Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO): The Definitive Guide (2020)
In this digital era, where virtually all transactions happen online, the journey of converting visitors to customers has become very important for businesses to always stay ahead in the league.
As the market is very competitive and everybody wants to excel and increase their Conversion Rate, it is very important for businesses to have a strategic approach towards getting the best results.
Bottom line! If you want more leads and sales then you should have a good conversion rate.
And in this guide I am going to show you everything you need to have a good conversion rate
In this all-new guide you’ll learn:
The basics of conversion rate and how it works.
Chapter 1
Basics of Conversion Rate And How It Works
This chapter is about the basic concepts of conversion rate and what are the aims and scopes of conversion rate optimization.
In internet marketing, a conversion can be called as any desired action you want the user to take which is in-turn profitable for the business. This starts from one single click when the user lands on the digital platform to making a purchase and becoming a customer. Apps and websites have certain conversion goals and each can have their own conversion rate.
The conversion rate is the percentage of visitors to your website/m-site who complete a desired goal out of the total number of visitors. So that means, it is the total number of conversions divided by the total number of visitors of the website/m-site. For example, if an e-commerce site gets 100 visitors a month and has 40 sales, the conversion rate would be 40 divided by 100, which would be 40%.
The aim of conversion rate optimization (CRO) is to increase the overall percentage of website visitors that take action to complete the end goal. This action is mostly purchase of goods or services, but it can also be submitting a form or signing-up for something. This can be done by testing of alternate version of a web page or process. It is a proven method for getting more leads and more sales without any extra investments to increase the website traffic.
There are various methods that can be used to optimize these conversion rates of a website, but in the last few years, 2 main schools of thought have emerged. The first one focuses on using testing as the best approach to increase conversion rates for websites, including ad campaigns and intuitive landing pages. The second is more concerned with the pre-testing stage during the conversion optimization process. A lot of time is spent trying to understand the target market, and then the required steps are taken to optimize the conversion rate using the testing mechanism.
Some of the elements of the test-focused approach are data collection and processing, hypothesis, business rules, and real-time decision making.
During data collection and processing, hundreds of variables are tested and analyzed to find out which subsets have the best ability to predict user behaviour. Data collection can be done by a flexible data warehouse that accepts customer data and data aggregated by third parties. Data can be text-based or numeric and nominal or ordinal.
After data collection, the next step is forming a hypothesis. This process is the foundation of why changes need to be made in the first place. Based on observations and deductions, these hypotheses are made. While making a hypothesis, it is really important to make sure that each hypothetical situation is measured. Because if it's not measurable, no conclusions can be drawn.
Next is business rules, this must be handled under the framework of optimization. Some of the examples are pricing strategy, bundled offers, maximum or minimum weight for specific offers, and up-sells, down-sells and cross-sells. Finally, there is real-time decision making.
These methods will place visitors in several segments and let them decide what they feel is the best offer in real-time.
Chapter 2
Why Is Increasing the Conversion Rate Important?
This chapter is about the importance of conversion rate optimization (CRO). It mentions a couple of benefits of CRO and also features some lesser-known information that will help you grow your business.
In many ways, tracking conversion rate is essential, as it allows you to measure the performance of a website or an app. If you keep track of the percentage of your users who are completing the goals that help your business grow, it will give you an idea of the success of your website/m-site, which further helps you identify the areas of improvement. Improving your conversion rate helps you get more sales with the same amount of traffic.
Suppose if you are spending a certain amount in a month on advertising to drive 100 visitors to your site, and if you increase your conversion rate you actually double the value of your spending on the ad. So because of that, you could then cut back on your ad spend and receive the same benefit as you were getting before. That will also allow you to invest the additional revenue into new ad programs or for new business prospects. Ultimately, the purpose of increasing the conversion rate optimization serves to reduce the cost of business while improving the profitability at the same time. To put it simply, it means trying to improve the sales efficiency and performance of your website/m-site.
With conversion rate optimization there are multiple variables that can influence the way you get and retain actionable website visitors, such as design, branding, social proof and your call to action. It can be difficult to know which part of your website needs inspection and repair, and this is where various factors come into play when trying to increase your conversion rate.
Another great reason to invest in CRO is that you will end up with a better Return On Investment. Say, for example, you improve your conversion rate by 1%, even this will in-turn increase the revenue by a great margin. It is more cost-effective to convert a higher percentage of visitors you already have than to attract more visitors. How successful your business is, directly depends on your conversion rate. While making sure to improve your website/m-site, you should also pay attention to this concept called ‘funnel experience.
’ A funnel experience is simply a phrase that refers to the journey a customer takes while navigating on a website and converting it into a final sales goal. Ideally, the sales funnel should be wide, capturing brand awareness near the top, and then slowly narrowing in the bottom with more sales and repeat customers. Most businesses fail because they try and convert the top visitors into a sale right away instead of moving the customer through small conversions. Timing is really an essential factor and your goal should be just to keep them coming back and keep nurturing them along with their search for information until they are ready to buy.
