Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)

Do you want to enhance your website’s conversion rate optimization (CRO) but don’t know where to start? Wonder no more, for it is what we will discuss today.

While conversion rate optimization may appear difficult, it just involves finding additional ways to boost your conversion rate. In this article, we will provide more details on how to improve your conversion rate optimization process.

We also present a great example and address the most often-asked questions concerning conversion rate optimization.

However, before we get into that, let us start with the basics.

What Is Conversion Rate Optimization?

Conversion rate optimization, or CRO, is the process of increasing the percentage of users or website visitors who perform a certain action to maximize the number of leads you produce. Split testing, workflow optimization, and content improvement are the three ways that CRO is attained. The outcomes of CRO are reduced acquisition expenses, more revenue, and highly qualified leads.

Examples of conversions

Macro conversions:

Purchase of a product from the site

ToPurchase from a requested quote

Purchase of a subscribed service

Micro conversions:

Subscription to an email list

Add to cart

What Is A Conversion Rate?

The percentage of visitors that finish a desired action—such as filling out a web form, signing up for a service, or making a purchase—is known as the conversion rate. Indeed, a high conversion rate indicates that your website is appealing to your target demographic, has a good layout, and is well-designed.

However, numerous issues pertaining to a website’s functionality or appearance could cause a low conversion rate. Low conversion rates are frequently caused by slow load times, malfunctioning forms, or copy that undersells the offer.

What Is A Good Conversion Rate?

A “good” conversion rate is determined by your industry, specialty, objectives, traffic source, and audience demographics. 2.3% of US visitors to e-commerce conversion optimization websites in the second quarter of 2022 resulted in purchases. Nonetheless, conversion rates for British online shoppers increased to more than 4%.

It’s time to optimize if your conversion rate optimization services is lower than you’d like it to be. It could be underperforming against your own goals, below average in your industry, or lower than your best competitors. Anywhere on your website, including the homepage, pricing page, blog, landing pages, and more, can result in conversions. It would help if you optimized each area to increase the likelihood of turning website visitors into paying clients.

How to Calculate Conversion Rate

Suppose we own a website for e-commerce. There is a user who makes new purchases every session. We want to maximize the number of purchases this user makes, in case the user can convert every time they visit the site. If a user visited the site three times, that would be three sessions — and three opportunities to convert. A closer look at our user’s three sessions and how they behaved:

Session 1:—no, he was exploring and just poking around;

Session 2:—The user bought a shiny new antenna; this is a conversion!

Session 3: The user came back and bought a new set of gears and a blinking light; another conversion.

They purchased two items, but this is one unique order, so there is one single conversion.

That’s a conversion rate optimization services whereby we take the number of unique purchase orders and then divide that into the total number of sessions. For our imaginary user, they would have converted 2 out of the 3 times they came to the site.

Subsequently, to determine your site’s conversion rate, you’ll divide all unique orders by the total number of sessions.

Calculating Conversion Rate by Sessions:

If a user can convert only once, imagine that we own a second site. Our site is a monthly delivery subscription of food items; the user here can come several times, but once he subscribes to food delivery, he will not convert again. Consider an example of the user’s behavior:

Session 1: The user came to the site for the first time to look through the service; there was no conversion.

Session 2: The user subscribes to our “Food item” service monthly. Our conversion is thereby executed.

Session 3: The user returns to read blog articles and poke around.

He can only convert once the site gets a visit. Conversion should, hence, be a function of the number of visitors, not of the number of sessions:

To get our website’s conversion rate, we would divide the number of unique orders by the number of unique users.

Calculating Conversion Rate by Unique Users:

Session 1: The user came to the site for the first time to look through the service; there was no conversion.

Session 2: The user subscribes to our service “Food item” monthly.

Our conversion is thereby executed. Session 3: User comes back to read blog articles and poke around. He cannot convert each time the site gets a visit. Conversion should hence be a function of the number of visitors, not of the number of sessions:

To get our website’s conversion rate, we would divide the number of unique orders by the number of unique users.

Where to Implement a CRO Marketing Strategy?

Here are four areas of your website that have the potential to largely benefit from conversion rate optimization.

Homepage

Homepages are prime targets for CRO marketing because they’re not only make the first impression for all your visitors but also give you the first chance to capture them and keep them moving deeper into your site.

