Published on August 10, 2022
Driving traffic to a website is only half the battle. Once visitors land, you need to convert them to leads by performing the desired action, such as making a purchase or signing up for a newsletter.
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is the process by which a website's visitors are encouraged to take desired actions. While there is no silver bullet in optimizing conversion rate, certain best practices can help increase your chances of success.
CRO is the practice of improving your website to create more leads. It involves running A/B split tests, enhancing content, and improving workflows to create high-quality leads for better sales and lower costs.
Conversion rate refers to the number of website visitors who complete a desired action like signing up for a newsletter, filling out a web form, or purchasing a product—a high conversion rate results from a well-designed website that appeals to your target audience. A low conversion rate points to issues like a poorly designed site, slow loading times, broken workflows, or poorly written copy.
The conversion rate differs for different industries, niches, and audience demographics. For example, most e-commerce sites enjoy a 2.17% average conversion rate, but the food and beverage e-commerce niche enjoys a higher 5.5% conversion rate.
Calculating the conversion rate is easy. Simply divide the total number of conversions by the total number of visitors and multiply it by 100. If you define conversion as the total number of email sign-ups, divide that number by the total visitors to the email sign-up page. You’ll get the email sign-up conversion rate.
You can aim to meet the industry standard or beat it. Optimizations can happen anywhere - your homepage, product page, landing pages, or blog page, among others. Improving each section will help optimize the entire site and increase your conversion rate. If unsure what factors to improve, you can always work with a conversation rate optimization agency. They will help point out critical factors to change based on existing data.
Conversion rate optimization involves running experiments on different pages on your website. Some standard practices include adding Call-To-Action (CTA) within content, creating lead flows, and making changes to web design. Before diving into these experiments, learn about the conversion rate optimization best practices that will help you become successful.
Optimizing your website involves listening to the data you’ve already gathered. Your current information already says a lot about what your customers want. Check your web analytics, customer survey data, and other sources. These already contain a wealth of information to help you start with your experiments.
CRO is about creating experiments, and every experiment needs a hypothesis. A hypothesis will help you know what you’re testing and propose a solution that you believe will solve the problem. It gives you a starting point in your experiment. It doesn’t necessarily have to be the solution and can be proven false as you run your experiment.
When optimizing a website, it’s common to check competitors and copy what they’re doing well. But what works for them may not work for your site visitors. Data should always be checked and experiments should be designed around it.
You can draw inspiration from what your competitors are doing but make sure to match it with what your current data is telling you. Your existing web data can help you uncover problems that need to be solved for conversions to increase.
Clearly defined goals will help you understand what you’re measuring. For every hypothesis, have one primary goal that will determine the success or failure of your experiment. Track the results using the correct measurements. You don’t want an investigation to end and find out you’ve tracked the wrong metrics.
You may have read various best practices designed to increase conversion. While they can produce quick wins, always test them before full implementation. There’s no magic wand that will magically increase your conversions.
Always rely on your site data and run experiments to find the winning formula. When you do, continue to optimize. CRO is an ongoing process that doesn’t end with a single experiment.
Despite the competition, the site, customers, and businesses are unique. Improving conversions requires looking at your site’s data and running experiments to test hypotheses. Don’t copy others. Run your own. You’ll succeed faster.
For more helpful articles about improving your site’s conversion and increasing leads, check out this Blissdrive blog.
