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. 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 that perform 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 will 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 conversion rate optimization. However, using a CRO planner makes it much easier to manage everything. You can plan things out in advance, so you know what to do throughout the month.
There are several CRO planners available for businesses to purchase. They take you through the essential steps of improving the conversion rate.
Track Data on How Users Interact With Your Website
Before you take any steps to improve your website conversion rate, you need data on how website visitors are interacting with your site. You need to know the percentage of people performing desired actions before you make adjustments. 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 you page views, click-through rates, and other essential data. Additionally, most website builders allow you to purchase add-ons to get 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 do not visit sites for no purpose. They go to a website because they need something, whether it is a product or information.
If they click away without performing a desired action, it is more often than not a failure of the website. So, it is crucial to have systems in place to help users find what they need.
One of the easiest things you can implement is live chat. Live chat is a service on many websites that allow 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 ready to answer questions at all hours of the day.
Take Steps To Increase Trust With Customers
A big hurdle for new websites and companies with customers is trust. People are more likely to purchase products similar to those you offer on sites like Amazon because they trust them. If you have a new website, you must go out of your way to establish trust with customers. They will not purchase your products if they do not trust your site.
Unfortunately, trust is not something you can build overnight. You must build it over time. However, there are things you can do to increase trust in tangible ways.
Notably, adding money-back guarantees to your products is a good way to add trust. If people know they will get their money back if the product does not function, they are more likely to purchase it because they are not taking on any risk.
You can also update site content regularly, avoid spammy links, and make your website more user-friendly. If your site looks like it has not been touched in years, people are not likely to trust it. So, while you might not think updating your blog matters, it has more impact than you might think.
Send Out Abandoned Cart Emails
Almost everyone has added something to their cart on a website only to leave without checking out. The reason people do this varies. Someone might decide not to purchase the item at the last minute, or they might have gotten pulled away from their computer before checking out. Regardless of the reason, that item stays in their cart until they manually remove it.
As a website owner, you should be able to see the carts of all users. So, you can start email campaigns, reminding people of abandoned carts.
Many people will ignore your email, but you would be surprised to find out how many people will remember they need the item they left in their cart. Sending out this email does not cost you anything and should increase your conversion rate.
Link to Positive Reviews of Your Site and Products
Another positive way to improve conversion rate optimization is to link to positive reviews of your site and products.
89% of customers check online reviews before making purchases. As a result, it is crucial to display your positive reviews.
We recommend linking to positive reviews of your site as a whole on your home page. Doing so will immediately show new customers that your site can be trusted.. Next, you can provide links to customer reviews of each product or service users can purchase on each product’s landing page.
You can link to review websites like Yelp or install a review system directly on your website. Either system should work fine. However, if you own a new site, displaying reviews from third-party websites might add to your credibility.
Include Strong CTAs
One of the best tools at your disposal as a website owner is the call to action (CTA).
You usually include a CTA at the end of an article or blog post. It asks users to do something else on the website. For instance, you might tell users to click a link if they are interested in similar topics. Alternatively, you could provide links to products related to the article.
While we said that calls to action are usually at the end of articles, they do not need to be restricted to that area. CTAs that appear earlier on your page are more likely to be effective. Many users do not scroll to the bottom of the page, so website owners who leave their calls to action to the end 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. Although a significant portion of your user base will find your website on their computers, mobile users encompass a significant percentage too.
As more time passes, more people browse the internet on their mobile devices. As a result, a larger percentage of users will find and use your website on mobile. However, if your website is not optimized for mobile, people will click away quickly.
If mobile users almost always click away, your conversion rate will plummet. So, it is crucial to optimize your website for mobile devices.
Final Thoughts
Conversion rate optimization is crucial to the success of all websites. You need your users to complete desired actions to have long-term success. Although it is challenging to get a website off the ground, there are several things you can do to improve your website conversion rate. Above are just a few steps to increase your conversion rates.
