8 tips to boost your conversion rate optimization
What is conversion rate optimization (CRO)?
Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is a marketing strategy that aims to improve your on-site user experience to increase the completion of a specific action. Most of the time the desired action is a sale, but not always.
Other desired actions could be to get customers to sign up for your newsletter or provide their phone number for a coupon code. Any action that helps grow your business is a conversion and therefore can be optimized.
Improve your CRO with these 8 tips
If you want to improve your conversion rate, there are some things you can do right now. Here are eight ways to get started.
1. Pay extra attention to your headlines
Headlines are one of the most important parts of your website. On average, 8 out of 10 people will read your headline, but only 2 out of 10 will read the rest. It’s crucial that headlines stand out, but at the same time, they must be relevant to your customers. Addressing pain points in your headlines is a great way to ensure customers keep reading
2. Use high-quality images
Stock photos come across as inauthentic and impersonal, so if possible, you should avoid using them. Photos that are too perfect are untrustworthy and don’t accurately represent your product or brand.
3. Simplify your checkout process
The average shopping cart abandonment rate across all industries is 69.82%, which means that out of every 100 customers, 70 will abandon their cart. There are many reasons customers abandon their carts, as shoppers reported below:
24% because they were required to create an account (source)
17% because they found the checkout process too long and complicated (source)
16% if they couldn’t see or calculate the total order cost up-front (source)
13% if the website had errors or crashed (source)
Optimizing your checkout process and making it simpler will lead to increased conversions and returning customers.
4. Combine A/B testing with heatmaps or interaction maps
Heatmaps (or interaction maps, which are next-generation heatmaps), help you understand how visitors interact with your website. Through them, you can identify strong and weak points on your website and where changes need to be made. Once changes have been made, A/B testing gives you the ability to measure their effectiveness.
By combining a heatmap (or interaction map tool) with an A/B testing tool, you can:
Identify problems
Test potential solutions
Choose the highest-performing solution
5. Include social proof
Social proof is powerful, especially because, according to a recent survey, over 93% of people make buying decisions based on online reviews. Reviews and testimonials allow potential customers to get an independent opinion about products or services they're considering buying. They also help establish trust and credibility with your brand.
6. Make your CTAs stand out
Your CTAs need to encourage customers to take the next step. There are many factors that impact what helps a CTA convert. For example, personalized CTAs perform 202% better than basic CTAs.
Since there are so many factors that can impact how a CTA performs, it’s important to continually test to see what works and what can be improved. Here are some CTA elements you should consider testing:
Colors
Copy
Text size
Button size
Button shape
Button placement
It may be worth testing colors outside of your branding palette so they stand out. You risk CTAs blending in with the rest of your website by sticking to colors on your palette.
7. Implement chatbots or live chat
Adding a chat feature to your website increases customer satisfaction rates and leads to higher conversions. Chats are quick and personal, as opposed to having to call an 800 number and wait in a long queue to get assistance. According to ICMI, for customers who chat prior to making a purchase, there is a 10% increase in average order value, a 48% increase in revenue per chat hour and a 40% increase in conversion rate.
8. Check your site speed
It’s no secret that site speed impacts the digital customer experience. If your website loads too slowly, you can guarantee that will result in lost dollars.
According to a study, when pages load in 1 second, the average conversion rate is almost 40%. With a 2-second load time, the conversion rate drops to 34%. And, at 3 seconds, the conversion rate begins to level off at 29% and reaches its lowest at a 6-second load time.
Conversion rate optimization testing is not a one-and-done solution. It requires continuous testing over the long term. You should always keep an eye out for new ways to improve your website’s functionality and performance.
To learn more CRO conversion tips and tricks, download 9 Conversion Rate Optimization Secrets from Digital Leaders.