You can achieve this by underlining links to product information, additionally adding a free sign-up button, or even having a chatbot on cue to take questions from visitors at any time they roam the website.

Pricing Page

A website’s pricing page can be the make-or-break point for many website visitors. CRO marketing could be valuable for a pricing page to convert a visitor into a customer by changing pricing intervals (e.g., price per year vs. price per month), adding or describing product features in each price, including a phone number for inquiries of price quotes or adding a simple pop-up form.

Blog

A blog is a great conversion opportunity for a website. Besides carrying thoughtful and helpful industry-related content, a blog could use CRO to help turn its readers into leads.

This process is often broken down into CTAs throughout an article or by luring a reader to learn more about a topic by sending an email in exchange for an ebook or industry report.

Landing Pages

Landing pages have the highest average conversion rate at 23% for something inherent to doing something for people. Example: An event landing page can be optimized with a video clip of last year’s event so that visitors get interested in registering for this year.

For example, if a landing page offers a free resource, the preview content can be optimized to motivate more visitors to download it. Now that you know what you should optimize for conversions, the question will be: How do you know when your business is ready to start that process?

Conversion Rate Optimization Strategies

Here are some applicable conversion rate optimization marketing strategies to test and implement at your company.

Create Text-Based CTAs Within Blog Posts

Although it is always a good practice to include CTAs in your blog post, sometimes they fail to lead the visitor to the desired course of action. Why? In reality, it is a phenomenon of banner blindness related to the fact that people get used to ignoring information presented in the form of banners on websites. A different attention span requires a different approach.

The fact that people never read through to the bottom of a blog post (in fact, readers usually “snack” on the content) means a different approach has to be taken.

Enter the text-based CTA. We’ve tested this here at HubSpot. We’ve wanted to see if text-based CTAs (a line of text linked to a landing page, either an H3 or an H4) would convert more traffic into leads than “normal” CTAs if placed at the bottom of a web page.

Add Lead Flows on Your Blog

Another optimization element you can add to your site is the lead flow. Lead flows are high-conversion pop-ups that aim to catch a person’s attention and give the user value. Depending on what you offer, you may select a slide-in box, dropdown banner, or pop-up box.

The regular CTA at the bottom of the blog post outperformed the slide-in box by 192% in click-through rate and 27% in submissions.

Run Tests on Your Landing Pages

It is a concise and core part of the modern marketer’s toolkit, in other words, the most important element in SEO Conversion Rate Optimization. That’s because a landing page is where a website visitor becomes a lead or an existing lead engages more deeply with your brand. To optimize a landing page, run A/B tests to identify your best design and content features for audience members.

For instance, A/B testing helps you find out, with your audience and leads, which version of your website’s copy, content offers, images, or even questions on the form or entire web pages brings the best response most easily and quickly when testing different versions against each other. As you can see, the form or page is very long and leads to a conversion block. From the A/B test, China Expat Health increased the lead conversion by 79%.

Without any doubts, it is possible to single out the most impactful change: replacing such a headline as “Health Insurance in China” with “Save up to 32% on Your Health Insurance in China” immediately suggested a value proposition to the audience. Such a proposition was, in turn, supported by customer testimonials.

Help Leads Become MQLs

They skip parts of the full buyer’s journey and cut to the chase, going straight to talk to the sales rep—no nurturing. Certainly, there are some actions you will want to ensure these high-intent visitors are taking in order to become marketing-qualified leads (MQLs) easily – and your web pages can do that through thoughtful site design, compelling and clear copy, and smart CTAs.

For example, we found that visitors converting at the offer level to get a product demo converted at a higher rate than visitors signing up for free product trials. So, we optimized our website and conversion paths so that people could book a demo or a meeting with a sales rep.

For this one, it does depend on your product and sales process, but doing a series of tests to determine which produces the highest customer yield is best. Then, optimize for that process. The key here is to find ways to remove friction from your sales process.

Build Workflows to Enable Your Team

There are several automated workflows that you can create to enable your team with marketing automation software. For instance, with marketing automation, one can send automatic emails, after which the leads follow up to book meetings with reps in one click.

