Conversion rate optimization, often abbreviated to ‘CRO’ is the most crucial performance metrics for all marketers and the most significant leverage point for any company.
However, driving conversions is apparently tricky and intimidating task. The increase in the competition has made it hard for marketers to understand their conversion dreams.
Every company has certain goals to achieve. For instance, for your website, your goal is to make visitors click on ‘subscribe’ or ‘buy now’ or ‘call now’ button. Every time a visitor clicks on these buttons, you earn a conversion.
Therefore, your conversion rate is the percentage of the people who have taken action v/s total number of visitors who have visited your website. In short, conversion rate optimization is the process of turning visitors that visits your website into customers.
The best practices for conversion rate optimization are not commercial. Instead, they depend on clever persuasion. Let’s have a look at some of the best conversion rate optimization tips that can help you in improving your objectives.
CRO Strategy | Description | Benefits |
---|---|---|
A/B Testing | Comparing two or more versions of a webpage or element | Identifies what works best for conversion |
Multivariate Testing | Testing multiple variations of elements simultaneously | Fine-tunes multiple aspects of a webpage |
Landing Page Optimization | Improving the design and content of landing pages | Increases the likelihood of conversions |
Call-to-Action (CTA) Optimization | Enhancing the effectiveness of CTAs | Encourages user actions and conversions |
Website Speed Optimization | Speeding up page load times and improving performance | Reduces bounce rates and boosts conversions |
Mobile Optimization | Ensuring a seamless experience on mobile devices | Captures mobile traffic and improves conversions |
User Experience (UX) Design | Enhancing website usability and user experience | Improves engagement and conversion rates |
Form Optimization | Streamlining and simplifying forms on the website | Reduces form abandonment and increases submissions |
Social Proof | Displaying trust signals such as testimonials and reviews | Builds credibility and trust, boosting conversions |
Exit-Intent Popups | Offering targeted offers when users attempt to leave | Recaptures potentially lost conversions |
Cart Abandonment Recovery | Strategies to bring back users who abandon shopping carts | Recovers lost sales and increases revenue |
Personalization | Tailoring content and offers to individual users | Increases relevance and likelihood of conversion |
Trust Seals and Security | Displaying security badges and trust seals | Builds trust and reduces anxiety, boosting conversions |
Retargeting | Reaching out to users who have previously visited | Encourages return visits and conversions |
Customer Reviews and Ratings | Displaying user-generated content like reviews | Influences purchase decisions and conversions |
Chatbots and Live Chat | Providing instant assistance and engagement | Helps users make decisions and boosts conversions |
Value Proposition Clarity | Communicating the unique value of your product/service | Reduces confusion and increases conversions |
Scarcity and Urgency | Creating a sense of urgency or limited availability | Motivates users to take immediate action |
Heatmaps and Click Tracking | Analyzing user behavior through heatmaps and click tracking | Identifies areas for improvement and optimization |
Continuous Monitoring | Regularly tracking and analyzing conversion metrics | Allows for ongoing optimization and improvement |
Psychological Triggers | Utilizing psychological principles like reciprocity | Influences user behavior and conversion rates |
Use Effective Headlines
Whenever a person visits your website, headlines are the first thing that they probably notice. A great headline is the one that sums up the whole sales pitch in one bold sentence. It is meant to generate curiosity, solve a problem, answer the question, or be instructional.
Without an effective headline, there is a risk of losing a potential lead. Here are some types of headlines that have proven to be impactful in generating leads:
- Question headlines
- Command headlines
- How-to & Instructional headlines
- Direct headlines
- Problem-solving headlines
Strategic CTA’s
Just like a name, the call-to-action button prompts visitors to take a specific action. It should be there on all your pages and should be visible to visitors. While creating CTA’s three things need to be kept in mind:
- Color and shape: The color and shape of your CTA button should be such that it matches with other elements of the website. It should immediately catch the attention of visitors.
- Placement: Placing the CTA at the top of your fold is more helpful than one below the fold.
- Make it benefited oriented: Bland CTA’s like ‘Download’, ‘Continue’, etc. are not action-oriented. In place of that, make them benefited oriented like ‘Stay connected’, Get my ebook’, etc.
Easy Navigation
A lot of website owners ignore the significance of navigation. They are unaware of the fact that even navigation plays an important role in visitors’ journey through your website. How? The answer is quite simple. The quicker a visitor gets what they want, the more chances that they will purchase it.
Therefore, it is vital to have simplistic navigation. Your visitor should reach any of your website pages with maximum two or three clicks. Since the usage of smartphones is at its highest than ever before, therefore, you should pay more attention to your website navigation on mobile devices.
Reduce Page Loading Time
The website loading speed plays an important role in engaging visitors and making them take the next step. The faster the page gets loaded, the lesser are the chances that the visitors will leave the website.
