What Is Conversion Rate Optimization

Many marketers focus on driving traffic to websites to boost sales. Every company that wants to grow and remain competitive needs to earn and retain customers. That’s where conversion rate optimization (CRO) comes in. Regardless of your industry or company size, conversion rate marketing can help you maximize success.

You need to optimize your website experience to boost conversions and increase sales. A poor user experience will hurt your conversions. With an effective CRO strategy, you can propel your brand toward long-term, sustainable growth. This translates to more revenue and profits.

What Does Conversion Rate Optimization Mean?

Conversion rate optimization is the process of increasing the percentage of visitors who convert and complete your site’s goal. CRO is an ongoing process that makes visitors take the desired action you want them to take while on your website or mobile application.

The desired action may be filling out a form, adding a product to their cart, clicking on a link, or signing up for a service.

CRO is essential for businesses since it helps lower customer acquisition costs. It enables businesses to increase revenue per visitor, get more customers, and grow. The conversion rate optimization process reduces friction in the conversion funnel and enhances the value of your offer.

What Is a Conversion Rate?

A conversion is any action that completes the desired goal specific to your site. Your conversion rate is the percentage or ratio of visitors who complete your website’s goal during a specific period. This implies that an effectively optimized website or landing page can help you achieve positive CRO results, increase the percentage of visitors to your site, and boost sales. 

To calculate your website’s conversion rate, apply the formula below:

Using this formula, if you had 500 sales and 10,000 visitors last month, your conversion rate would be 5%:

To increase your conversion rate, you need to keep an eye out for certain key performance indicators, including:

• Product sales
• Email sign-ups
• Website traffic
• Webinar registration
• Call-to-action conversion rate
• E-book downloads

What Is the Average Conversion Rate?

The average conversion rate for most sites lies anywhere between 2% and 5%. These rates provide a useful point for benchmarking, especially among competitors within the same industry or niche. For example, surveys indicate that the average conversion rate for e-commerce sites is 2.86%. 

Different variables can affect the average conversion rate, including:

• Product type
• Average order value
• Device (laptop, tablet, or mobile)
• Traffic source
• Location
• Operating system (Android, iOS, Mac, or Windows)

How to Refine Your Conversion Rate Optimization Strategy

Here’s how you can refine your CRO strategy to boost your current conversion rates.

Set Conversion Goals

Jumping into CRO without setting conversion goals that revolve around your business model is wrong. It’s similar to building a house. You can’t paint the walls unless you have the walls. 

You need to ask yourself what conversion rate optimization is and what you hope to gain at the end of the campaign. When goal-setting, first identify your business and marketing goals and then set your conversion optimization goals. This begins with identifying your potential customers and target market.

Macro conversion goals may include selling products, building email lists, making phone inquiries, requesting quotes, and adding to shopping carts. Micro conversion goals can include downloading brochures, liking and sharing your Facebook or Instagram page, signing up, or watching promotional videos.

Use Split Testing in Your Marketing Efforts

With CRO, there are different types of testing methodologies that you can use to identify the best possible version of your website. This is the version that drives the most engagement and leads to more conversions.

Split testing is a way of comparing two different versions of a webpage to observe how traffic groups respond to both versions. Two sets of visitors interact with both webpages to determine which page offers a better conversion rate and a better opportunity for business growth.

When conducting split tests to improve conversion rates, you may test elements like buttons, copy, and headlines. You can also test how visitors flow within the website using heat maps. For example, you can run a split test with a single-step checkout and a multistep checkout process to identify the variation with lower abandonment rates.

Multivariate testing allows you to test multiple webpage variations at once. With conversion rate optimization tools, you can use statistical significance to find out if the results of your tests are reliable.

Refine Search Engine Optimization to Turn Traffic Into Leads

The performance of your website is closely tied to the success of your online business. In fact, 53% of mobile visitors will abandon your website if its load time is more than three seconds. That’s a large number of potential conversions that you can take advantage of.

To get better CRO results, you should refine your SEO strategy to optimize the performance of your website. An SEO audit can point out issues affecting your site and hurting your conversion rate. 

Fixing your navigation, optimizing long-tail keywords, leveraging videos, incorporating customer testimonials, and using strong calls to action are SEO strategies that you can implement to improve your current conversion rates.

Improve Your User Experience to Convert Potential Customers

Creating a user-friendly website can increase conversion rates. When it comes to your homepage, simplicity is key. Having a fast, mobile-friendly website can create a great impression on visitors. With tools like PageSpeed Insights, you can gain relevant insights regarding website performance and make tweaks to make your webpages faster.

You can also personalize sections of your website based on your visitors’ location, device, and browsing history. This makes the content on your site more relevant and relatable to them.

Get Help With Your Conversion Rate Optimization Efforts

Conversion rates are a big deal. You shouldn’t just focus on driving traffic to your website. It’s important that visitors on your site perform the action that you want them to, whether it’s adding to their cart or calling you to order products.

At GrowthHit, we apply CRO best practices to ensure you get the best conversion rates. Our experienced team uses in-depth analytics to develop the best strategies to increase conversions. Over time, this ensures you enjoy a higher return on investment and business growth. Book your free CRO strategy call today to learn more from our experts.