Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) can help you make your website generate more leads and customers that are qualified.
Most marketing teams today are trying to increase the number of people who visit their website with the goal of getting some of those visitors to become sales leads. But that’s only half the battle.
Companies can experience long-term, sustainable growth by getting more out of their existing traffic and leads, rather than relying on entirely new traffic. That’s where conversion rate optimization (CRO) comes in. This guide covers the topic of CRO, why it’s important for your business to improve your conversion rate, and how to get started.
What is a conversion rate?
The conversion rate is the percentage of visitors who take a desired action. This could be something like completing a web form, signing up for a service, or purchasing a product.
This text is saying that a high conversion rate on your website means that your website is effective in grabbing the attention of your target audience and persuading them to take some sort of desired action. Websites with low conversion rates may have issuses with their design or how well their site functions. There are many common reasons why a website might have a poor conversion rate, such as slow load times, a broken form, or copy that doesn’t communicate the value of the offer well.
What is a good conversion rate?
There is no set “good” conversion rate, as it varies depending on your industry, niche, goals, traffic channel, and audience demographics, among other factors. The average global conversion rate for ecommerce sites was 2.17% in the third quarter of 2020, which was down from 2.37% the previous year. The ecommerce conversion rate in the US was 2.57%.
The average varies depending on the year and country, as well as the niche. The average rate of ecommerce sites in the food and beverage sector is 5.5%. In the hair care sector, the average rate is 3.5%.
If you want to improve your conversion rate, consider how you can optimize your process.
There are many places on a website where a conversion can occur, such as the homepage, pricing page, blog, or landing pages. In order to turn the most website visitors into paying customers, it is important to optimize every page on your site.
What is CRO and how do you calculate your site’s conversion rate? In other words, by understanding how much value conversion rate optimization can bring to your business, you’ll be able to make more informed decisions about your CRO budget.
How to Calculate Conversion Rate
You can calculate your conversion rate by taking the number of conversions you had and dividing it by the number of visitors you had, then multiplying that number by 100 to get a percentage.
As long as you have a defined goal for what qualifies as a conversion, then it is easy to calculate your conversion rate. To find the percentage, you multiply the two values by 100.
A conversion is when someone fills out the form to opt-in to your newsletter. You have a form on every page of your website for this purpose. You would take the total number of newsletter form submissions and divide it by the total number of website visitors. Then, you would multiply that number by 100 to get the percentage. Out of every 500 visitors, 2.5% submitted something.
This process can be repeated for every conversion opportunity on your site. When counting visitors, only include those on webpages where the offer is listed. You can calculate the conversion rate of your ebook offer by finding the total number of downloads and dividing it by the number of people who visited web pages where the ebook offer is listed.
To calculate your website’s overall conversion rate, divide the total number of conversions for every conversion opportunity on your site by the total number of visitors on your site.
Where to Implement a CRO Strategy
There are four areas of your website that can be improved to increase conversion rates.
1. Homepage
Homepages are prime candidates for CRO. The homepage is a chance to make a good first impression on visitors and also keep them interested in your website.
There are several ways that you can help website visitors to find what they are looking for. You can highlight links to product information, offer a free signup button, or even incorporate a chatbot that asks questions from visitors at any point during their browsing experience.
2. Pricing Page
Many website visitors will make a decision based on the pricing page. CRO can help a pricing page convert visitors into customers by changing the pricing intervals (e.g. price-per-year vs. price-per-month), describing the product features associated with each price, adding a phone number for visitors to call for a price quote, or adding a simple pop-up form.
Hotjar, for example, increased its web traffic by 400 leads in just three weeks by adding a simple email opt-in popup form to its pricing page.
3. Blog
A blog provides an opportunity for a website to convert more visitors into leads and customers. A blog can use CRO not only to publish thoughtful and helpful content about your industry, but also to convert readers into leads.
The process of boosting engagement on a website often includes adding calls-to-action throughout an article. This encourages readers to learn more about a topic by submitting their email address in exchange for an ebook or industry report.
4. Landing Pages
Since signup forms that are designed for people to take an action usually have the highest average conversion rate, it is not surprising that landing pages have a conversion rate of 23%. A video from last year’s event can be placed on the event’s landing page to encourage this year’s visitors to register. A landing page that’s offering a free resource can be more effective with a preview of the resource to encourage visitors to download it.
