Tips for Conversion Rate Optimization
It’s no secret that, in order to be successful in reaching your target audience, you need a solid digital presence. With responsive website design, strong content and more efficient customer services practices, business are finding their niche within their target market and finding ways to increase revenue generation with a well-planned digital strategy.
Businesses spend huge amounts of money on attempts to convert more visitors into customers. The formal name of this process is “Conversion Rate Optimization.” For those of you who are unfamiliar with this terminology, it’s the practice of converting your website visitors into customers, enhancing the user experience, establishing a strong relationship with your customers, increasing revenue/profits and collecting valuable information about your customer base.
“Conversion Rate Optimization” is all about understanding the behavior and requirements of a consumer to deliver the most accurate results for what they are seeking. By aligning your services, products, user experience, landing page, videos and images with consumer behavior, you unlock the true potential of your business. CRO gives you scalable findings and results with continuous optimization. So now that you’re aware of this process, the trick is learning how optimize your site to start generating these results. Here are a few quick tips to get you started.
Website structure
Before you can convert visitors to leads and then into customers, you’ll have to focus on remodeling your site. Your site needs to have a professional appeal that is in line with your brand. Your website should be viewed as one of your strongest tools to help you to attract potential customers. Poor web design represents an unprofessional image of your business. Many businesses miss out on customers simply because they do not focus on developing a visually appealing website that offers a user-friendly experience.
User experience is everything for those who visit your website for the first time. User-friendly features and easy navigation helps direct visitors to the pages on your site that you want them to see. Complex menus and intricate navigation often confuses visitors and can scare them away. If you are not focusing on all these features, then your competitors are ready to snatch away your leads by fulfilling their demands.
Mobile Responsive Design
It’s estimated that there are over 1.5 billion smartphones in circulation across the world. That means that it’s highly likely that a good percent of visitors to your site are viewing it via their mobile device. If you don’t have a mobile responsive version of the site (be it a responsive website or mobile app), it’s likely they will leave the site due to frustration when scrolling, resizing and dealing with other issues. A mobile responsive site also allows your customers to easily access your services 24/7 anywhere they want. They can access a non-responsive site from their phone, but it’s likely they will bounce much quicker.
Content Matters
This is no secret either. Content development is an integral part of this process. Well-crafted, targeted content can significantly boost your conversion rate, because it gives you the ability to present your audience with material that is designed to be interesting and appealing, while presenting you as a leader in your industry. This helps build trust between you and the consumer, which can forge a lasting relationship. Don’t be too overly technical or academic. Try being conversational. Content is far more effective when it speaks to consumers in their language.
Use Attractive Headlines
Powerful and catchy headlines and images make your web page look attractive. Add attention grabbing and striking one-liners on each landing page. A clever, optimized headline can grab a visitor’s attention and keep them reading. If you don’t grab them with the headline, it’s likely that they won’t scroll down to read the rest.
Success Stories
To enhance your credibility, you should be loading new, dynamic content to your site like case studies, white papers, blog entries and other items that add value for your visitors and speak to your successes. Add a “testimonials” or “success stories” section to your site to show how your products or services are currently being used by your customers or clients to make their lives better. People trust other people more than they trust marketing material.
Include Videos and Images
Videos and images can do wonders for increasing your conversions. By including a video, you can potentially increase engagement, time on your website and clickthrough rates. You can add a short introduction or instructional video to your site. It will help visitors to better understand your products and services.
Ease of Navigation
When you overload your page with irrelevant and unnecessary information and options, your visitors can get confused. Visitors to your site should easily be able to locate the material they are seeking. Don’t make them wade through a bunch of junk to get to where they want to be. Make the most visited pages on your site easy to find.
Offer Valuable Material For Free
Free offers are a great way to attract customers. When you offer something valuable for free, you give your customers a strong reason to contact you, or at least consider sticking around to learn more and possibly visit your site again. Some examples of free offers may include a guarantee, free analysis and inspection, e-book or a bundled package. Try to understand the needs and demands of your customers and offer the most meaningful (and appropriate) free content.
Develop a Short Form
If your customers are anything like me, they aren’t going to stick around to fill out a lengthy form. Make your lead generation forms, like the one on your “Contact Us” page, short and sweet. Only ask for name, number, email, and leave room for a message. You can ask for employer, but this probably applies more to B2B marketing more than B2C.
CRO in a Nutshell
If you aren’t using Conversion Rate Optimization to generate leads for your online business, now is the time to start and unlock its potential. Start with these small fixes and then move from there as your resources allow.
Mahnoor Mirza — Content Manager at Pevolve Technologies
