Improve Online Sales through Conversion Rate Optimization
Nowadays, online sales are not just about increasing business revenue. It is also about improving customer retention and conversion rates. Although this may sound simple, many businesses are still having difficulty achieving these. If you are one of those struggling business owners, then optimizing your conversion rate is a technique you need.
Conversion rate optimization is the process of enhancing website visitors to grow sales, improve conversion rates, and retain customers. It is useful in generating more leads. With this marketing approach, you can improve your website’s usability, enhance user experience, and improve website performance. In this article, I will discuss what is this about and how it works. I will also share with you the best practices to increase conversion rates for your eCommerce website. So keep reading.
What is Conversion Rate Optimization?
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is a process of testing, analyzing, and adjusting the number of traffic sources and landing pages to improve the conversion rate. It involves planning, testing, analyzing, and improving your website’s conversion rate. Its ultimate goal is to increase the number of visitors who will complete a conversion action. It is measured by the percentage of users who complete the desired action on your website or app. Moreover, it can be performed by using A/B testing, multivariate testing, split testing, and various other tests to help you determine the most optimal number of website traffic sources and landing pages to optimize your conversion rate.
CRO can be used to improve sales through visitor tracking and, ultimately, increase the amount of money earned by your business.
Why Do You Optimize Conversion Rate?
Optimization of conversion rate is one of the most digital marketing strategies every marketer should know and do. But should you do it? Here’s why.
More Leads
Lead generation is an important part of promoting your business. Getting more leads for your business can be tough, as many businesses tend to struggle with slowing revenues and how to escape from them. In order to generate leads, you must increase the number of visitors to your website. One way you can do this is through Conversion Rate Optimization. With this, you can explore upselling rates and target higher-value customers instead of just preaching the same message over and over again.
Lower Cost Per Acquisition
Acquisition cost is the amount that an advertiser pays for each person who signs up or to whom they sell. With conversion rate optimization, they will be able to lower their cost per acquisition by engaging with people who are more likely to buy their product or service. Also, those companies with a low marketing budget are able to still be competitive by utilizing landing page design. This starts by knowing your target audience based on how they search on Google and find what they are looking for. Then design the page so that it more closely aligns with their needs and wants.
Increase Revenue
Conversion rate optimization helps businesses increase their revenue through lead generation. Through this technique, it allows marketers to turn potential customers into loyal ones and maximize the percentage of visitors who are interested in making purchases. In addition, CRO helps business owners to boost user engagement with their brand. All these are the reasons why sites that are optimized for conversion always have higher sales.
How Does Conversion Rate Optimization Work?
Conversion rate optimization consists of three things – a call to action, an offer, and either a page or set of content that moves the user closer to your goal. You can use CRO to get people on your website who are not yet customers and have them become one. You can also use different CRO tools for A/B testing and multivariate testing to validate hypotheses. Online testing makes sure you are not making the same mistake over and over again. Metrics help see if your firm is headed for success or failure since it helps show progress at each step along the way.
A/B Testing (split page testing) allows website owners to test different changes as well as send more traffic from one variant and less from another. A successful experiment is the result of two things: adhering closely to standards for validating results and understanding how customers interact with a website. Although you can use it for many other purposes, A/B testing is most effective when you focused on things like conversion rate.
Multi-variate testing or multivariate testing, on the other hand, is a form of statistical analysis that takes an already established model and breaks it into two (or more) groups. It helps optimize and attain better results which ultimately accelerates the learning process, thus helping businesses maximize revenues by satisfying customers to make purchases. Basically, it helps determine if your product or service appeals to both sexes, specific age groups, different income levels, countries, and regions.
Factors to Consider When Optimizing Conversion Rate
If you want to boost your sales, you should try to optimize your conversion rate as part of your online marketing. This is the percentage of people who actually purchase your product or service. Here’s what you need to know about improving online sales through conversion rate optimization.
Landing Page Design
There are various factors that contribute to obtaining a high conversion rate, but landing page design is one of the most crucial and plays a significant role in the success of conversion rate optimization. Landing pages are used as the gateway for customers to browse and consume your product or service. Your landing page should be designed in such a way that they lead them to purchase something as soon as possible. This can be done by testing different designs, layouts, and colors throughout various stages in order to see which appeals best to new customers.
Website Copy
The benefit of having high-quality web copy is immense. The language and tone which you use can make or break a sale. This could be the deciding factor of whether or not a visitor stays on your site. So writing an engaging copy is essential as it also creates engagement and speaks to your audience’s needs.
Call-to-Action (CTA)
A call-to-action is the button that site visitors come across to click. This button has a single main purpose: directing users to take action on your website. It can be as simple as informing potential customers about how soon they can buy from you. Or it can go as deep as sending them straight into a lead generation form with their contact information. The success of CTA depends entirely on what path leads to an experience or action your audience is looking for and how you phrase it.
