You’ve got a beautiful website with all the bells and whistles, but it just isn’t securing sales. What’s up with that?
It’s a very relatable scenario and one that a lot of businesses struggle with.
When you’re driving traffic to your website but not satisfying your goals, it’s time to evaluate how you’re guiding visitors to convert. Your audience needs clear prompts to take action, and it’s your responsibility to provide them.
This is where we’d like to introduce you to conversion rate optimisation (CRO), a handy little strategy that plays a major role in website success.
Understanding Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO)
Before diving into the deep end of conversion rate optimisation, let’s chat about exactly what this organic form of marketing actually is.
What Is CRO?
CRO is the process of improving your website so that it encourages users to take action (also known as converting). This might mean they make a purchase, sign up for your newsletter, or download your whitepaper; whatever you want your target audience to do, CRO encourages them to do it.
This is similar to how physical shops use layouts to push specific purchases and increase average order value (AOV). If you’ve ever noticed lots of little add-on items in the line for the checkout, for example, you’re seeing in-person CRO in action.
With website CRO, though, you’ll be working on optimising elements and features – including calls to action and web copy – to boost conversions without needing to attract more leads. There’s also a lot of data involved, ensuring your optimisation is based on evidence that’s specific to your business.
Why Is CRO Important?
As a business, implementing CRO is essential to get the most out of your website. You’ve got a digital presence already, but now it’s time to ensure your website is fuelling conversions, boosting customer retention, and producing a healthy return on investment (ROI). Otherwise, what’s the point of having a site at all?
It’s also worth remembering that improving conversion rates can be far more cost-effective than acquiring new traffic. Customer acquisition can cost between 5% to 7% more than customer retention, making CRO a better option for your business budget.
How Does CRO Work?
To learn more about why conversion rate optimisation is such a great marketing strategy for businesses, let’s take a peek at how it works.
The CRO Process Simplified
Woya Digital, CRO is an important part of what we do. Here’s a quick run-through of a simplified version of our CRO process:
- Data Collection – Every effective CRO strategy begins by gathering information on your existing website, including how visitors interact with different pages and your current conversion rates.
- Analysis – We’ll identify those points where visitors back out of conversions, hesitate or drop off your site altogether. These are clear areas where improvements are needed.
- Testing – As changes are implemented, they’re tested to see which solutions see the best results. This allows us to refine strategies and ensure your website optimisation is based on evidence rather than guesswork.
- Implementation – The CRO solutions that see results will be applied to your website permanently, driving conversions long after our work is done.
Tools Used in CRO
We have a pretty large fleet of web development tools at Woya, adding to the precision of our CRO. Two of the main categories of tools we use are:
- Analytics tools: Software like Google Analytics and website monitoring tools provide lots of juicy insights into the performance of your site.
- A/B testing tools: We use A/B testing tools to compare different solutions for the same problem, analysing the results of each so that we can make the right choice for your specific business target audience
One of the main reasons we use these sorts of tools and software is so that we can provide a CRO approach that’s completely tailored to you. Rather than using generic data or broad studies, we can learn from the numbers on your website to guide decisions that are unique to your business.
Key Components of Effective CRO
Ready to dive deeper into how you can boost conversions and enhance business performance? Let’s check out some of the key conversion rate optimisation components that drive growth.
Understanding Your Audience
CRO relies on a deep understanding of your audience, including what they want from your website and the triggers that will encourage them to convert.
For example, suppose we find out that your audience is motivated to take action when they receive an offer. In this case, we can explore whether highlighting a discount code would increase conversions and AOV. We might also discover that they want simplicity when browsing, and creating more intuitive navigation will lower the bounce rate.
This understanding isn’t isolated to the start of the project. We carry out customer analysis throughout CRO, using surveys and feedback forms to guide the direction of your optimisation.
Website Design and User Experience (UX)
Of course, how could we talk about CRO without mentioning website design and user experience (UX)? The on-page elements and function of your site have a direct impact on your credibility, brand perception, and user satisfaction, all of which dictate whether or not a lead will become a client.
Two main components we recommend starting with to improve UX are:
- Navigation: We ensure that your layout follows audience expectations and guides them naturally towards a conversion. With almost 40% of users leaving a website that isn’t easy to use, this is a key factor in the success of your site.
- Load speeds: For every 1 second that your website takes to load, you could be losing 10% of your website traffic. On the other hand, reduce load times by just 100 milliseconds and you could see a 1.1% increase in conversions. The fact of the matter is that site users won’t wait for your website to load, so you need to ensure it’s speedy if you want them to stick around long enough to convert.
