A great web or funnel design doesn’t automatically increase your conversion rate. You need to test various aspects of your pages to maximise conversions. That’s what CRO is all about.
Imagine that you have a website or funnel for your business that attracts thousands of visitors each week. But the problem is that only a small fraction of that traffic actually gets converted into leads.
Doesn’t sound like a good thing, right?
Well, that’s the situation most business owners find themselves in.
They’re driving loads of traffic to their websites and funnels. But this traffic isn’t converting as well as it should. They’re not getting as many sales, bookings, or subscriptions as they expected. Inevitably, this impacts their business revenues.
And if you think about it, their website and funnel end up being a waste of money. To turn things around, what they should start doing is practising Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO).
That’s what we’ll talk about in this article.
What is Conversion Rate Optimisation?
CRO is the practice of optimising your websites, funnels, etc. to get a higher percentage of visitors to perform certain desired actions. This could be booking a consultation, signing up for a service, or simply buying a product.
By practising CRO, you can significantly improve your returns and make more money. Unfortunately, many business owners overlook CRO these days due to three misleading beliefs:
- They believe that traffic is all that matters. More traffic equals better conversion.
- They think all they need is a good design to convert more.
- They don’t believe that CRO works.
These beliefs aren’t always true. And they’re the reasons why many businesses aren’t getting better returns from their traffic and ad spend.
CRO entails understanding your customers. It’s about knowing what either drives them to do what they do or stops them from taking action. Then, you use that knowledge to deliver the best possible user experience for them. This, in turn, is what improves your conversion rate.
So, how can you practice CRO?
Well, a big part of CRO is split testing. It involves testing several aspects of your funnel or website to study how often they can convert visitors. This process is also referred to as A/B testing or multivariate testing and is made up of 3 main stages:
Stage 1: You create similar pages for your website (with minor differences) and spread your traffic over them. It’s the same as changing a few parameters in the settings of an ad campaign.
Stage 2: Track the performance of each page or ad using various metrics like Click Through Rate (CTR) and Conversion Rate (CVR). The results for each page or ad are then compared and analysed, usually with software.
Stage 3: Using the results you get, you form a hypothesis and decide on a winner. This is usually the option that gives you the best chances of conversion, with a statistical significance of more than 90%. By this, I mean if one of the rates has a statistical significance of 91%, it means you’re going to get that rate 91% of the time.
5 Tips for Conversion Rate Optimisation
Tip #1 – Let Statistics Drive Your Hypothesis
The biggest mistake anyone can make when practising CRO is to form a hypothesis based on gut feeling or personal opinion. Unfortunately, it happens often and has caused the downfall of many business owners.
Don’t make the same mistake.
Let your hypothesis be based on the statistical data you get from your tests. And to ensure that you form the right hypothesis, let the data mature first. That is, you shouldn’t let the first data you get be the one to guide your decision-making – patience is key.
Sufficient data will often lead to the right hypothesis. This, in turn, will help you to make the right decisions that will increase your conversion rate.
Tip #2 – Avoid Making Changes During Split Testing
A split test is just like a marketing campaign. It needs time to mature so that it can produce results that will be of any statistical significance.
So, changing things up before you get significant data on a test will only lead to inaccurate results. And you’ll end up forming the wrong hypothesis, causing you to waste your time and money.
If you come up with a new idea while you’re doing a split test, create a new test for that idea. Or, wait until the current test matures before you run a new test that integrates your new idea.
Tip #3 – Don’t Run Too Many Tests At The Same Time
This is related to the previous tip and is one of the biggest mistakes that business owners make with split tests. While running a test, they get a new idea for another test and then run it with the current one.
It’s a counterproductive approach.
You see, running multiple tests at the same time will affect the results of each test. This will also leave you with inaccurate results, which will make you form the wrong hypothesis.
It’s best to take things one step at a time. Perform one test, track its performance, and analyse the results. Make the right observations before running other tests. This will help you to develop the best hypothesis that will boost your conversion rate.
Tip #4 – Pay Attention to Your Call To Action (CTA)
Your CTAs are the final step in getting prospects to actually convert. That’s why you should never undermine their importance.
When crafting your CTAs, use the right power words. Add a sense of urgency to them and place them in the right positions. You have to get clear on what people need to do next when they end up in your website or funnel.
Doing these can help you convert better.
Tip #5 – Write Great Copy
Filling your website with SEO-optimized content is great. It will get you a lot of traffic from search engines.
However, if that content isn’t readable, valuable, or doesn’t resonate with your audience, it will negatively impact your conversion. It’s the same thing with your funnels and other conversion channels.
So, write in a simple and easy-to-understand manner. Use catchy headlines and high-ranking keywords. And don’t forget to add a few images here and there for better engagement.
Doing these will compel readers to follow your CTA and convert.
It’s Time to Increase Your Conversion Rate
Conversion Rate Optimization is all about increasing your website’s and funnel’s conversion rates. It entails testing how your visitors react to changes in your pages or ad campaigns until you come up with the version that’s optimised for conversions.
That’s why every business should practice CRO at regular intervals. See it as a service of its own that is different from the web or funnel design. It’s one of the best ways to get more value for your ad spend and ultimately improve your revenue.
GMS provides CRO services to help businesses get the most returns possible. If you want to learn more about optimising your pages for conversion, schedule your free consult with one of our GMS experts.