Finally, CRO improves the ability of other marketing efforts beyond just pay per clicks (PPC). When a large percentage of visitors click on your website and convert into a lead, all of your marketing campaigns convert more too. To increase the conversion rate is a win-win investment for digital marketers looking to make the most of their online businesses.
Chapter 3
History of Conversion rate optimization
This section provides a brief history of conversion rate optimization, how it began and how it made an impact on businesses and internet marketing.
Increasing conversion rate started out of the need of e-commerce marketers to improve the performance of their website in the aftermath of the dot-com bubble, a historic period of excessive speculation that occurred roughly between 1994 to 2000, a massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet.
As competition on the web increased during the early 2000s, an array of tools prompted marketers to improve the user experience of their websites. This also helped marketers experiment with website designs and determine which images, layout and other factors worked best for their business. The term ‘conversion rate optimization’ was gaining popularity rapidly in 2007 because of Google Website Optimizer. This free tool helps internet marketers increase the conversion rates and design a website that would please and impress visitors. One of its groundbreaking features is that it has the ability to test anything in HTML code.
Today conversion and optimization are some of the most basic aspects in most of the digital marketing campaigns when a research study was conducted among online marketers a few years ago, 59% of respondents believed that conversion rate optimization was crucial for the overall marketing strategy.
Chapter 4
Effective Tactics to Improve Conversion Rate
This chapter focuses on how to effectively increase the conversion rate of your website. This chapter is essential as it is the crux of this entire guide.
When trying to increase your conversion rate, one very important factor that needs to be addressed is to know what works and what doesn’t work for your target audience. Since your potential customers have specific wants, needs, expectations and pain points, you need to consider that aspect and ensure making an offer which would be really difficult to refuse. When trying to increase your conversion rate, one very important factor that needs to be addressed is to know what works and what doesn’t work for your target audience. Since your potential customers have specific wants, needs, expectations and pain points, you need to consider that aspect and ensure making an offer which would be really difficult to refuse.
Its not a big deal if users don’t get converted the first time for whatever reasons. However, well-written copy, good visuals, and interesting offers will make a place in the minds of the visitors and could make them coming back to your website/m-site.Here are a number of ways you can increase your conversion rate: Make sure to deploy a conversion rate optimization strategy based on data. Maybe you already have data about your website from a tool like Google Analytics, which is a good sign. Likewise, you can get information about the drop rate, conversion ratio etc. From various platforms available in the market. Examine the data for patterns on which you can base a conversion rate optimization strategy. Marketers need content that sticks as much as possible so that people spend more time on the page and visit other pages on your website to browse through what else you have to offer. With basic information about how your website currently performs, you can recognize the pages that are not doing their jobs and optimize them.
Consider redesigning, add fresh content and update old references and statistics. Optimize the design of your page because it matters more than you think. Consider a minimalistic design, as there is scientific evidence to suggest that most people prefer simple websites. It doesn’t mean that everyone likes minimalism, but it helps. In 2012, Google had conducted a survey that still continues to inform about web design around the world. It used various designs to gather information from different viewers. According to the data collected, Google found out that website visitors make their first impression within 1/20th of a second, and deemed websites that were visually complex as less beautiful. Consider adding different call-to-action (CTA) buttons. You must test multiple iterations. Usually, an authoritative statement makes the most sense for a call to action. You could create a CTA that starts with the word ‘yes’. It is highly effective psychologically as it makes the offer appear to be positive.Find out whether or not your offer is ideal for your audience. Never create only one lead magnet. You would need more than that if you want to figure out what your audience craves for. Test what is working and what’s not. With the help of heat maps, scroll maps, confetti maps and more, you can see the areas on the website the users click most on, the areas they stop scrolling and the areas where they spend more time. Recordings are particularly very useful when you want to see exactly how people interact with the pages on your website. If the page is not engaging enough, consider optimizing it. Also, consider a 301 redirect to remove the content entirely.
Another effective method to increase your conversion rate is to run A/B testing with the help of collected data. Once you are done with the recordings and visual reports, use that data to run A/B tests. Basically, you should present two versions of the same page to half your audience each to find out which one is more effective and preferred by the audience. Many marketers run more than 10 A/B tests on just one page, so it doesn’t really stop at two. You can also build trust and loyalty by adding testimonials to your website. It puts visitors at peace, knowing that other people have relied on your product or service and made purchases. Instead of quotes from customers, many websites employ social proof in the form of company logos.