While notifying the representatives, you are also notifying the representatives of leads taking high-intent actions, for example, looking at the pricing page on your website. If you are in the e-commerce world, this may mean sending that email to the people who dropped out of their cart as a gentle, polite reminder.

According to a Moosend study, abandoned cart emails can be very effective. They have a high open rate of 45%, and of the opened emails, 21% are clicked. Half of the people who clicked make a purchase.

Add Messages to High-Converting Web Pages.

Use live chat software to chat with your website visitors in real-time and offer support and guidance as needed.

Add these messaging features to top web pages like your pricing and product pages so that leads get information right when they want it. They can also make your messaging and chatbots action-based. For example, if a person has spent over a minute on the page, you might want to automatically offer help and answer any questions they might have—again, with a tool like HubSpot, live chat is easy.

Optimize High-Performing Blog Posts

Again, publishing blog articles opens the door to a big opportunity for conversions.

This is particularly true if you have existing blog content on your site; indeed, we have our monthly blog views and leads from posts published over a month ago.

Firstly, to begin with, optimize your blog content and find some articles with a lot of web traffic but a low conversion rate. It could be an SEO issue, a content offer issue, or a CTA issue causing it.

For instance, they experienced a 240% increase in the conversion rate of their blogs after adding an inbound press release template offer to the post about press releases.

You’d love to do this with those posts: drive more qualified traffic to them. You can optimize the content to the search engine result page (SERP), maybe even refresh it to look fresh and updated.

Leverage Retargeting to Re-Engage Website Visitors

Whatever your most critical conversion metric is, the hard truth remains: most people visiting your website don’t take the action you want. This makes using retargeting on Facebook, among other platforms, so powerful. It enables one to reach the very people who were leaving their website.

In essence, this means that retargeting operates by tracking individuals who have visited your website and then displaying ads to them online as they browse other sites. Consequently, this is more effective in that when people visit your web pages, they are being retargeted, letting you focus more on showing the ad to the right persons at the right places.

That includes well-crafted copy, engaging visuals, and a compelling offer for the retargeting to work. Like this campaign from United, retargeting is a great way for your business to be at the top of your mind and present a special offer at the right time. As per insights from past ad campaigns, United has targeted those who viewed the ad and hesitated about whether they should go for a holiday.

They have addressed the ad to this audience with a 15-second video ending with a call to action. If viewers felt inspired enough to book their vacation, they could click on the CTA to be taken straight to the United website. This proved to be a huge success. In just one month, 52% of conversions attributed to YouTube were click-through conversions directly from the ad.

Expert Tips: How to Improve Conversion Rate Optimization

HubSpot’s Content Growth Team Manager, Pamela Bump, has some tips that are bound to help every marketer increase their conversion rate optimization. For example, what should marketers be able to do with heat mapping? “

Here are expert tips to refine your digital CRO strategy:

1. Know Your Audience:

Deeply understanding who your customers are and what they need is the cornerstone of CRO. Use data analytics and user feedback to create detailed customer personas.

2. Optimize User Experience (UX):

A seamless, intuitive website design is key to keeping visitors engaged. Ensure your site is easy to navigate, with clear calls-to-action (CTAs) and a simple checkout process.

3. Leverage Social Proof:

Incorporate reviews, testimonials, and case studies to build trust and credibility. Seeing real-life success stories can significantly influence decision-making for potential customers.

4. Use High-Quality Visuals:

Images and videos can convey your message more effectively than text alone. Use high-quality visuals to showcase your products or services and capture the attention of your audience.

5. Create Compelling Content:

Content that resonates with your audience can drive engagement and conversions. Focus on benefits rather than features and use persuasive language to encourage action.

6. Simplify Forms:

If your conversion goal involves form submissions, make them as simple as possible. Request only essential information to minimize friction and avoid potential drop-offs.

7. Optimize for Speed:

Website speed is a critical factor in user satisfaction and SEO conversion rankings. A fast-loading site improves the user experience and can significantly boost your conversion rates.

8. Test, Test, Test:

Regular A/B testing allows you to compare different elements of your site to see what works best. Test everything from headlines and images to landing pages and CTAs.

9. Personalize the User Experience:

Personalization can dramatically improve conversion rates. Use browsing history, location, and previous interactions to customize the experience for your visitors.

