the site’s traffic consisted of almost 50% international traffic while the payment processing system was designed specifically for US billing addresses addresses, phone numbers, and zip codes.  International visitors would input valid credit card and billing information, only to be rejected by the payment processing component for information it perceived to be invalid.

International customers are becoming more common among US-based web businesses, so make sure you know where your traffic is coming from and ensure that you can cater your billing system to their available payment methods.

3. Too many steps in the payment/product delivery process

It’s very common among ecommerce sites to have interview/upselling mechanisms in place during their payment process that may be silently killing their sales volume, as the bulk of your average consumers are procrastinators with short attention spans.  If a prospect has to survive ten pages of options or questionnaire fields in your payment process, they’re more than likely to jump ship before you get a chance to capture their payment.  If you have an upsale or questionnaire in place, try moving it to a point after payment has been processed and you’ll reduce the volume of cart abandonment by leaps and bounds.

Every opportunity you take to shorten the amount of effort and time a prospect has to put forth to pay you will make a huge positive impact on your sales volume. A great example on this practice are ecommerce giants Amazon.com and Barnes&Noble, both crediting their “One Click Checkout” option as one of the biggest advancements they’ve made to their platforms since inception.  Reducing cart abandonment should be one of the primary focuses to increasing your conversion rates.

4. Make your Call-To-Action components accessible

Although not one of the issues this client faced in particular, quite a few sites get this wrong and it costs them big time so I put it in here anyway.  While some of your visitors may be motivated to purchase your products after reading your primary sales letter, there are probably just as many that will be motivated by your client testimonials, and even some after being convinced by a bloggers review of your site.  All of these areas are located at different parts of your site, while many web designers place important call-to-action components like “Buy Now” or “Quote Now” functions in the more obvious areas such as the bottom of their sales letter or home page.  Since these buyers are motivated from different areas of your site (or someone else’s), there’s no telling when your visitor is ready to pull their credit card out.  The solution?  Place important call-to-action components like Buy Now buttons, and lead capture functions(free quote forms, question boxes, etc) on almost every page that it could possibly be relevant to a prospect.

To avoid causing any harm or confusion to your sales process, it might make sense to to place it in a prominent location on the side bar of your pages and blog entries.  The moment your prospect is ready to make a purchase, they’ll be presented with the option to do so without any guesswork.

Process Testing & Improvement Practices

No matter how compelling your sales letter, how stunning your web graphics, or how great your products are, your web presence is worth nothing without most of basic conversion principles in place. Frequent tests and improvements will usually always keep your sales process up to today’s standards whether they’re done once each week, or once each month.

Visit Excedra’s Web Marketing Blog for free tips and tools you can implement now to increase your web sales and improve your overall marketing efforts.