When it comes to balancing conversion and revenue, there is no free lunch: the two concepts are fundamentally at odds. This article looks at how you can optimize your site for revenue while maintaining or improving conversion.

An expression has been floating around that supposedly describes a painful truth of eCommerce shopping habits; it goes something like this: You could bury a body on page two, and no one would ever find it. It’s one of those ideas that feels right (when was the last time you clicked into the second page of search results for an answer?), but is much harder to find good data about. Fortunately, we have a lot of eCommerce data at hand, so we decided to try to dive into the question for ourselves.

Did you know that over 70% of shoppers never make it to the second page of a product category and almost 90% never make it past the first page of search results? How many do you think even make it to the bottom of that first page? In today’s age, it is critically important that the products your customers are most likely to purchase appear above the fold on the first page. Customers expect you to show them what they’re looking for, and your margin for error is minimal.