Conversion Rate Optimization refers to the process of optimizing your website in such a way that the percentage of website visitors who need to take a desired action, be it filling out a form, getting converted into actual customers from potential customers is increased. It basically a strategy to design your website in such a way that you can analyze the behavior of people while visiting your website, how they move through your site, what actions they take while on your website, what is stopping them from taking the desired action you need, why e-commerce conversions are not taking place and so on.
Conversion Rate Optimization is focused on persuading more of your website visitors to take the desired action you want them to take on a webpage, website or within a campaign.
In simpler words, the conversion rate is the percentage of visitors to your website that convert, i.e. take the desired action.
We have mentioned so many times that visitors need to take the desired action. Which actions are we talking about here exactly?
Depending on your business goals, the desired action, or conversions, can be anything that turns a potential customer into an actual customer. Some common conversions can be making a purchase, subscribing to your newsletter, submitting an online form, chatting with your bot messenger, basically engaging with your website in any way.
In today’s constantly evolving world, online traffic is extremely inconsistent. You need to ensure that your website is attractive and informative at the perfect level that whenever someone clicks the link to your site, they should almost every time perform the desired action that you need them to do. This is because if they leave your website the first time without taking the action needed, then be termed as a lost opportunity for your business.
A conversion is basically a goal completion. It occurs when a user is turned from a passive user into an actual client. Conversions are also sometimes referred to as leads. Leads generation is a part of a much broader cycle in the area of digital marketing and comprise a very small portion in the whole process.
The most common conversion is a purchase. But they depend from business to business as the ultimate goals for each kind of business is different.
Best examples of a winning Conversion Rate Optimization strategy
Some common examples of Conversion Rate Optimization are Sales, Leads, E-mail Signups, Form Filling, Subscription, and so on.
Sales
Sales are the most common kind of conversion that takes place for any company online. Sales are considered to be different for each company. For an E-Commerce platform, the sale would happen when someone places an order for a product. However, for a services company, it would be considered a sale when they are able to tap a customer to get a job done for them.
Forms
Another very common conversion is form filling. This form can be anything from newsletter subscription, quote request or seminar. In order to generate a successful form, make it short and brief. Nobody will be wasting 30 minutes just to fill a form. Ask brief questions that are apt and necessary and can be filled easily.
Conversions can also be as simple as clicking a button. It can be a button for downloading a guide or an image or visiting a price page, it all comes under a conversion.
Clicking on buttons can be a goal as it helps to see how the audience moves towards the goals you have set.
Content is the basic building block of the website that you create. If the audience likes your goals, then you can easily count on getting more shares, as people want to share your content with others which in turn results in increased engagement.
Now talking about Conversion Rate, it is the number of times a user attains a goal divided by the traffic on your site. Ideally, if we consider a user to convert every time they visit your site, divide it by the number of sessions for which the user came to your site.
To put it simply, Conversion Rate is the percentage of visitors to your website or landing page that take the required actions.
A high conversion rate depends on a lot of factors which should be met in order to achieve the results that you want. It depends on the interest of the visitor when he/she opens your site, how presentable your offer looks to them, and how easily they were able to go about the entire process. The interest is at its peak when you are able to match the correct visitor at the right place and time. At the same time your site should be easy to use and have fast loading pages.
In order to calculate your Conversion Rate, you only need to remember a simple formula. That is, divide the number of conversions you get in a given time frame by the total number of people who visited your site or landing page and multiply it by 100%.
Conversion rate = (conversions / total visitors) * 100%
The best way to calculate conversion rate depends on what exactly you’re defining as your conversion event and how you plan on measuring traffic. The numerator will measure your conversions (as defined by your conversion rate goal) and the denominator will be what you define as your total pool of traffic (generally session count, unique visitors, or leads).
Why is Conversion Rate Optimization Important?
Running an Online Business and getting traffic to your website is not enough. Getting leads and observing your audience’s actions is also important for every online business. This process will help you measure certain things like the number of visitors visiting your page, actions that are being taken on your website, etc. These measurements will later help you to take the right steps in order to boost the performance of your site.
