What is Conversion Rate Optimization?
Website conversion rate optimization is the process of increasing the percentage of people who perform any number of desired actions on your website. The desired actions can vary from company to company.
However, they usually involve buying products or services, clicking the Add to Cart button, signing up for newsletters, filling out forms, or clicking on links.
If you can increase the percentage of users who take these actions, Google will promote your website. As a result, your monthly visitors will increase and you will increase your profits.
Turning your website visitors into prospects, leads, and ultimately clients or customers is best done by implementing a solid conversion rate optimization process.
Here, we’ll look at conversion rate optimization best practices.
8 Effective Website Conversion Rate Optimization Strategies
Use a CRO planner
Using a CRO planner is one of the best things you can do to improve your conversion rate optimization. It can be overwhelming to start the process of improving your conversion rate optimization. However, using a CRO planner makes managing everything much easier. You can plan things ahead so you know what to do during the month.
There are several CRO planners available for companies to purchase. They walk you through the essential steps to improve your conversion rate.
Track data on how users interact with your website
Before you take any action to improve your website’s conversion rate, you need data on how website visitors interact with your site. You need to know the percentage of people taking the desired actions before making any changes. Having that number will establish a baseline and help you determine if your changes are helping.
Fortunately, your website builder should provide you with data to analyze. For example, you can see analytics showing page views, click-through rates, and other essential data. Also, most website builders allow you to purchase add-ons to gain access to more in-depth data.
Implement live chat
Unfortunately, many cases of failed conversions are the result of users not knowing where to go. Most people don’t visit sites for no purpose. They go to a website because they need something, whether it’s a product or information.
If they click without taking the desired action, more often than not it’s a website error. Therefore, having systems in place to help users find what they need is crucial.
One of the simplest things you can implement is live chat. Live chat is a service on many websites that allows customers to speak directly with a customer service representative in real time. If you want to implement live chat, you will need a customer service representative who is ready to answer questions at all hours of the day.
Take steps to build trust with customers
A big obstacle for new websites and businesses with customers is trust. People are more likely to buy products similar to what you offer on sites like Amazon because they trust them. If you have a new website, you need to go to great lengths to establish trust with customers. They won’t buy your products if they don’t trust your site.
Unfortunately, trust is not something you can build overnight. You have to build it over time. However, there are things you can do to boost confidence in tangible ways.
In particular, adding money-back guarantees to your products is a good way to add confidence. If people know they will get their money back if the product doesn’t work, they are more likely to buy it because they are not taking any risk.
You can also update site content regularly, avoid spam links, and make your website more user-friendly. If your site looks like it hasn’t been touched in years, people probably don’t trust it. So while you might think that updating your blog isn’t important, it has more of an impact than you might think.
Send abandoned cart emails
Almost everyone has added something to their cart on a website only to walk away without checking out. Why people do it varies. Someone may have decided not to purchase the item at the last minute or may have been turned away from their computer before checking out. Regardless of the reason, that item remains in your cart until you manually remove it.
As a website owner, you should be able to see all users’ shopping carts. Then, you can start email campaigns, reminding people about abandoned carts.
Many people will ignore your email, but you’d be surprised how many people remember needing the item they left in their cart. Sending this email costs you nothing and should increase your conversion rate.
Links to positive reviews of your site and products
Another positive thing you can do to improve your conversion rate optimization is to link to positive reviews of your site and products. 89% of customers check online reviews before making a purchase. As a result, showcasing your positive reviews is crucial.
We recommend linking to positive reviews of your site as a whole on your home page. This way you will immediately show new customers that your site can be trusted. Next, you can provide links to customer reviews of each product or service that users can purchase on each product’s landing page.
You can link to review websites like Yelp or install a review system right on your website. Both systems should work fine. However, if you are a new site owner, displaying reviews from third-party websites could increase your credibility.
Include strong calls to action
One of the best tools at your disposal as a website owner is the call to action (CTA). You typically include a call to action at the end of an article or blog post. Asks users to do something else on the website. For example, you might tell users to click a link if they’re interested in similar topics. Alternatively, you can provide links to products related to the item.
While we mentioned that calls to action are usually found at the end of articles, they don’t need to be limited to that area. Calls to action that appear earlier on your page are more likely to be effective. Many users don’t scroll to the bottom of the page, so website owners who leave their calls to action until the bottom will have a lower conversion rate.
Optimize your website for mobile devices
The last thing we want to discuss is the importance of optimizing your website for mobile devices. While a significant portion of your user base will find your website on their computers, mobile users also comprise a significant proportion.
As time goes by, more and more people are surfing the internet on their mobile devices. As a result, a higher percentage of users will find and use your website on mobile devices. However, if your website isn’t mobile-friendly, people will click quickly.
If mobile users are almost always clicking, the conversion rate will plummet. Therefore, optimizing your website for mobile devices is crucial.
Final thoughts
Conversion rate optimization is critical to the success of any website. You need your users to complete desired actions to be successful in the long run. While it’s difficult to get a website off the ground, there are several things you can do to improve the conversion rate of your website. Above are just a few steps to increase your conversion rates.
