4 Conversion Rate Optimization Methods that are Instrumental to Business Success

“It’s much easier to double your business by doubling your conversion rate than by doubling your traffic.” – Jeff Eisenberg

To boost your revenue, you can either increase your marketing budget or invest in conversion rate marketing. The latter is better.

Why, you ask?

Conversion rate optimization allows a brand to reduce its customer acquisition costs by getting more value from its existing visitors. With conversion rate optimization, small efforts can reap huge benefits like long-term, strong relationships with customers.

But what exactly is the conversion rate? Let’s find out what it is and how to optimize it!

What is Conversion Rate?

Conversion is the process of turning a visitor into a lead or potential customer by persuading them to take the desired action on your website or app. For instance, if you run a blog then people choosing to ‘sign up’ to your email newsletter is the desired action. Or if you run an IT-based services website, then people asking for ‘quotes’ would be the desired action. Therefore, the percentage of people that visit a page and take the desired action is your conversion rate. Here’s an easy formula to calculate your conversion rate:

Conversion Rate = Actual conversions/number of visitors x 100

CRO or conversion rate optimization is the practice of optimizing a page or website to maximize the number of people taking the desired action. It involves brainstorming ideas or putting strategies into practice for improving elements on your website or mobile app to overcome conversion bottlenecks.

Why Conversion Rate Optimization is Important to a Brand

If you think you just need to focus on product/service delivery and the customers will follow, you might be wrong there. Your website needs to capture the attention of visitors by offering them valuable information. If they find it engaging and valuable, their possibility of turning into customers increases. That is why conversion rate optimization becomes even more important for brands. Following are some major benefits of CRO –

• Generate more revenue from the same web traffic through repetitive customers
• Assess the preference of your visitors and eliminate guesswork
• Evaluate accurate ROI
• Eliminate conversion obstacles to win more customers

CRO is the process of putting in efforts by understanding your customers. It can be as small as making aesthetic changes or enabling CTAs to materially increase conversions on your website. At the end of the day, CRO will help you build trust among your targeted audience. And that brings us to the top four methods for conversion rate optimization.

Top 4 Conversion Rate Optimization Methods

In order to optimize your website or application for improved conversions, you need to establish a 360-degree view of what to optimize and who to optimize for. Good thing, there are several tested and proven tools and strategies available to help you optimize your conversions. Here’s a quick look at them:

1. Establish Conversion Metrics: Identify Your Conversion Goals

CRO begins with identifying what your conversion goals are. Your business goals and conversion goals go hand in hand. For instance, a blog site will focus on boosting its audience base by getting them to sign-up for its email newsletter. Or, an eCommerce website will focus on increasing its sales by getting its visitors to browse or purchase products. Let’s understand common conversion goals according to various industry types –

• Online Publishing: Newsletter subscription, page views, ad clicks, related content views, etc.
• Travel: Brochure/itinerary downloads, booking queries, social shares, etc.
• B2B: Quote queries, leads, contact-us submissions, etc.
• eCommerce: Email newsletter sign-ups, product browsing, products added to wishlist/carts, product check-out, etc.

Start identifying the conversion goal that aligns with the nature of your business. It will help you focus on the right elements and build better interactions.

2. Analytical Tools: Uncover What is Happening

You need to gather concrete data to understand what is happening. There are various tools available that enable you to collect data to monitor what is going on your website. Some of the qualitative tools you can put to use are –

• Net Promoter System Trackers: Use these tools to track the possibility of people recommending your products/website to their friends or family.
• Customer Satisfaction Tools: Enable your customers to rate their experience on a scale from 1 to 10.
• Form Analysis Tools: To track the form submissions from your visitors.
• Website Heat Map: A heatmap shows what your visitors prefer, where they spend time, where they click, how far they scroll, etc.
• Funnel Tools: These tools enable you to learn at what point your visitors decide to abandon. It is helpful in figuring out what areas require immediate attention to optimize your conversions.

These tools offer valuable insights about visitors’ experiences on your website or with your products. Put these insights into use to optimize your website for a better experience.

3. Usability Factors: Measure Why Things are Happening

Once you get hold of what is happening, it is time to gather data on why visitors behave a certain way. There are tools that enable you to collect non-numerical data to enable you to identify direct and indirect reasons behind your visitors’ behavior. They are more people-centric instead of data-centric. Some of these tools are –

• Customer Journey Maps: Create a visual representation of your visitors’ experience with your website. You basically walk in the shoes of your visitors to navigate through your website.
• Website Feedback Tools: Ask your visitors about their experience with your website/app.
• Online Reviews: Your visitors/customers offer feedback on your products/website.

You might’ve noticed that all these tools source information directly from your potential customers. Thus, pay attention when they are vocal about their requirements and take action to boost your conversion rate.

4. Testing Tools: Measure What Works

After collecting qualitative and quantitative data to sense what’s happening and why it is happening, what’s next? You put testing tools to use to make improvements and see if they actually improve CRO. Following are some testing tools that enable you to test what works best for you –

• A/B Testing Tools: Enable you to try multiple tools or strategies and evaluate which one brings the best results.
• Conversion Tracking Analytics Tools: Constantly monitor the conversions and log them.

Sticking to a guessing game can do more harm than good. Therefore, leveraging data-based methods is the best way to create meaningful tests and make the most out of those that bring better results.

Conversion rate optimization starts with understanding your targeted audience. And the key to optimization is testing. So get your tools out, run experiments, uncover overlooked factors, and keep looking for new ways to optimize your conversion rate. Now that you have some idea of where to start, let’s start optimizing!

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