What is conversion rate optimization?
Conversion rate optimization is a process which is focused on increasing the conversions on your website. It’s simply a process which focuses on optimizing your sponsored ads, landing pages and website by using the best and tested design and psychological elements. Optimizing the conversion rate reduces the cost per acquisition and boosts the ROI. It is more to do with what you already have. It’s about efficiency.
Three concepts
- Customer is the king
- Multiple options with customers
- Power of Conversion Rate Optimization (The CRO Math)
1. Customer is the king
Customer, the end-user is the hero of the story. He is the one who will be using your services and adding to your revenue. Yes! Revenue is what everybody wants but for that, you must focus on what the user wants. Also, creating a good user experience once will lead to multiple purchases and word of mouth too. And as people connect to people more than the marketing jargons, your happy user does it for you.
2. Multiple options with customers
There are multiple options available for your targeted users. When anybody googles any search query in the search box, they get a number of pages in results in fractions of seconds. If your page is not optimized and not meeting the requirements of users, then they have at least 9 more results to check. (Rarely people check the second page of search engine results). So, it becomes highly important to optimize your landing pages & website for mainly two purposes:
- Bringing in the traffic to your page
- Meeting the user’s goals and getting them converted
3. Power of Conversion Rate Optimization
Let’s take an example of a website and try to understand what conversion rate optimization can do to a business.
Website A has a marketing budget of $10,000 and they receive 10,000 clicks in that month. Conversion rate being 1%, 100 leads are generated and cost per acquisition comes out to be $100. Now, even if they invest $20,000 and get 20,000 clicks, then also due to conversion rate being 1%, they generate 200 leads, which again brings out the CPA to $100 only. Once we optimize the website and increase the conversion rate to 3%, in the same budget of $20,000 and 20,000 clicks, website A can generate 600 leads resulting to a CPA of $33.33 which is far better than investing $100 on every lead.
Let’s consider some facts about conversion rate optimization now.
- Putting videos on landing pages can improve conversion rates by up to 80%. (Source: EyeView Digital)
- Research insights from CEB suggest that if you simplify the decision-making process of the user by 20%, then you are rewarded with 96% increase in customer loyalty, 86% increase in likelihood to purchase and 115% increase in chances of being recommended.
- A study by Hubspot says that Businesses with more than 40 landing pages generate at least 12 times more leads than those with 1-5 landing pages. 12 times leads? How much increase in ROI? Think about that.
- Conversion rates increase when your goals and user goals meet.
- More than 90% of the visitors who read your ad/website headline, they also read your CTA copy. (Study by UnBounce)
- Using correct targeting and testing methods can increase conversion rates up to 300 percent. (Source: Steelhouse)
There are more facts about how improving your conversion rate can double your annual revenue but here we will mainly focus on how to go about conversion rate optimization and creating your own success stories.
Conversion Focused Approach
Yes! Conversion-focused approach it is. Have you created the design which can compel the visitor on the website to become a lead? Is the loading speed of the website good enough? Are all the marketing campaigns making the users think about what you want? Is it bringing the revenue which it should? Is your content good enough to generate leads for you? These are some of the basic questions which may help you analyze the conversion quotient of your website.
“Increasing the conversion rate should be the topmost priority no matter what it is being weighed down.”
If the conversion rate is not good, increasing the number of visitors on the website won’t get you more revenue. If the conversion rate is not high enough, increasing brand awareness won’t work as the visitor will go disappointed. And disappointed visitor means free negative publicity of the brand. So, it’s suggested to improve the conversion rate before improving anything else on the website.
The factors important for optimizing the conversion rate of the websites are as follows:
- Conversion-centered design
- Technology platform
- User experience
- Coding structure
- The loading speed of the website
- Navigation structure
- Content quality
- An effective call to action
- Social signals
- Search engine visibility
- And many more…
Optimizing the above factors help us increase the:
- Leads
- ROI
- Valuation
- Sales
- Visits
- Bottom line
Thus, if you opt for investing in the conversion-focused approach, then all other things will automatically fall in place.
How to ensure that your website is optimized for conversions?
So, how do we ensure that whatever you are doing is actually increasing the conversion rate of your website? It is possible by measuring the conversions on your website. Setting up the conversion funnel in the google analytics will help you measure and analyze how many conversions are happening and what path is followed? Also, analyzing the past data with the current data will help you compare and calculate how conversion rate has impacted on your ROI or valuation.
Few things which you must keep in mind while optimizing the conversion rate are as follows:
- Check if the content is good, creative, authoritative & informative.
- Make the content user-friendly before making it search engine friendly.
- The whole website is structured nicely with easy navigation and effective menu.
- Put yourself in the shoes of your user and test the website.
- Show the users their benefit.
- Make the content copy and call to action synchronized as well as catchy.
- The website should be built using the right technology and the right coding structure.
- There is some content on the website which builds credibility, for example, testimonials, trust marks, etc.
How to create a conversion focused website for your business?
If you are able to show benefits to users, they will convert into sales. Using the right methodology for getting a conversion focused website ready is very important.
“Show the chain, sell the first link.”
Check out these 4 steps which you must follow in order to get a conversion focused website:
1. Conversion Analytics
To be able to convert successfully, one must understand the online behavior of their target audience and also their mindset. The true essence lies in understanding the needs, desires, fears, and problems of the target user. Also, analyzing the detailed insights about the business and the competitors will help you in the long run.
The better you analyze using the big data or market research, higher will be the chances of the conversion.
“Be the user before you provide the solution to your user.”
You need to be a psychiatrist, doctor, psychologist, investigator, detective, reporter and what not just to give your user the best of what he wants.
2. Conversion Based UX Design
The kind of behavior our customers show is the behavior we have designed for. Having a great design in hand is like winning half battle. If you can strike the mind of your visitor with the design and show him his benefits in a nice way, then they will get easily converted into sales. It’s the design which will either build or destroy the interest of our user. Keeping in mind the design and psychological elements will help you build an extraordinary design for your users.
“Creating great user experiences will create greater credibility and valuation for the company. Visuals do matter.”
3. Conversion Development
The design creates the blueprint while development builds the building. Developing a smooth, light, functional and awesome website is what is required. You need to decide upon the best technology platform best suited for your business. Also, using the best and standard coding practices is a must and customizing the functionality as per the need of the business is not something you should keep aside.
“Website is the representation of your business. You better make it speedy, perfect and reliable.”
4. Conversion Marketing
Conversion marketing is nothing but getting a user converted using a personalized/customized marketing strategy. This may include a pop-up coming or any new offer coming just before the user is about to leave the website or abandon the cart. It may also include sending a personalized mail to the user after he abandons the cart or any issue happens.
“No matter what story you tell, make the user ‘Hero’ of the story.”
Make the users feel important by using personalized emails or offers or surprises etc.
Conclusion
Competition has increased and so have the user choices, thus, it’s very important to do each and everything which brings higher conversions not only today but tomorrow and day after tomorrow also. Optimizing websites for the conversion is a long-term investment and not a quick fix. If you want to stay ahead of the present and future competitors, optimizing for conversions is the key. Right from Search engine optimization to search engine marketing, content optimization to social media marketing and most importantly from conversion-focused design to conversion focused development, every single thing is important for getting higher visits, sales, leads, revenue, and valuation.
“Optimize today, convert today, tomorrow and forever.”