Since marketers and business owners know for a fact that customers avoid risk and they don’t want to put their money at stake unless they are completely sure, so putting a money-back guarantee helps assuage fear and move past objections. It not only increases your conversion rate but also builds trust and helps customers feel secure. Since people like to get their information through visuals and not by reading, videos are good and help increase the customer base. Finally, try to remove distractions as much as possible. According to WordStream, removing navigation links from your landing pages can increase the conversion rate by up to 40%. Your landing pages should be designed just for conversions, if you distract the user from your desired goal, you will receive fewer conversions.
Chapter 5
What are the tools to analyze and increase the conversion rate?
This chapter mentions some of the most effective tools and software that helps analyze and increase conversion rates.
While considering to increase conversion rate, you must look into these tools and software that will help analyze the issues related to conversion rates, which will also help you take appropriate actions to change it. Here are some of the tools to consider when planning to increase conversion rates.
Google Analytics: This is a web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic. This gives you a great view about your website visitors including how visitors found your website, which could be anything from keyword searches and referral websites to direct visits. It tells you how long visitors stayed on your website, where your visitors are from if the visitors are repeated or new. It also reports what browser, the operating system was used and if the visitor used a cellular device or a laptop. Based on the goals set up, it tells how many visitors were converted and the interaction that leads them to conversion.
Quantcast Measure: This relatively new tool has quickly proven to be valuable by various measures and the result of this is deep insights into visitors of your website. Quantcast Measure provides deep, real-time insights about your target audience, what motivates them and how they spend time across your website/m-site. There are innovative features that allow you to gain insights into the demographic and psychographic makeup of your audience. It provides information about how unique audiences engage with your website content.
HotJar: HotJar is an essential tool when it comes to understanding how your users interact with your website from a high level. It is a powerful tool that reveals the online behaviour and voice of your users. By combining the power of both analytics and feedback tools, HotJar gives you the ‘big picture’ of how to improve the user experience and conversion rate of your site. Depending on the plan you select, each heat map experiment will capture between 1000 and 10000 page views and compile an analysis. Session recordings can be a brilliant tool for analysis of customer behavior in real-time. HotJar can record individual user sessions which can be watched at your convenience to understand how users interact with the interface on a purely organic level. You can also set up attribute-based filters based on visit length, page views, country, and device.
BigCommerce Analytics: This platform has an analytics section that allows you to see all abandoned carts, which also include the products that were in the cart at the time of abandonment. It reports what customers are typing into the build-in BigCommerce search tool.
Chapter 6
How to increase conversion rate quickly?
This section mentions some of the ways and tricks that will help marketers increase the conversion rate as quickly as possible.
Getting traffic to your website is helpful, but if that traffic does not convert, it is not of much gain. So here are some ways you could increase the conversion rate quickly:One of the most important and fundamentals to increase conversion rates is to keep a track on it. Before you take action for increasing it, you must be aware of your conversion rates. One ideal medium for conversion tracking is Google Ads, which is very easy to use. Make sure to include as few fields as possible. For example, when asking for information in an email opt-in form, ask as little information as possible. Pay attention to the headlines too. Your headline is perhaps the most significant element of your landing page. Discuss at least 10 possibilities before deciding the strongest one.
Humanizing your brand by using a video is a great idea to increase conversion rates. Just by adding a simple video on landing pages to inform your visitors that there is a real person behind your brand will be really helpful. You can also include subscribers or social media follower accounts. Similar to testimonials, adding social proof helps reduce risk. Add links to related content or products to keep visitors engaged on your website. If you have a tangible product, include the number of remaining stock with your product description, for example: “Order now.. only 2 left in stock”. Most customers are too informed to fall for hype-based copywriting, so make sure you keep your content clear and concise in order to help your visitors make a purchase decision. Provide visitors with absolutely everything they need to know about your product, like its features and benefits, how will it be delivered and who will benefit most from it. While creating a landing page, make sure you remove anything that could potentially distract your visitors, like the navigation bar and other CTAs. Your landing page must be about giving your visitors the power to take only one specific action. Your privacy policy can have a huge impact on your email conversions. In one experiment, changing the wordings even slightly had resulted in a 19% increase in conversions. Ensure that you use emotionally-charged language with great storytelling so that your visitors are excited and eager to try your product.
Do not forget to use high-quality images. If you use generic and cheap photos, it can send a wrong image of your brand. Instead of links, use CTA buttons, especially when viewed on mobile devices. Consider offering a live chat option so that the visitors may communicate their concerns which you can resolve. You can also guide your visitors to your most essential on-page element through various visual cues, but remember to be tasteful.
Adding a personal photo in your sidebar or next to your CTA can be useful, as it reminds the customer that there is a real person behind the brand.If visitors are coming to your landing page through a PPC ad, ensure that your ad copy is consistent with your landing page copy. Your ad should inform them exactly what they will find after they click through to your website. Consider providing a variety of payment methods to satisfy the preference of all your potential customers.it is kind of obvious that customer reviews are extremely influential in helping people make buying decisions. According to a study conducted by Zendesk, 88% of respondents claimed that their purchase decisions were influenced by positive and negative reviews. Another thing to consider is to test out different colour combinations for your landing pages. Depending on the people, different colours can impact them differently, for instance, red can evoke feelings of anger, while blue can be calming. Test an array of palettes to check which one causes an increase in the conversion rate.
