Conversion Rate Optimization

Running your own business in today’s demanding world full of competition requires a constant online presence. However, having your corporate website is not always sufficient – apart from providing basic information on your company, it should also be user-friendly and attractive to users. You have probably heard that any website should be well-optimized. What does this really mean? Can optimization boost the conversion rate?

Conversion Rate – how is it calculated?

The conversion rate is a total number of conversions divided by the total number of all website visitors. This means that if your site was visited by 1000 people and only one of them completed a desired goal (e.g. made a purchase), then the conversion rate is 0.1%. It is widely believed that a good conversion rate is about 2%. Of course, it depends on the type of business you run and a desired goal. In the case of online stores, the conversion rate is usually identified with successful purchases, while in case of other types of websites it may be by a completion of an online form, a click on a button with the telephone number or a visit on the contact page.

How can you boost your conversion rate?

The conversion rate is a very convenient indicator of your website’s efficacy. It is easy to calculate and does not require any advanced tools for measurements. Raising your conversion rate may be done in many ways. Usually, the low CVR is caused by a mismatch between your offer and visitor’s expectations and needs or inefficient design of a landing page.

Target your clients’ needs

If you struggle with a low conversion rate, firstly, try to analyze your offer and compare it with your rivals. If the prices are way higher than others’, try to come up with the idea to convince your visitors to choose your products and services in some other way. Study quality, time and other important factors that are valued in your sector in detail. Work on the presentation of the content – make sure that all information needed for the buyer is included in your offer. Consider adding photos and graphics that will help your customers understand what you have to sell. Although some website elements, such as colors, spacings, headings and font types may seem to be irrelevant for you, the visual part sometimes determines the choice of a particular company.

Try making you website more affordable for customers

Once you are sure that your offer is attractive to customers and well-presented, the problem of the low conversion rate must lie somewhere else. Your site may probably make a bad first impression or is simply poorly-optimized, meaning it does not show up to the targeted audience or is not functional enough. In such a case you will need to get a proper conversion rate optimization done.

What is the CRO?

The conversion rate optimization is hard to define in only one sentence. This is a set of practices that you can introduce to drive additional traffic to your website and make it valuable. The CRO includes the evaluation of your website sales funnel to introduce changes that can improve your site’s functionality. Its aim is to provide you with a bigger number of active users that generate conversion. To optimize your website, you can use numerous tools and strategies that turn visitors into leads and conversions.

Some basic CRO techniques

As we have already mentioned, conversion rate optimization is a very complex process that requires extended technical knowledge and years of experience. Some of the most common ways to optimize conversion rate include:

• running split (A/B) tests to check which elements influence the conversion rate of the website,
• reconstructing the conversion process, e.g. purchase making at an online store,
• evaluating website content in terms of precision and clarity,
• boosting the speed of the website,
• enlarging the site and using colors to highlight meaningful elements,
• introducing a call to action that encourages people to act,
• using numerous visuals, including high-quality product images and videos,
• making the site 100% responsive,
• working on textual content and using relevant keywords,
• using remarketing ads,
• and so on.

Basic tools for measuring the efficacy of conversion rate optimization

The examples of conversion rate optimization include an open catalog of changes that may be introduced on the website. To control the efficacy of this process, you may use some basic and more advanced tools that will help you check if the conversion rate increases. These include:

• Google Analytics. This is a free optimization tool that can help you get to know your audience better and generate more conversions. It helps you carry out analyses concerning your visitors. Thank to Google Analytics you can easily find out how many people entered your site, where they live, what types of deceives they use. It also shows you which pages are the most popular on your website.
• Google Tag Manager. Similarly to Analytics, Google Tag Manager is a free tool that you can take advantage of any time. It allows you to manage marketing tags on your website or mobile app without code modifications. It is an advanced user-friendly interface that makes working with tags simple.
• Facebook Pixel. This is a piece of code that you can put on your website to monitor how successful your Facebook Ads campaigns are. It collects data that tracks conversions and is useful in ads optimization.
• Smartlook and Hotjar. These simple tools provide you with session recordings. They help you control the actions of your visitors. Thanks to full recordings, you are able to see how your audiences behave on the website and to introduce changes increasing its functionality. Both of the tools offer heatmaps and provide you with detailed statistics concerning user behaviors.

The main benefits of conversion rate optimization

The optimization is one of the quickest ways to instantly boost the conversion rate of the business. Even minor changes in colors, font sizes, and headings can sometimes increase the number of successful purchases. The optimization also allows some more complex problems within the website to be detected, e.g. technical errors that make placing an order impossible. Cart conversion optimization is one of the important elements of the CRO. In fact, conversion rate optimization is not a one-time action, but it should be carried out continuously. Consumers’ behaviors and expectations always change over time so your website should always be up-to-date with the latest trends.

Can I conduct a CRO on my own?

Carrying out conversion rate optimization requires both technical knowledge and some psychological background. It does not only deal with evident bugs that may be found in the website interface or code, but also solves some functionality problems. If you want to conduct the CRO on your own, then you need to become familiar with all the possible elements that may lower your conversion rate. Although some of them may be evident, e.g. the captions being too small, others may turn out to be hidden deep in the website. For a person that does not evaluate and optimize sites on a daily basis, optimizing the conversion rate can turn out to be a long-term process that will not bring the desired results. For this reason, it is worth hiring a marketing agency that will instantly introduce all the necessary changes.

What does cooperation with a CRO agency look like?

If you want your conversion rate to improve, you clearly need someone to make the website optimization for you. Choosing our agency, you may be sure that we will do everything to boost your business. The first step that we take in order to provide you with the best possible CRO, is to prepare an analysis of your website. We take all changes that should be done in order to make your site more user-friendly and functional into consideration. After the analysis is completed, we introduce all the necessary changes. These include both visual and technical adjustments. We know that optimization is a constant process and hence, we always follow the latest trends in SEO and website building to provide you with the best results.