If you do not know from where to improve the conversion rate of your website then here a catch: start by improving your checkout process. Very often, testing and improving this process is the fastest and cheapest approach to optimize your website.

There are various elements and methods to test in the checkout process, but on this post we will focus on a single element: the progress bar.

You can improve the conversion rate just by doing just a simple A/B test (compare two variations of a same element/page) and measure the results by comparing how many people are reaching a common goal page (C).

Do not expect double-digit miracle growths just because you changed this element's design. However, even a small percentage increase, it means more revenue at almost no cost for you.

You should test:

A) Your existing design

against

B) A new design based on our guidelines for creating a checkout progress bar (see below)

and set the goal page as

C) the ?Receipt?, ?Thank you? or whatever your goal page is.

Guidelines for designing a more persuasive progress bar

Based on the analysis regarding a better design for the checkout progress bar, we recommend:

1. Display numbers for steps (only for 1-5). Do not count and display numbers if your process has more than 5 steps. Numbering steps will let customers know how long the process will be, but if you display more than 5 steps it may scare them away

2. Provide a sense of action to visitors by including an arrow, pointing to right. This will help them know they are going in the right direction (forward). This may seem obvious to you, but it helps to reinforce it.

3. Highlight the current page step name, visitors are on at any step in the checkout process. Make the icon and the text of the current page different than other steps in the process

4. Include a page called ?Review Order?, ?Order Confirmation? or something similar. Many times users will go through the checkout process just to get additional information (like shipping cost). They will not proceed further if they don't know at which step their credit cards will be charged.

5. Keep the checkout process short, under 4 steps if possible. Try to combine the shipping and billing page in a single page. Do path-splits tests

6. Design a horizontal progress bar! Do not try to be too smart (think of a horizontal version), as very often they seem to be confused with website navigational elements.

7. Address anxiety issues with your bar. Display words like ?SECURE? on the top or the side of bar

8. Provide a small ?confidence of mind? element right next to each completed step. This can be a small, green ?v? and will let visitors know they have correctly completed the previous step.

Keep in mind that not any business is not alike and you may want to rename the pages in your process.