Compelling Call-to-Actions (CTAs)
Your CTAs are one of the most important aspects of conversion rate optimisation. They’re the culmination of all your efforts and mark the moment you ask your audience to take action.
The way you write, design, and place your CTAs will have a significant impact on their success. Part of our CRO services involves testing different CTA formatting, including:
- The colours used
- Where the CTA is placed on the screen
- Whether it’s within a button or not
- The best action-oriented language to use.
Common CRO Techniques
The key components of CRO outlined above provide the foundations for a high-performing website. Now, let’s explore the techniques we use to drive conversions and bring tangible results to your business.
A/B Testing
We briefly mentioned A/B testing earlier in the article, but what actually is this?
To put it simply, A/B testing is the process of creating two versions of your website with slightly different features to see which performs better.
For example, we might have a red and a blue “Buy Now” button that has performed well in preliminary feedback sessions. We then put both live in an A/B test and use data-driven results – such as which one was clicked on more – to work out the permanent choice for your site.
Landing Page Optimisation
Landing pages are areas of standalone content based on user search intent. For example, if your audience frequently searches ‘SEO for Financial Services’, you might create a landing page specifically for this target keyword that provides information that’s relevant to the topic. They’ll also (of course) include a prominent CTA.
These pages are crucial for conversion rate optimisation as they remove other aims and distractions to focus solely on the intended conversion. They’re clear, concise, and fulfil user search intent, giving your UX a boost and reaching specific segments of your target audience.
Simplifying Forms
A user on your website might need to fill out a form in order to contact your team, download a resource, or subscribe to a series.
In terms of CRO, the main way to optimise your forms is by simplifying them. The fewer the fields, the higher your conversion rate, so only ask for essential information.
Your forms will also need to be responsive across devices, clear to see, and easy to understand.
Improving Content Quality
From your text and images to videos and downloadable resources, your website is a hive of content. During CRO, we’ll make sure each and every piece is up to scratch.
This means we’ll assess the level of quality across your content, looking at some key points including:
- Does it answer user questions?
- Does it address user pain points?
- Does it appear professional?
- Is it clear, concise, and consistent with your brand image?
- Is it tailored to your target audience?
Your value proposition should be immediately clear in your content if you want to boost conversions. If it’s confusing, full of jargon, or not relevant to your target audience, you’ll end up with a higher bounce rate and lower conversions.
Our content marketing team believes in straightforward communication that highlights what makes your business unique and how you can help your target audience.
Benefits of Implementing CRO
Did you know that the average conversion rate across industries is 2.9%? If you want to get ahead of your competitors, you need conversion rate optimisation and a strong marketing strategy on your side – and here’s why:
Increased Revenue
By streamlining your UX based on customer feedback, including engaging CTAs, and creating intuitive navigation, you maximise the effectiveness of your website. This reduces the necessity for traffic-boosting ads, helping you save money on marketing by making the most of your organic audience.
As your conversion rate increases, you’re also likely to see a boost in sales, raising your business’ revenue for a cost-effective, long-term approach to growth.
Better User Experience
From load speeds to intuitive features, the majority of CRO ties directly into improving user experience.
Optimising for conversions, for example, involves reducing friction points that might prevent an action. This could be a form with too many questions or messaging that isn’t clear. By focusing on quality and clarity, you make it simpler for users to complete desired actions, boosting conversions and UX simultaneously.
Our marketing team at Woya Digital are experts at establishing better website performance through CRO. To tell you more, we thought we’d give you a little sneak peek into how our conversion rate optimisation works. Here are some of the basic steps you can expect:
- Assess your current performance – We’ll record your current conversion rates and identify the areas for improvement that will see the greatest ROI.
- Set clear goals – We’ll work alongside your team to ensure our CRO solutions align with your business goals. What specific actions do you want visitors to take?
- Start small – We opt for quality over quantity and will start with small changes that can create big differences. This lets us test the water with your audience, using analytics to guide the future of the project based on our initial results.
Get In Touch With Our SEO Marketing Agency
We won’t lie to you, conversion rate optimisation is challenging. You need a fleet of software, the ability to interpret data, and the creativity to implement solutions based on those metrics, which isn’t easy when you’ve got a business to run.
To learn more about how we can tailor CRO to your business or to kickstart a conversion-boosting project, get in touch with our team today.