Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is the process of optimizing your sponsored search ads, your landing pages, and the overall website design in order to raise your conversion rate. Furthermore, Conversion Rate Optimization analyzes the behavior of visitors and focuses on what motivates a certain market segment to engage in a certain way with specific marketing elements.
Common best practices for page design include these important aspects:
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Compelling headline – You have to create a striking headline that is relevant to your targeted keyword and compels prospective clients to remain on the page to fulfill your desired action. Don’t be spammy, but don’t be obsolete and blunt either – you have to make the title attract the proper audience.
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Concise, targeted copy – The content of your page should clearly communicate your offering, and address directly to the keywords which are associated with the targeted group. Use bulleted lists to prevent a copy from becoming too overwhelming.
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Eye-catching, clickable call-to-action (CTA – Make sure your CTA button stands out visually, appears clickable, and uses short, gain-focused text. The color and the dimension of the CTA do matter, so take all the variables into consideration when designing it.
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User-friendly lead capture form – A good form includes all the fields needed to fulfill your offer, but not so many that prospective clients are visually overwhelmed. Think carefully about what information is truly necessary to capture as you build your form.
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Attractive overall design – Landing pages should be clean and uncluttered, which conveys both trustworthiness and professionalism to prospective clients.
CRO Gets You Higher Profits
If your conversion rate rises, that means more of your customers are making it to your product pages, opening your emails, and subscribing to your service. By making small marketing CRO tweaks, you pay the same amount to attract customers but raise the number of actual buyers. This is the goal of improving your CRO rate.CRO Increases Your Traffic
Higher conversion rates mean customers are finding it easy to navigate your site, locate the right products, and make a purchase. Higher converting visitors spend more time on your site, leave more positive reviews, and leave as satisfied customers. More importantly, these happy shoppers will convince their friends and family to visit your website.CRO Keeps You Focused On Customers
CRO always puts the customer first. When you make a design change to your website, taking a CRO approach will make you look through the eyes of your customers, not the preferences of your web designer. Customer-centric decisions about design, copy, or ad placement have a better chance of increasing your conversion rate.5 simple steps of the conversion rate optimization process:
1. Research – Identification of areas to improve. 2. Hypothesis phase – Building a relevant hypothesis 3. Prioritization – Prioritizing the testing ideas 4. Testing phase – Choosing the test elements 5. Learning phase – Analyzing the resultsWhat is a good conversion rate?
According to the goals you set up, the conversion rate value can vary a lot so there is no real standard for a good conversion rate. But, if similar conversion funnels are compared, then some benchmarks can be created. For example, some of the most popular conversion rate benchmarks are according to e-commerce industries: fashion, home & garden, electronics, etc. According to the industry, the average conversion rate might be higher or lower, but that’s quite irrelevant to the individual website owner because regardless of their conversion rate there is always room for improvement. The average e-commerce conversion rate is about 3%. This means that 97% of visitors leave sites without completing a purchase. This doesn’t mean, however, that each and every site is destined to fall into its industry’s average conversion rate. You can drastically improve these figures.CRO can also give you more insight into your customers’ actions and preferences. A good conversion optimization strategy will:
- Create better, data-driven buyer personas
- Map the customer journey
- Track user flow and usability