Increased Online Competition
In today’s digital world each business needs to have an online presence. From FMCG to industrial goods, to even a small pet store, each and every brand needs an online presence today. So there is a huge need today for creating that online presence and having a website where your target audience can find you and get information about what you do. You can get these services from a creative digital marketing company to boost your place in the digital marketplace.
Improves your Website Efficiency
There are many techniques to improve website efficiency. Web development is essential as it lays the base for how your website is going to look in front of a potential client. Having a professional-looking website plays a crucial role in determining your lead generation, and is thus a part of companies offering website development services in India You can do Search Engine Optimization, Targeted Ads, and many other techniques. But if you need immediate results, then CRO is the way to go about it.
Better ROI
A higher conversion rate means making more of the resources you have. By studying how to get the most out of your acquisition efforts, you’ll get more conversions without having to bring in more potential customers.
Better User Experience
When users feel smart and sophisticated on your website, they tend to stick around. CRO studies what works on your site. By taking what works and expanding on it, you’ll make a better user experience. Users who feel empowered by your site will engage with it more.
Most of the time, the website created is good, but since people don’t find a reason to stick to it, the desired number of conversions doesn’t take place. As a result, there are fewer engagements and so the site does not perform as well as you want it to.
So, how do you get at all those lost conversions?
Create a Dedicated Landing Page
If you are doing any kind of paid advertising like Google Ads, SEM. E-mail marketing etc. you should be sending your traffic to a dedicated landing page. If you’re going to pay to get traffic to your site, you want to send them to a page that is designed to sell. Landing pages are also the easiest type of page to do CRO on. So you need to stop sending your traffic to your home page you need to stop doing that.
Come Up With a Hypothesis
All good CRO tests start with a hypothesis. But, to put your hypothesis together, you’ll have to make some educated guesses about which site elements have the biggest impact on your conversion rate and profitability. You should pay more emphasis to your headline, your call-to-action buttons, and the media content you post like images, videos etc.
A/B Test
The easiest way to start doing CRO is the A/B test. To run an A/B test, all you have to do is set up two different variants of a page and split your traffic between them. Half of your traffic goes to variant A and half goes to variant B.
To split your traffic, you’ll need the help of some sort of CRO software. You can use Google Optimize, Unbounce etc. Each of these testing platforms will give allow you to test different versions of your website or landing page and see which version has the best conversion rate.
Now that you know all about how to strategize and make good use of Conversion Rate Optimization, you also need to know some common mistakes made by digital marketers while doing CRO, and how to avoid making those mistakes.
Make changes based on Factual Data instead of your opinions
Just because your site looks more neat and organized and has better content, does not mean that you will get increased engagement on your website. You need to ensure that you make changes based on a proper hypothesis and will assure better results.
1. Always run big tests before smaller tests
Small tests impact only your CRO in minor ways. Bigger tests have significantly more chances, with noticeable impacts. You can make changes like redesigning the homepage, creating catchy headlines, etc.
2. Always pay more attention to basic design elements
Many a times, digital marketing companies tend to ignore basic design elements. Even though they don’t pay much attention to elements like image sliders, written content, video content etc. which plays a pivotal role in the performance of the website.
3. Never under-estimate call-to-Action Buttons
Call-to-Action buttons are the ones that make your site visitors to take the desired action for conversions. They are a part of an outbound marketing strategy that helps in getting huge engagement from your visitors. CTAs should be comprising of powerful words like catchy slogans that will be eye-catching.
From mapping the importance of website optimization to strategizing the means and ways to improve site performance, conducting A/B tests and using the results to boost marketing efforts, conversion rate optimization has become a mainstream effort. It not only enables companies to understand how customers think, use, and perceive their brand and its offerings, but also exposes to an incredible range of data to shape their future business strategies.
Contact Banyanbrain for all your website optimization-related queries. We are a leading digital marketing company helping big to small brands in increasing the conversion rate optimization of their website.