After reading this guide, you should have a good idea of where you can improve your conversion rate and how you can get started.
Important Conversion Optimization Tips
1. Give yourself a voice.
Did you ever have an experience where you were in a group of people and one voice sounded different than the others, not because it was louder, but because of the way the person talked? There is something unique about that person’s voice, whether it is their accent, word usage, or speech pattern. Once you are familiar with it, you will automatically know who is speaking the next time you hear it. Your website should be no different.
To make your content stand out from the rest, give it a unique voice. If you use your voice correctly, it will be unique to you and will help your audience remember you when they visit other sites.
If all factors are the same, having a distinctive voice gives you an advantage. Somehow, your business has to stand out from the others in your industry. You need to be different, or else customers will choose the bland competition over you.
2. Follow up and follow through.
Good communication is crucial for businesses to be successful. If you’re not responding to leads, calls, emails, or inquiries, you’re missing out on potential customers and wasting money. There are many ways to follow up with people: returning phone calls, following up with phone calls, sending follow-up emails, using auto-responders, and sending confirmation emails. You need to constantly analyze each of these areas to ensure you are being effective.
When following up, small things can make a large impact. The way you speak to potential customers and the timing of your communication says a lot about what it will be like to do business with you. It’s important to show your customers that you care about them even after they make a purchase. If you show no interest in the customer before they make a purchase, they will not believe you will show any interest in them after they make a purchase.
Show your customers that you still care about them even after they have made a purchase by following up with them. That’s great repeat business generation right there.
3. Structure your navigation.
Many sites have cluttered, disorganized navigation which doesn’t help guide customers to the pages they need. One of the most common mistakes people make is creating a navigation system for their website that links to every single page on the site. That’s far too many options!
Try to limit your navigation to as few elements as possible, even if you have a small site. Too many links in your navigation can be overwhelming for visitors. Keep the links organized in a way that makes it easy for visitors to choose the right page.
Structured navigation makes it easier for visitors to find the pages that are most interesting to them. They would prefer if people didn’t have to think (or search) much.
4. Build a sitemap.
If you have a lot of pages on your website, it can be easy for some of them to get lost in the navigation. It is typically not advisable to have one navigation menu that links to every page on your website. The best way to improve website navigation is to make it as easy to understand as possible, and to include a sitemap.
HTML sitemaps provide a quick and easy way for visitors to find any page on your site without having to search. To get to the sitemap, all you have to do is click once. A quick look at the sitemap will help you find the page you want to see.
The more organized your sitemap is, the better off the visitor will be. A sitemap is a great way to quickly find what you’re looking for on a website without having to click through a lot of pages. The faster you can get your visitors to the right page on your site, the more likely you are to get a sale.
5. Add unique product information.
If you’re selling products that are similar to those on other sites, it’s likely that you’ll have the same product description information. This is true for most people if they post generic product descriptions from the manufacturer. This may provide some relevant product information, but it does not highlight anything that makes your product better than the others on the market.
You should make your descriptions unique and personal to give your website a voice. Describe the product from your unique perspective. Make sure to highlight things that make each product unique, or anything shoppers might find useful to know. Sell them using emotion, not just facts! The more specific and original the information you share, the more you distinguish your business from the competition.
6. Fix your checkout process.
I have never found a shopping cart or checkout process that did not need to be fixed in some way. Amazon is always testing their shopping processes to find ways to improve the conversion process. If you haven’t been paying attention, you may not know that poor shopping and checkout processes can lead to a lot of customers abandoning their carts. Shoppers start orders, but then they don’t complete them.
7. Include a site search box.
If you have a “search this site” feature on your website, it can help or hurt your website, depending on how well it is done. If you don’t have good results from your site search, it’s better to not have one at all. You will lose sales if visitors use your search box and don’t find the results they want.
Your search produce irrelevant results 100% of the time is causing you to lose sales. It’s as simple as that. If a search bar is executed poorly, it could mislead visitors and it is better for visitors to find products through navigation or a sitemap.
A great site search can be very helpful in finding specific products, features, or information quickly on a website, without having to look through a lot of pages. This search data can also be helpful in identifying what people are looking for so you can better promote those areas. If you want to sell more products and services, you need to make them more accessible and promote them more.
Begin Using CRO
There are a lot of different ways to optimize your website for conversion rate, but it’s important to figure out what your customers respond to and what drives results for your business specifically.
