What is Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)
Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is used to increase the percentage of visitors who take a desired action on your website. This is an important metric to know, as it tells you how engaged your prospects are. Many marketers associate a conversion with a sale, but a conversion is really any desired action that a person takes on your website. It could be a sale, but it could also be something smaller like clicking on an ad or completing an online form.
Let’s learn more about CRO and some strategies to improve your website performance.
Understanding Conversion Rate Optimization
CRO is a key part of any successful digital marketing strategy. It can be challenging to start a conversion rate optimization strategy, but it’s worth the effort. In doing this, you can understand your customers better, improve the user experience and maximize sales.
Keep in mind that conversions are any actions that move people along the funnel and closer to making a purchase. Examples include:
- Clicking a banner ad or text ad
- Clicking through to a webpage
- Signing up for a conference or webinar
- Downloading a report
- Subscribing to a newsletter
- Filling out an online form
Calculating conversion rates is relatively easy. It’s the percentage of visitors to your website who complete a conversion. So, if 80 percent of people complete a conversion, your rate is 80 percent. If it’s only a quarter, your conversion rate is 25 percent. A good conversion rate is around 2 and 5 percent, though you can always increase this number!
Improve Your CRO with These Strategies
To improve your conversion rate, you’ll need to monitor and improve your website’s performance so that it meets your visitors’ expectations. Below are some tips for doing just that!
Optimize the user experience.
When customers have a bad user experience, they generally don’t return. Optimizing UX is key to good conversion rates. Make sure your website’s layout is optimized, be mindful of the different devices your visitors are using, test your site’s speed, add a search box and add social proof.
Optimize your messaging.
Another thing to optimize is your messaging. You should know your customers and be aware of their wants, needs and expectations. To best optimize your messaging, make sure your landing pages match your messaging, use lead magnets, target high-intent users and optimize your content, title tags and meta descriptions.
Leverage hard data.
Always use facts to make decisions – not emotions. An analytics tool like Google Analytics will tell you the information you need to know, such as your bounce rate, exit pages and cost per conversion. Once you have this information, you can take the correct actions to optimize these areas and improve your CRO.
Test your CRO strategies.
Using A/B testing or multivariate testing, you can test your CRO strategies. You’ll need to test often to see what is working for you. A/B tests are easy and let you directly compare elements on two web pages. A multivariate test tests multiple variations of multiple elements on a webpage. Great tools for testing are Google Optimize, Instapage and VWO Testing.
If you’re ready to boost conversions to drive leads and sales, you’ve come to the right place! WSI Star Web Solutions will help attract the right people to your website, while encouraging them to carry out your desired actions. Schedule a consultation to learn more!