A website is an integral part of your business. It is an important touchpoint that allows your potential customers to know more about your brand. Hence, your website should always attract your target audience. But that is not enough. Along with attracting visitors, a website should also engage them. Engaging them and further increasing their interest will help them convert. This is where conversion rate optimization or CRO comes into play. CRO focuses on optimizing a website that helps businesses convert visitors into customers.
In this article we will take an in-depth look into what is conversion rate optimization and how you can use it to improve your website conversions.
What is Conversion Rate Optimization?
A conversion rate is the percentage of visitors who complete a conversion or desired action on your website. This desired action could be anything that aligns with your business objectives for example, filling a form, signing up for a newsletter or completing a purchase. It is calculated by dividing the total number of conversions by number of visitors and dividing it by 100.
Conversion rate optimization is the process of optimizing your website and content to increase conversion rate. A good conversion rate shows that your website is relevant and engaging to your audience. CRO process can help you increase the number of qualified leads, boost revenue and improve the performance of your website.
Why do you need CRO?
- If you have a website, you need to have a conversion optimization strategy in place. Brining in traffic is not enough. Engaging visitors is important as it helps you to convert them. Here is how CRO can help you.
- It can help you understand your customer preferences, interests and problems. These customer insights are valuable as you can find out what type of messaging works best for them.
- You can engage your customers and encourage conversions.
- CRO helps you increase the number of qualified leads that come to your website.
- Improve the performance of your landing pages to create a good user experience.
- Higher conversion rate means you would mean you have a better ROI.
- It lets you create a great customer experience for your users. When your website is structured, appealing and provides relevant information, it helps your users engage more.
- A sophisticated website can help you build trust with your users. They will be comfortable sharing their information or adding their credit cards when they trust your website.
Here are some conversion optimization strategies you can use to optimize your website.
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Conversion Rate Optimization Strategy
Run A/B Testing
Landing pages are an important part of your marketing efforts. A landing page is any page through which the user first comes in contact with your site. These pages can drive conversions; hence you need to make sure they are optimized. Improving user experience on these pages will encourage users to convert. To ensure that your landing pages are performing well run A/B testing. Create two different versions or more of the same landing page to test which one is performing better. You can test different elements in each of the landing pages. For example, you can create two versions of the same landing page but change a few elements like CTA button, content, color scheme or layout.
When you test these elements, you will find out what your customers prefer. A good landing page experience will encourage your visitors to take further action. Once you find out which version of your website is performing better, you can continue to use it. Testing should be done frequently as this helps you maintain the performance of your webpages.
Add CTAs to Your Blogs
Adding CTAs is a good practice to attract users to further engage with your website and take a desired action. If your blog post is related to a service you offer, you can add a CTA that leads the users to that particular service page. CTAs can also be about related blog topics or other content to help the user further engage.
You can use banner CTAs or text-based CTAs. Banner CTAs can add a visual element to your blog. Use a color scheme that aligns with your brand and add attractive images to get users attention. However, sometimes users can just scroll past these banners without reading. It is also a good option to experiment with text-based CTAs. Users are more likely to read these as they are embedded within the blog content. Experiment with both types and their positioning to see what works best for you.
Lead-Capture Forms
The lead-capture form is an important part of your landing page. The main goal here is for the visitor to give their contact information. This can be in exchange for a piece of content or a contact form to get a quote. When using a lead-capture form you need to ensure that the layout and design of your form is appealing, as it has an impact on the conversion rate. Make use of your brand’s color scheme in your form. The form should include questions that are relevant. For example, if they are downloading an eBook, then name and email would suffice. Including too many questions can discourage the user from filling out the form.
Another thing to consider is the placement of the form. The form should be easily visible to the user. You can place the form at the top of the page where the users can see it. If you are offering content, you can place the form next to it. Run A/B testing for your form to see what type of design, placement or content gives you better results.
Using Chatbots Or Live Chats
Chatbots are programmed chats a website visitor can interact with. They are programmed in a way to mimic humans and communicate with the visitors. Chatbots are a good way to provide users with answers to some basic questions they may have. Visitors find it very convenient as they can get quick responses and answers to their queries.
Live chats are where you can communicate with your users in real-time. You can provide assistance to your users making it easier for them to find what they are looking for. This is a way to provide users with a great experience with your website. Use chatbots or live chats on important landing pages where people might need help.
Optimize Blog Posts
Just publishing a blog article is not enough. You need to keep updating and monitoring it. Blogs are a good way for users to convert, hence they should be optimized. Review your blogs once in a while and look for areas that you can improve. If a particular blog is getting more traffic, you can add CTAs that either give more informational content or leads to your products or services.
Use keywords that are trending in your blogs. This will ensure that you are aiming at user’s search queries. Doing this can help you rank better on SERP.
Use Retargeting
Retargeting tracks users that previously visited your website but left without converting. You can retarget these users by showing them online ads when they are surfing through the web. This is a good way to target those users who visited any important landing pages on your website. To retarget your users, make sure to use appealing visuals that entices them to click on your ads. Use engaging messages that sparks the user’s interest again in your brand.
CRO is a great way for businesses to improve the overall performance of your website. It can allow you to get valuable customer insights and leverage them in your marketing strategies. Once you improve user experience, you can boost your conversion rate. The best way to implement this strategy is to analyze and gather information about your website’s performance. Then use these insights and experiment with various aspects of your website to find out which one brings you profit.
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