10. Continuous Learning:

Stay updated with the latest CRO tools and trends. Digital marketing is constantly evolving, and staying informed will help you adapt your strategies effectively.

Implementing these expert tips can significantly enhance your digital CRO efforts, thus leading to better engagement, higher conversion rates, and ultimately, increased revenue for your business.

How to Get Started with Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)

Kicking off your journey with Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) can dramatically transform how your website performs, turning visitors into engaged customers. Here’s a simple guide to get you started on this rewarding path:

1. Understand Your Baseline:

Before you dive into optimization, take a comprehensive look at your current conversion rates. Understanding where you stand allows you to measure progress and identify areas that need immediate attention.

2. Set Clear Objectives:

Define what success looks like for your business. Whether it’s increasing sales, generating more leads, or improving newsletter sign-ups, having clear, measurable goals is essential for effective CRO.

3. Gather and Analyze Data:

Use analytics tools to gather data on your website’s performance. Pay close attention to metrics like bounce rates, page views, and user behavior on site. This data will be invaluable in understanding what works and what doesn’t.

4. User Feedback is Key:

Direct feedback from your audience can uncover insights that data alone might not reveal. Use surveys, feedback forms, and usability tests to gather opinions and experiences directly from your users.

5. A/B Testing:

Implement A/B testing by creating two versions of a page or element on your site. Test these variations with actual users to see which one performs better. It’s a powerful way to make data-driven decisions that can significantly increase conversion rates.

6. Optimize for Mobile:

With the increasing use of smartphones, ensuring your site is optimized for mobile users is more important than ever. A mobile-friendly website not only improves the user experience but can also boost your conversion rates.

7. Continuously Improve:

CRO isn’t a one-time task but a continuous process of testing, learning, and optimizing. Always look for new opportunities to improve your site and keep it aligned with your business goals.

8. Learn from Others:

Keep an eye on industry trends and case studies. Learning from the successes and failures of others can provide you with fresh ideas and save you from common pitfalls.

By following these steps, you’ll be on your way to maximizing your website’s. And also increase potential through Conversion Rate Optimization. Remember, the key to successful CRO is patience, persistence, and a willingness to learn and adapt based on data and user feedback.

FAQs

What is the purpose of conversion rate optimization?

A conversion rate optimization (CRO) is implemented to increase the probability. That a given visitor to a webpage takes a desired action.

What is a CRO strategy?

A CRO strategy aims to convert a higher percentage of your visitors into paying customers. However, each CRO strategy will be different on a company-to-company basis, the general steps will not. It would help if you defined key metrics and your target audience.

Next is the process of collecting information, including user feedback, to determine exactly what you are going to test. Finally, you’ll run A/B tests to improve different pages and parts of your site for conversion.

What are CRO tools?

Basically, CRO tools can either facilitate your process of conversion rate optimization or automate them. They may help with easier lead capture, research, analytics, mouse tracking, heatmaps, feedback, running experiments, and more.

How do we measure the success of a CRO strategy?

A variety of metrics usually gauge the success of a CRO strategy. These metrics include conversion rates, the average order value, customer retention, and the overall return on investment (ROI) for the campaigns. Additionally, it’s vital to observe changes in user behavior before and after the implementation of CRO strategies, as these insights can offer invaluable feedback on the effectiveness of your efforts.

What common mistakes should be avoided in CRO?

A frequent oversight in CRO is prioritizing traffic volume over quality. Moreover, another mistake is not having a clear hypothesis before conducting A/B tests, which could result in inconclusive or misleading outcomes. Additionally, it is crucial to pay attention to the mobile user experience and ensure that the site is fully optimized for mobile users.

How often should CRO tests be conducted?

The frequency of CRO tests can depend on several factors, such as your website’s traffic volume, the magnitude of the changes being tested, and the conclusiveness of previous tests. Furthermore, it’s essential to consider the impact of external factors, like seasonal variations or industry trends, which could influence the results of your tests. However, it’s wise to continually conduct tests, provided there is a coherent testing plan in place and you’re not altering too many variables simultaneously. Moreover, ensuring a systematic approach to testing allows for more reliable data collection and more actionable insights. This continuous, iterative process is crucial for optimizing your website’s conversion rate effectively.