Without a well thought out conversion rate optimisation ( CRO ) plan, all your effort, hard work and time spent getting to this point could be for nothing.
Having SEO without CRO is a pointless exercise. Converting browsers into paying customers is the name of the game and as a business, you really need to get a clear understanding of this.
What is Conversion Rate Optimisation?
I hear people talk about all these great traffic figures to their website. They say they are getting 1000’s page views per day, but then they tell me that their sales and web inquiries are down. Basically, what has happened is that they have put too much focus on SEO and not CRO. They are getting visitors to the site, but these people/users are not buying. They are coming to the site and not engaging with it or buying from it.
Overall you have to keep in mind that lots of traffic DOES NOT EQUAL high sales without a CRO strategy in place. There are many reasons why your website might be getting lots of hits but no sales according to Crazy Egg. They have some excellent information on this worth reading.
CRO supports SEO by helping and guiding customers through the site, it helps click through rates and other site goals. Conversion rate optimisation is the engine that drives the sales process. It is the emotive force behind the buying decision.
As a part of our Internet marketing and search engine optimization service, Hopping Mad Designs offers clients looking for a high conversion rate a CRO service to ensure that users/customers are funnelled from the home page of the site to their end goal; the checkout or the inquiry form.
We perform this CRO through continuous research, constant website development, testing using analytics and reporting.
Our Sydney based CRO experts understand that conversion rate optimization ( CRO ) and SEO are two vital elements of any business marketing strategy.
Simply put, why bother having a great looking website that’s ranking really well on Google without anyone buying – a sure way to go out of business very quickly!
Remember this fact. If they are not buying from you then they are going to your competition. CRO implemented properly reduces the likelihood of this happening.
What are the steps necessary for successful conversion rate optimisation?
Step 1: Lot’s of Research
CRO is the art of researching the buying + browsing habits of your audience and designing a web page that caters to the needs of this audience. Once designed you can then best determine ways that will convert the user landing on this page into a paying customer. It might take a few attempts, but over time you will work out what pages work best for consumer conversions.
All websites are different and each has its very own conversion goals. Your web design agency should be able to work out exactly what a conversion means to you:
- a phone call
- an inquiry
- purchase of a product
- subscribe to a newsletter
- join a club
- make a donation
- anything that is important to your business and what keeps it ticking over
Armed with this information, the first thing one needs to do to implement a coherent and successful CRO campaign is research.
- Start by researching all the data you can get your hands on; analytics from Google ( to work out site traffic – where people are coming from and which pages they are going to and how long they spend on each page), bounce rates and metrics.
- Especially take note of the websites top navigation and main landing pages within the website. The more you know about how these pages are going to convert users into customers, the better the CRO professionals at Hopping Mad Designs can channel traffic into conversions.
- Who are your competitors, what do their sites look like and what elements do they have on their website, that are helping with conversion – if they are market leaders, has their website facilitated this and what elements can we take from this and work it into your new website – this is a great CRO method – make sure you ask us about this! If your competition is leading the way – WE CAN DO IT BETTER!
- Look at your pricing, product and service offerings and how your competition is talking to your customers online. CRO research will ensure that your new site will be up there with the best in your field of work.
- Working out the best and most efficient sales funnel is what we do best at Hopping Mad Designs for our customers looking at a CRO strategy. This starts by merging Google analytics and results learnt from studying your competition and implementing landing page optimization – this is commonly referred to as (LPO). A good web design agency will know all about LPO and what makes a web page sell. Simply put you need to look at your most important landing pages (site-wide), and only then, can you start to create a web funnel for conversion – following this you can test accordingly for best results.
Step 2: Visuals and Creative Design
If you are looking to get a website that sells, you need to understand how the CRO process works. The browser goes from researcher to actual shopper and then to a paying buyer. It is a simple 3 step process. The shopper will ONLY become a buyer once they have limited their research to 1 website.
It is this decision to buy from one particular website that makes CRO invaluable for your business. Hence LPO and CRO are going to make or break your sales.
Your CRO specialist cannot overlook any detail – everything matters. Even the smallest detail can have an impact and needs to be subject to testing.
You need to be looking at the website: colours, phone numbers, placement of inquiry forms, all calls to action, site speed, type and format, process flows, question you may ask in an inquiry/join up form, banners and images. These should all come together on your landing pages for maximum impact.
The ultimate aim is conversion, CRO will reduce bounce rates and abandoned shopping carts on eCommerce websites. Using a CRO Professional company like Hopping Mad Designs will result in optimal CRO performance – we will research, test and fine-tune your landing pages to funnel those customers into online sales.
Step 3: Website Testing
Any changes that you make to a page might have a negative impact on conversion rates. If you find that your inquiry rate has dropped due to any changes you have made, then you need to learn from these errors. It is OK to try something out, if you fail, then it’s a quick fix – after all this is what CRO is all about. Tinkering with pages, testing the results and fine-tuning these till your pages are achieving what you want. Your CMS will allow you to quick changes so any poor results are mitigated early and rectified.
One really good method in which our CRO experts perform testing and changing is
A/B Split Testing
- Design says three landing pages in need of Conversion Rate Optimisation.
- All website traffic is split randomly and equally and necessary actions are implemented. It’s a great way to work out what is working better on one page over another. If you can see that one design is getting a higher conversion rate, you work on that page and develop it even further.
Step 4: Reporting
Rigorous testing of added design and conversion elements to a landing page will significantly help with your pages conversion rate optimisation.