Surveys have also shown that users expect a site to load in two or three seconds. It not only increase conversion but also helps in getting higher position in search engine results. Here are some of the best practices that can help in improving the page loading time:
- Implement Content Delivery Network (CDN) — a server group that brings pages and other content near the physical place of the user. Just because the server is nearer to the customer, it loads more quickly.
- Compress the image size
- Evaluate and disable the plugins that are no longer in use
- Prevent ad scripts and pop-ups
Payment Security
Since technology has developed so much and everything is online today, people are more concerned about keeping their information private. To win their trust and make them feel secure; it’s important to display security symbols on the checkout page.
The more trusted emblems you display, the more comfortable customers will feel, and this is a great way to increase online sales. Apart from displaying security symbols, you can also give users multiple payment options like debit card, debit card, mobile payments, etc. It will make visitors feel that your site is customer-friendly and trusted.
Time Limit
The more you give time to people think about making a purchase decision, the greater the chances are of them changing their mind or getting distracted by competitor’s offers. To improve your conversion rate, you should set a time limit.
Create a sense of urgency such as ‘Get 60% off on all purchases during the next 48 hours.’ In 2016, Amazon, the e-commerce king, took this approach, and its conversion rate increased by 74%.
Play on Scarcity Effect
Another great way to increase the conversion rate is to create a sense of scarcity. During your online shopping, you probably have experienced that you want something, and that item is out of stock.
And next day or probably two days later, when you visited the same website, you found the same product in stock with a small message below it ‘Limited stock.’ Well, that was a scarcity effect action.
That product probably never was out of stock. It was done by that particular website to drive sales because scarcity or short supply of the product makes people purchase the product quickly.
Optimize for Mobile
The mobile industry is growing very fast. There has been a tremendous increase in smartphone users, and the numbers are expected to reach 4.78 billion by 2020. After knowing the fact, you cannot afford to ignore mobile users.
Check your mobile conversion rate and figure out the areas of improvement. Speed up your mobile site and have a responsive design for all your mobile pages.
Display Testimonials
Trust is the critical thing that encourages people to make their purchase decision. These days, because of cut-throat competition, customers have started giving importance to other customers’ reviews. No matter how persuasive your website is, the first time visitor will hesitate to make a purchase decision.
Showing the authentic testimonials of other customers may convince them to buy a particular product. If you have a well-known client and that client is very much happy with your services, then showing their logo along with their name will help you in building more trust among other clients or customers. You may also choose to display testimonials in the form of videos.
Shorten Checkout Funnel
Checkout funnel is a series of a path that a user takes to get from a landing page to the ‘Thank you’ page. The shorter the checkout path, the more likely it is to convert a visitor. Imagine that you want to buy something, and after adding the item in a cart, you need to follow too many steps.
Don’t you feel irritated? Chances are you may leave the item in the cart and quit the website. Similarly, if your website also has the long checkout process, you may lose the potential client or customer. Therefore, it is advisable to keep the checkout funnel short. Users will feel comfortable during their checkout process, and they may become loyal customers of your website.
Key takeaway
Conversion rate optimization is a continuous process. You can always do better. We hope that the above tips will help you in growing your business. There is one piece of advice we would like to give at the end is to continuously experiment with new ideas and figure out which one performs better for your business.
Key Insights
- Importance of Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO): CRO is crucial for marketers and companies to drive conversions and achieve specific goals.
- Effective Headlines: Engaging headlines that generate curiosity, solve problems, and provide instruction are essential for capturing visitors’ attention.
- Strategic Call-to-Action (CTA) Buttons: Well-designed and benefit-oriented CTA buttons prompt visitors to take specific actions, leading to higher conversions.
- Simplistic Navigation: Easy-to-navigate websites improve the visitor’s journey, helping them find what they want quickly and increasing the likelihood of conversion.
- Page Loading Time: Faster-loading pages engage visitors and reduce the risk of them leaving the website, leading to higher conversion rates.
- Payment Security: Displaying security symbols and offering multiple payment options build trust and increase online sales.
- Time Limit and Urgency: Setting time limits and creating a sense of urgency can encourage quicker purchase decisions and boost conversion rates.
- Scarcity Effect: Creating a sense of limited supply can drive sales as customers feel the need to act quickly to secure a product.
- Mobile Optimization: Optimizing websites for mobile devices is essential due to the increasing number of smartphone users.
- Authentic Testimonials: Displaying genuine customer testimonials and client logos builds trust among potential customers.
- Shortened Checkout Funnel: Reducing the steps in the checkout process improves the likelihood of converting visitors into customers.
- Continuous Improvement: Conversion rate optimization is an ongoing process that requires continuous experimentation and refinement to achieve better results.
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