Do not offer your visitors too many options. Because when people are given many choices, they generally avoid the task or decision. Try to be as clear as possible about your product. Depending on your product, audience, and niche, a long copy might outperform a short copy or vice versa. Always test different lengths to see what suits your audience. It is commonly believed that pictures of happy, smiling people result in the highest conversion rates. Including complete contact information, which is easily noticeable, will give your customers confidence in buying from you. Finally, you can also consider offering bonus discounts at the checkout by providing free shipping or a per cent-off discount to customers on their next purchase.
Chapter 7
Incredible Case Studies
Now it’s time for me to show you real-life examples of link building in action. The best part? I’ve never shared any of these case studies before. This chapter includes two case studies by TECHVED Consulting. It mentions the initial problems faced by the organizations, and how TECHVED analyzed the situation and provided relevant solutions, improving the overall conversion rate of the product or service.
By conducting a UX audit for Voot Kids, an entertainment and educational platform for children, TECHVED increased the paid subscription of their app.
They had to gather insights from young children and their parents about the usability of the app. They also wanted to understand the parent’s views about monitoring the screen time of their child. TECHVED improved the usability of the app by identifying the hurdles in navigation, and discoverability of content by children while they explored the app. They provided an understanding of the content that was preferred by Indian parents for their children on the app. Voot Kids has now combined learning and fun in one single app for children, which includes e-books, quizzes, storytelling, and an inbuilt dictionary.
TECHVED had also aided one of India’s leading general insurance company by transforming the user journey of its app and website, helping users claim insurance and other related requirements more effectively and quickly.
TECHVED had to reduce the drop-out rate and make the insurance buying journey simple, fun and easy to use for the target audience. They analyzed the key areas that needed to be addressed from the user perspective. They realized that the app and website had a lengthy buying and claim process, there were too many clicks to reach the end goal, and the digital space was outdated because of a lagging journey. So, they created visually appealing designs that were intuitive and gave the digital platform a new fresh look and feel, keeping the needs and requirements of the target audience in mind.
Chapter 8
Results of Conversion Rate Optimization
To conclude, this final chapter revolves around some of the results and benefits of conversion rate optimization and why marketers should consider increasing the conversion rate of their websites. By now you must have understood that increasing conversion rates is the lifeblood of any online marketing campaign. In short, improved conversion rates are the key goal for all digital marketers. By increasing the conversion rate of your website, you get to know your customers. The more you dive into optimization, the you learn more and more about your customers. When you test different aspects of your website and its functionality, users will convert to customers. And through the results, you can decipher what your audience wants and then later make the necessary changes.
Conversion rate optimization also boosts the revenue of your website. You can invest the money back to business or other ad programs which will further help your customers come back for more. It helps you leverage existing web traffic. Growth hacking is all about taking advantage of your existing assets and your web traffic is one of them. And the hard truth is that your competitors are probably already doing conversion rate optimization, and if they haven’t yet, they will eventually. This may not be too obvious, but the more visitors that you convert, the more you outgrow your competition. Every visitor that you do not convert can end up on a competitor’s website, which means, the more you improve your conversions, you are bringing in more potential customers from your competition.
Since you are more focused on improving conversions and converting those visitors to customers, it also lowers your customer acquisition costs. Upping your conversion rate is a great way to save some money because when you optimize your site, all traffic coming from other campaigns will improve for sure.
It also makes your paid advertising more effective. Suppose you have decided to use paid advertising. You are paying every visitor that arrives at your website, but if they leave without opting in, then you just wasted that money. By improving the conversion rate, you will make your paid advertising campaigns worth the money.
Capturing everyone that visits your website would be a waste of time. Not all of your visitors are going to be strong leads. CRO focuses on optimizing your conversion rate on visitors who are high-quality lead and not just everyone. This means when you do capture them, there is a strong chance of them becoming customers.
There are more benefits other than the ones mentioned above. The role of conversion rate optimization is to make sure that your digital presence, not only your website but across the web is as effective as it can be.
Let us know how helpful did you find our exclusive guide to increase the conversion rate of your business! You can also let us know about what you would like to read next, we will definitely draft it!
Now I’d like to hear from you
I hope you found this new guide to increasing the conversion rate of your website helpful.
Now I’d like to hear what you have to say:
Which tip from today’s post do you want to try first?
Are you going to use the Effective Tactics to improve Conversion Rates
Or maybe you want to try the tools to analyze and increase conversion rate.
Either way, let me know by leaving your comment below right now.