Blog

Conversion Rate Optimisation Tutorial

Article Overview

Your web traffic has gone through the roof, your SEO company is delivering on it’s promise of ranking your website and you can finally rest easy. Well, I’m afraid that’s completely wrong. Life is not so good online and all is not as is should be. Why? Cause people are finding your site, clicking on the link and not doing anything. So what’s wrong? Well, you do not have a conversion rate optimisation plan in place and this is why your business inquiries and sales are slumping badly and users are not engaging with your website. It’s a very common problem and happens all the time. You can spend all the money you like on getting the best SEO ranking position on Google. But, this will add up to nothing unless your website has been fully optimised for conversions. What I am telling you here is a new reality. In the past businesses were only concerned with getting to page 1. Now that the online competition for the consumer dollar is so fierce, your website has to not only be found but it MUST be the best that it possibly can be i terms of design, interface and usability. Without you are wasting your time. This is why we at Hopping Mad Designs have conversion rate optimisation front and centre with every website we develop.

As a part of our internet marketing strategy, Hopping Mad Designs offers CRO services to help drive those customers who have landed on your website through the buying process. We design our clients websites so that they are sticky and funnel consumers down the buying / inquiry path till you make that sale. We constantly monitor this through A/B testing, analytics, small design amends and refine on a continual basis, so long as sales are climbing.

Our CRO specialist know that conversion rate optimization and SEO should be the two core foundations of your overall online marketing strategy. Without converting these customers, there is only browsers and this IS NOT GOOD BUSINESS. Think about a retail shop, it’s no point staying open if the foot traffic is not buying from you. They have to love the shop and enjoy the experience of being there. This is exactly the same as the online environment.

So What do We do for your CRO?

Lots of Research
CRO is the technique of looking at what your customers are doing online. Where are they browsing and what are they looking for. Who are your competitors, how well are they doing and what does their main landing pages look like. To be better than the next person and to get that online business you need to offer something different. Your site must give the browser and alternative experience if you are going to be competitive in this space. This is why research and lots of it are so vital and the first step in the CRO process.

We also need to research your current date. We need to see what’s currently going on with your bounce rates, traffic numbers and metrics. We do all this through studying your Google analytics and from there we can start to implement changes based on the data provided. It does sound dry and boring but this is an essential component of any successful CRO strategy. That is, we need to know why it’s not working and use this as a base for moving forward. The more data we have at our disposal, the better our CRO professionals at Hopping Mad Designs can start to funnel traffic into actual customer conversions. In some cases it might be a very simple fix like making the phone number more prominent, pricing, images or placing the inquiry from higher up the page. In others, it may be a total web overhaul.

Web Design, Development and the User Experience.

The consumer process is a simple one when it comes to anything online. They do their research, the browse many different websites and then ultimately make the decision to buy. Again, like the retail shop in a centre. They park the car, look around and then they buy. The trick here is to make them stop at your site, take a look around and stay long enough so they buy from you. You DO NOT want them to leave your site and this is the core principle of CRO and only a web agency with significant conversion experience can facilitate this. It is not as easy as it looks and it takes years of trial and erroe to get it right – that’s why it’s paramount to the success of your online venture to use a experienced web agency that will look at all ( even the smallest details) to improve conversions. Website failures are common – just don't let it happen to you.

Colors – are there too many flashy colours – and do they clash with your branding. Your site must have harmony in everything and this includes the colours. Any variation will dilute your brand and will result in lower conversions.
Scope. Is your site too large? Is it confusing? Do people get easily lost? If so you may need to look at trimming the number of pages and focusing on those that matter. Never ending large sites are a turn off and your customer who may be tempted to buy will simply hit the exit button.

Did the site take longer than 3-4 seconds to load? Is each page a nightmare to open? Well this is one on the biggest killers of conversions and must be addresses immediately. slow laborious websites are not fun, so instead watch your customers desert you – do something about it.

Are there weird fonts on the home page? Do you have multiple fonts on the same page? If so, dlete these ASAP – the site MUST be easy to read – this is rule #1 – how are they going to buy from you if they can’t read anything?
What does the layout look like? is it all over the place? Complicated sites without any thought put into the layout are not going to funnel those important browsers into loyal, paying customers.
What do the ‘call to action’ buttons look like? Are they shaped differently, are they easy to find and do they make you want to click on them?

Proximity (grouping related elements on the page)
What types of questions are you asking when you make someone fill out a form? Are there too many questions requiring too much detail? And, do you make users sign up as a mandatory right before they are prepared to hit the buy now button. This will help improve sales buy reducing what is termed shopping cart abandonment. You know what I mean. How much do you hate it when they make you fill out a form to buy something. Customers need to be give the option of NOT having to sign up to anything. It looks dodgy and makes you look like you are going to use the information provided to bombard them with spam emails later on.

Where are the testimonials on the site? Make sure they are legitimate and not fake – they will be easy to spot and kill your credibility.

Are their any videos? If so what do they look like and what is the information presented and who is doing the presenting? I have seen some shockers in the past and poor home made videos can really zap consumer confidence.

The end game for any business is making the sale and in regards to your website it is the conversion. If you want Hopping Mad Designs handle your CRO we will be able to reduce web bounce rates and in turn give your bottom line a MASSIVE boost.

Keep on Trying and Testing

As firm believer in the benefits of CRO, we make sure that we are constantly looking at your website for ways of improvement. I tell all my client’s that the web and online landscape is forever shifting. It is constantly evolving and changing. Sure, you can make some changes and sit on them for a while but eventually you are going to have to look at that page and see if there are ways you can improve on it. It’s really important to note that some changes can have a negative impact so it’s wise to be on top of this by measuring bounce rates through your analytics on a weekly basis. If you see bounce rates go up – you need to take action.

It’s important to note here that we like to work with our client’s on a continual basis. Because testing and refining the designs for maximum conversions are done on a continual basis, we like to take things slowly and look at each main page 1 at a time. This means you are in a way in it for the long haul – like SEO, CRO should be part of the marketing mix, so there should be a plan and budget put in place for any business. It really depends on you. We may decide to spend say 5-10 hours per month tweaking your site or for larger sites we may look at more design and development hours. I am more than happy to discuss budgets and goals with you anytime.

Monthly Reporting
Let’s say you engage Hopping Mad Designs to work on your CRO and you start to see immediate results. We will at the end of every month, tell you exactly what we have done and the methods used. If we are also doing your SEO, we will clearly outline the percentage increase in the number of site visits and the reduction in bounce rates. We will see in the reports how a combined strategy of SEO and CRO working together are drastically helping you improve sales and overall inquiries.

 

Button: We'd love to work with you
Scroll to top