Reliable organic SEO companies help improve your website and apps to create a better experience for the user while increasing conversion rates.
The process of digital marketing does not end with launching a website. It is important to improve the website’s functionality and performance by gathering data and refining your strategy based on user behavior. Overlooking this can affect revenue as well as business growth. To understand customers better, businesses should also look into conversion rate optimization with the help of organic SEO companies.
What Is Conversion Rate Optimization and How Is It Calculated?
Conversion rate optimization (CRO) refers to the percentage of conversions from a website. Monitoring your conversion rates helps you understand the performance of your website or app. The conversion rate of your website is the number of conversions divided by the total traffic generated by the site through all sources. There are times when the same user may convert multiple times over a period of time. This is usually true when it comes to e-commerce websites like Amazon. So, the best way to calculate the conversion rate is to assess the conversions that happened during each session. Suppose you have an online gifting store where the number of monthly visitors is 100. Out of 100 visitors, 32 visitors purchase gifts in a month. So, the page conversion rate will be 32 percent.
Conversion also helps to boost the number of qualified leads, improve revenue, get better value from your present leads and customers, minimize acquisition cost, and grow your business. The following are some of the steps to improve conversion rates.
Nine Tips for Conversion Rate Optimization
- Identify your target audience: It is important to understand your customers in digital marketing, otherwise your messages will not reach the target audience. This would result in waste of time and money, and the desired output cannot be achieved. Factors like user experience, content, Call to Actions etc should be in the interest of your target customers so they can take the desired action and thus enhance the growth of the business. The language of your target audience, their purchasing power, social media interaction, location etc should be studied because optimization needs to be done accordingly.
- Have a strong Content Management System: Conversion rate optimization can work better only if you have a good content management system. Implementing a good content management system allows your marketing team to alter or upload new content that can improve your CRO.
- Consider surveys: Surveys may seem like an old practice but the inputs from surveys are useful to understand your target audience. The survey should have brief questions so that the user doesn’t get irritated. The questions should be focused on how the user felt after arriving at the web page and the hiccups he/she faced during navigation. Make sure that the survey does not pop up suddenly, it must be incorporated when the user exits, as an exit intent pop-up.
- Gather all data and analyze: Collecting all data and analyzing it is important for successful optimization. Use Google Analytics to gather all important data and study it. You can also use other tools like Crazy Egg, Hello Bar, HotJar etc. The data collected from these tools will help you set up the right strategy for conversion rate optimization. Monitor the different patterns that you see while analyzing the data and these patterns are indications of how to optimize your conversion. Also, keep track of user engagement received through social channels.
- Boost Customer reviews: Including customer reviews and testimonials is one of the most efficient ways to increase conversions. It helps to build credibility and trustworthiness among your target audience and allows them to convert from leads to customers. The more positive reviews the higher will be the chances of conversion.
- Use A/B Testing or Split Testing: A/B testing is the most commonly used Conversion rate optimization technique that helps determine what will drive the performance of the website. A/B test has to be done consistently by your CRO experts. A/B testing involves comparison of the performance of the page with two different conversion optimization strategies implemented. This could be different versions of the content, design, CTA button, or other optimization elements used by your SEO expert. By conducting A/B testing you can identify the best iteration that will improve conversions. These tests have some built-in features that would give you an edge over manually collating the data and announcing the winner.
- Identify the customer journey: It is important to know the customer journey before you start the conversion rate optimization. You need the help of Google Analytics to extract user engagement. For example, if the website receives a lot of traffic from a blog, the blog should be considered as the top-of-the-funnel marketing material. Suppose there are potential customers clicking through but not converting, there could be a serious drawback in conversion rate optimization for that page, which you have to fix. In both these cases, the CRO strategy used may be different because of the difference in each page’s objective. An effective conversion rate optimization plan can be developed only if you understand the customer journey through different marketing funnels.
- Heat map analysis: Knowing how the target users interact with the pages of the website is critical to set up a strong conversion rate optimization strategy. Heat Map analysis is one of the easiest ways to study the user engagement with a particular page. It considers the scrolls, clicks selection, time spent on a page, and exit pattern to obtain a conclusive strategy. Optimizing the page based on the heat map of the users is an effective way to increase the conversion rate of a website.
- Eliminate elements that hinder the conversion goal: Web masters often push a lot of elements into a web page to get more response or to keep the visitors engaged. However, adding too many elements can negatively impact the conversion rate. These unnecessary elements comprise content to images to CTAs that act as a distraction and prevent you from achieving the micro and macro success that you have set for your pages. If you have any of these elements on your website, then delete those. This is useful especially for landing pages that focus on macro conversion goal.
Common Mistakes in Conversion Rate Optimization
- Ignoring or forgetting the target audience: Sometimes website owners ignore or forget to focus on the target audience, and instead concentrate on features, benefits and offers that they provide. In such cases, website owners may see zero conversion despite having a well-designed and optimized website, quality content etc. These websites perform poorly as they fail to understand the emotions of the users. Most of the buying decisions are based on the emotional quotient. So, if the content, images, and design present a solution to the pain points of the customer, there is a high chance of conversion.
- Poor site load speed: Some website owners focus on developing fancy websites, and it requires Java and CSS to make it look so. However, fancy websites do not help improve conversions. This is because of huge-sized elements on the website that slow down the page loading speed. If the page takes more than 3 seconds to load, users tend to leave the page and this increases the bounce rates. To improve the page loading speed, the enormous resources that make the website elaborate need to be removed.
- Not considering mobile-friendliness: You may have a good website that drives a lot of traffic but if you do not optimize your website for mobile devices then you are losing out on many targeted visitors. If your users are interacting more using their mobile devices, efforts should be made to make your website responsive. When it comes to designing your website, ensure that the primary version is built for mobile and later adapted to the desktop. Responsive websites are currently built for the desktop and later adapted to other devices.
- Failing to set goals: This is a common mistake many website owners make, and confuse users with several CTAs and offers. Diluting the actual purpose of the web page with multiple goals will lead to poor conversion rates. Focus on identifying your Micro and Macro goals and place appropriate CTAs and other conversion-increasing elements to suit the end goal that you have set. Trying to achieve all goals simultaneously is impractical. So, focus only on achieving one target goal rather than multiple ones at a time.
- A complicated web page: There are several web designers and content experts who want to show off their expertise. But a landing page is not the place to display their expertise. The content writer may include sentences and paragraphs that only they can decipher and website designers may complicate the landing pages with their codes to add features. All of these make the landing page complicated, and it affects the conversions on the website. In such cases, the user either leaves the website feeling embarrassed about himself as he failed to decrypt the meaning of the text or gets carried away by the technology, without making a purchase decision. So, if you have content writers and web designers working for you, then advise them to keep the landing page simple, functional and attractive.
Conversion rate optimization is valuable because it increases revenue and lowers your cost per acquisition. If you are into digital marketing, it is crucial for you to know how your website is performing. Reliable organic SEO companies can help improve your website and apps to create a better experience for the user as well as increase the conversion rates.