Website Performance
The success of conversion rate optimization relies on the overall performance and user experience of your website. Website pages with effective navigation, easy-to-read fonts, a smooth scroll, and pleasing images will help visitors decide whether they want to purchase or just switch to another website. A majority of customers leave because of confusing or unappealing layouts that make them feel uncomfortable browsing the webpage.
Pop-up Form
Pop-up forms play a significant role in conversion rate optimization and provide a more personal experience when visitors interact with your brand. These are designed in order to get information about potential customers such as their name, email address, their purchasing preferences, or provide a personalized value proposition. Using pop-ups for informational purposes allows companies to place themselves as someone people want to contact on the first go instead of having them come back later. Without a pop-up form on the website, it would be difficult to get quick contact information and do initial outreach.
Follow Up Emails, SMS, and Messages
The importance of follow-up emails, SMS, and messages in conversion rate optimization is precisely what you make it. It is vital to keep your customers interested in what you have to offer after they purchase from you. However, do not turn them off by sending irrelevant or unappealing messages. Creating a customer persona will help create highly targeted follow-up emails or personalized text messages which connect with each specific person on their personal level. The more you engage with your audience, the more loyal they will become to your brand.
Read also: Digital Marketing: The Cheap Way to Advertise Your Brand and Grow Your Business
Tips on Optimizing Conversion Rate
Conversion Rate Optimization is the process of increasing the conversion rate for your website by optimizing your design, copywriting, and other marketing strategies. A good CRO can help increase sales, which means better margins and increased profits. Here’s a guide to optimizing your online sales with conversion rate optimization.
Use Powerful Headlines
Headline helps improve brand recognition and increase visitor interest. Its function is to grab the audience’s attention, convey urgency, and make people want to find out more. In order for a headline to be powerful, it must “hook” potential customers into wanting to read more of the text where content is revealed. A good headline is a crucial part of any conversion rate optimization strategy. The main job of the headline is to act as an icebreaker, and get prospects to click through on your ad. Poor headlines will cause people to miss out on promotions, offers, and opportunities that they might otherwise be interested in.
Make a Strong Call-to-Action (CTA)
Call-to-Action (CTA) is an action that a visitor can take right away and which encourages your customer to purchase a product or service. By making a strong CTA encourages your potential customers to take whatever action or complete the goal you have set out for them. CTA button should be placed strategically near the end of your landing page and can come in handy for selling services/products that may not be visible throughout the entire web page.
Improve Navigation and Site Structure
The next step you can do is to improve your navigation and site structure. Having a user-friendly website design and easy to navigate eCommerce site is convenient for visitors. Navigation helps every single user to find what they are looking for. If a link is broken or looks outdated, your website will look unprofessional and probably lose existing traffic as well. The way you implement your site’s navigation determines how your conversions are being generated and also determines who uses it most often.
Meanwhile, conversion rate optimization cannot be effective without a proper site structure. It has a direct impact on your search engine ranking as well. Having a good site structure can help with traffic, conversions rate, and revenue. Plus you can attract and retain more visitors to your website.
Include Clients’ Testimonials and Reviews
Another important element to include in your optimization efforts is the clients’ testimonials and reviews. This can be an alternative to hard evidence like a purchase button or even the customer’s own words that would encourage an increase in sales. A positive client experience makes people trust your company so they may consider buying your product or services. It proves that your business is reliable and making a purchase is worth it. Keep in mind that testimonials and reviews can also be used in social media marketing. You can post these on your Facebook page so your followers that are into social media can also see these. Posting these are beneficial as Facebook ads can have an average conversion rate of around 9.21%.
Boost Website Speed
Boosting website speed has been proven to increase your conversion rate. If that process takes too long or is interrupted by an error, people will leave the site sooner than later. Your website speed can significantly affect the number of conversions you can have. Slow loading times can result in potential customers leaving without ever entering your site. Websites with slow load times are more likely to lose potential website visitors due to low conversion rates and lack of confidence in the site. As soon as a visitor arrives on your website they will be turned off by your slow response times and leave to go find another website that may be more responsive.
Here, my tip is to use a reliable web hosting server that can give you a fast-loading website.
Final Thought
The main reason why a business would want to conduct a conversion rate optimization is to increase the number of sales they make. A proper conversion rate is an important factor in the success of any eCommerce business. It determines how many visitors become customers and provides feedback on the usability of the website. If you have a website, then this means you have a potential customer base that may become interested in your products or services. So you need to consider the factors and follow the tips I discussed above so your website can be more successful in attracting and retaining customers.
