It’s another quarter-end review, and you are looking through your analytics dashboard to trace your website performance over the period. Scrolling through your dashboard you discover that your site’s traffic has increased over time, but the conversion numbers are not just doing it for you. On one hand, after implementing and trying out the new strategies you learned on a 26:17 minute course on YouTube, your website visits have increased, which is progress, but the numbers are not just doing it because you are still not making sales. You are generating leads, but they aren’t converting to customers, which begs the question, what are you missing?
This is where conversion rate optimization strategy comes in.
What is a conversion rate optimization strategy?
A conversion rate optimization strategy is a strategy designed to convert your website visitors into paying customers. It is creating a system that makes the people visiting your website take a desired action. It looks at key factors like the number of people visiting your website, what pages they are landing on, and what is keeping them engaged, and based on these, creates a strategy that can convert website visitors.
However, before we dissect what it takes to create an effective CRO strategy, we need to understand certain key performance indicators that measure the success of your marketing strategy and indicate the metrics to look out for to track your web performance.
What are the metrics used in conversion rate optimization?
Conversion rate
If you are looking for a simple definition for conversion rate, it can be summed up into three words: “Those who take action.” This is the rate at which the visitors on your page are able to take a desired action. It could be subscribing to your newsletter, downloading an ebook, making a purchase, etc.
Bounce rate
If conversion rate is the amount of users who take action on your webpage, then bounce rate looks at the number of people who don’t. Bounce rate, simply put, is the amount of visitors who leave your site after visiting without taking any action.
Average time on a page
This is the average amount of time a visitor spends on a particular webpage. It measures the quality of your content and how interactive it is to grab users attention. A high average time usually indicates that the articulate webpage has something really valuable and engaging for the users, while a low average time spent may involve reviewing the content on that page.
Page per session
Page per session is a metric used to measure the average number of pages viewed on your website. It looks at the amount of pages your visitors are viewing at each interval.
These core metrics are considered in analyzing your conversion rate optimization tactics on your website and using the results of these reports to make informed decisions, but even with these metrics, there are certain challenges that tend to occur with CRO.
Common Challenges with Conversion Rate Optimization and How to Fix Them
Here’s a list of common challenges faced with websites in terms of conversion rate optimization .
- Lack of Sufficient Data
- Website Technicalities
- Poor user experience
- High Competition
- Lack of Sufficient Data: Data is very key when it comes to conversions because it provides you with the necessary information you need to optimize your content for more visibility. However, you are lost in a sea of data and charts when attempting to make sense of the enormous volumes of marketing data you gather due to inadequate data or even data scattered across teams and departments.
Solution: Integrate tools that track user activity like Google Analytics to find areas that need work and regularly try out A/B testing. Study your website components and test out different strategies based on your data to see which ones perform the best.
- Website Technicalities: Technicalities on your webpage can lead to a low conversion rate as users are more inclined to pages that are responsive. Another issue with website technicalities is when it is difficult to navigate. Imagine being on a website where there are random product pop-ups every two seconds or there are broken links and the ux is poorly misaligned, these factors can affect conversion rate.
Solution: Update your website infrastructure by modernizing the infrastructure of your web tech. Prioritize the user experience, such as the loading of pages and website speed, as users are more likely to click a CTA or scroll through another page if they find your website easy to navigate with a design that is aesthetically pleasing and intuitive.
- Poor user experience: This brings back the second point where users are not converting because of slow mobile page responsiveness. What do your visitors say about the flow of your webpage? Is it easily navigable, or are they complex?
Solution: Recognize the requirements and preferences of your target audience. Investigate the problems that your target audience faces and optimize your user flow so that users can accomplish desired tasks with ease. Optimizing for mobile devices is another essential step in resolving issues with conversion rate optimization.Make sure your website displays well on all screen sizes and is responsive. Keep in mind that you must communicate to your users that you are attempting to resolve their issue. This builds trust and credibility.
- High Competition: Competition is another reason for lower conversion rate, as budget and time constraints can also make it difficult to keep up with shifting customer preferences and changes in industry trends as you battle to stay ahead of shifting market conditions.
Solution: Leverage your distinct value offer. Make a difference with your brand and provide your customers with something unique. Don’t be afraid to try out several approaches and see which ones work best to improving your website performance.
Effective tactics to implementing an actionable cro strategy
Understanding how conversion rate optimization (CRO) works helps you to optimize your website or app to convert more visitors into customers. You can generate more revenue without increasing your marketing budget and maximize the return on your marketing investments. By implementing effective CRO strategies, your businesses can improve in terms of revenue growth and achieve your marketing goals.
Here are some effective tactics for CRO strategy:
- Conduct User Research: Who are your audience and what are their goals? Understand your target audience and gain insights into their needs, preferences, and pain points. Another aspect to this is to conduct usability testing to observe users as they navigate your website to identify areas for improvement. Utilize heatmaps to visualize user behavior to identify areas of interest and frustration.
- Optimize Your Website Design: A well-designed and optimized website design is what keeps your users engaged and wanting for more. The rule of thumb is to keep your website as simple as possible. Remove unnecessary elements and improve page load times. Optimize items like images, code, and server performance. Ensure your website is mobile-friendly and responsive and make your web copy easy to understand and engaging.
- Create a Strong Call to Action (CTA): Make your CTA prominent and use persuasive language to create a sense of urgency or scarcity. Words like “Discover more,” “Learn Now,” and “Start Today” compel users to take action. Test different CTAs and experiment with different wording and placement to see what works best.
- Optimize Your Landing Pages: Your landing page should communicate your unique value proposition to your users. Tailor landing pages to specific campaigns or keywords. Keep your landing pages focused and test different landing page elements. Experiment with headlines, images, and CTAs.
- Improve Your Forms: Although forms are necessary to gather visitor information, if not used properly, they can affect your conversion rate. Keep your forms short and simple. The rule of thumb here is to use one step form as they increase your conversion rates by lowering the perceived amount of work needed to complete the form. Only ask for essential information and use data from previous interactions to save users time.
- Optimize for Search Engines (SEO): Improve your website’s visibility and optimize for relevant keywords and phrases. Build high-quality backlinks by acquiring links from reputable websites, but one important metric is to create valuable content for your audience. Publish informative and engaging content that attracts visitors.
- A/B Test Continuously: To figure out the right strategy that works, implement A/B testing. Test different variations of your website and experiment with different elements to see what works best. In the course of your research and testing, it could be a particular product page that is getting more visits than the rest; look at the content there and leverage on it. Use data to make informed decisions and continuously refine your website based on test results.
By implementing effective CRO strategies, you can gain a deeper understanding of your customer base, personalize experiences for maximum engagement, and ultimately unlock your business potential.
Conversion rate Optimization can be very complex and challenging most especially if there are no tools that can be used to make the process seamless. At GrowthApp, Our AI powered tool helps businesses improve their website’s performance while your conversions increase at an all time high. It audits your website, analyzes user behavior, industry trends, and uses these website data to provide actionable insights for boosting conversions.
