Are You Looking At Conversion Rate Optimisation?
Publishers, website owners, content creators, and everybody who has something to show, or sell, are always looking for ways to drive traffic to their websites and landing pages. They want their website to be seen by the maximum number of people. To give publicity to their content and increase traffic to websites and their landing […]
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Publishers, website owners, content creators, and everybody who has something to show, or sell, are always looking for ways to drive traffic to their websites and landing pages. They want their website to be seen by the maximum number of people. To give publicity to their content and increase traffic to websites and their landing pages, marketers invest in tools like digital advertising, search engine optimisation (SEO), brand building, brand connection, or even influencer marketing.
Whatever may be the traffic generation strategy, the higher the number of visitors, the better it is for the website’s prospects. But driving increased traffic alone doesn’t quantify success. Having a large number of unique website visitors may be good for the site itself, but if it doesn’t convert to sales, then it’s of no value. Getting your visitors to engage and take action on the website is what really matters.
At a time when customer experience has become the benchmark for a business’ success and omnichannel marketing has almost become a norm, a publisher or marketer can get started on their conversion rate optimisation, journey by getting to know the their customer or audience more closely. Understanding what your audience wants and engaging them with relevant content is a good place to start a conversion rate optimisation journey.
What is Conversion Rate Optimisation
Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) is the process by which businesses or publishers get visitors to perform a desirable action on the website. These actions typically involve liking, sharing and subscribing to content. Other activities include filling forms, signing up for newsletters, content or services on websites. Actions like making a purchase or adding to cart, consenting to cookies or tracking on your web browser are definite indicators of a successful conversion.
Examples of conversions
Macro-conversions:
- Purchasing a product from the site
- Requesting a quote
- Subscribing to a service
Examples of micro-conversions:
- Signing up for email lists
- Creating an account
- Adding a product to the cart
Definite Indicators to A Successful Conversion: Marketers often think of conversion as a sales function and quantify a successful conversion with numbers. While looking at conversion rates numerically isn’t wrong, there is another viewpoint to conversion — understanding customer behaviour and the factors that influence customer relations with a brand, understanding factors that drive customers, using personalisation techniques help conversion.
Conversion is the result of multiple business processes working in tandem with each other to provide the customer with unmatched CX that results in a sale, or a desirable outcome planned by the marketer.
Calculating Conversion Rate
Marketers or publishers calculate the conversion rate based upon three time-tested tenets. They are, understanding your customers, analyse their journey and buying behaviour and improving your offering to them.
According to Hubspot, three formulae exist to calculate conversion rate optimisation.
Calculating Conversion Rate
- Conversion rate is obtained by dividing the number of desired actions taken on the website by the total number of visitors to the site. The result can be multiplied by 100 to get a percentage.
Leads Generated ÷ Website Traffic x 100 = Conversion Rate Per Cent
There is no industry-standard metric or number that can serve as a reference point to measure success. A higher conversion rate indicates a better conversion percentage and better performance by the website. Most conversions range anywhere from one per cent to four per cent globally. Marketers or publishers calculate the conversion rate based upon three time-tested tenets. They are, understand your customers, analyse their journey and buying behaviour and improve your offering to them.
Also Read: Overcoming the Complexity of SaaS Marketing
Calculating Conversion Rate Through Number of Net New Customers
To calculate the number of net new customers, publishers must divide their net revenue goal by their average sales price.
New Revenue Goal ÷ Average Sales Price = Number of New Customers
Calculating Conversion Rate Through Lead Goal
Publishers can calculate their Lead Goal by dividing the total number of new customers by lead-to-customer closing rate percentage (total number of leads divided by the total number of customers).
Number of New Customers ÷ Lead-to-Customer Close Rate
Per Cent = Lead Goal
Checklist For Conversion Rate Optimisation-Centric Marketing
Optimising a website or publication allows publishers to boost the number of qualified leads, increase brand engagement, increase conversion that leads to good sales numbers and drives up ROI. There are various ways in which one can drive traffic to websites.
Start by optimising the content online as users are kept engaged on a website by the content. Catchy headlines and concise content with optimum use of keywords that convey the desired information to readers is desirable.
Having Lead flow elements on the webpage can target website visitors and convert them into leads. Lead flows can look like boxes on the lower left or right side of the website. It can also appear like a pop-up or drop-down banner that gets triggered when a user clicks on the web page.
Place call to action (CTAs) wherever relevant on the website. Ensure they are eye-catching, but they should not block content. Take care to avoid banner blindness. People tend to ignore large banner-style advertisements. A Hubspot research found that the banner style CTAs generally placed at the end of a post has an engagement rate of only six per cent.
Comparatively, a CTA placed along with the anchor text received up to 93 per cent engagement. CTA text or buttons should be eye-catching and generally placed in the top half of the website. CTAs must be time-bound and convey an urgency of time that is passing by.
Also Read: Retention is a Crucial Cog in the Growth Wheel
Optimise Content
Publishers must optimise well-written content like blogs and make their best-performing pages interactive. Using messaging features helps prospects with product choice and pricing and can convert those on the edge. Driving website traffic to well-performing content can result in an excellent rate of conversions.
Engage with website visitors
Retargeting existing or past visitors to fresh content on the website. Serving contextual ads to repeat visitors can convert visitors into meaningful sales.
The following checklist can help marketers and publishers stay on track with their conversion rate optimisation journey.
Design and Functionality: Your website has to have both aesthetics and functionality and give the user a good experience during use.
Promise Value: Know your USP and try to deliver in accordance with your USP. A publisher’s value proposition comes when they are in a sweet spot between customer needs and what your business does.
Measure Website Performance: Stay abreast with your website activity and ranking. Track, measure and evaluate site metrics and work on shortcomings.
Be sensitive to Customer’s problems, Take Feedback
Keep the communication channel open with the customer open at all times. Be receptive to their feedback.
Too Many Choices Isn’t a Good Thing
Variety is an important quality which if done right can elevate UX, CX. But if there are too many choices, it makes the site owner look confused and reeks of analysis paralysis.
Keep your Website UI Functional
A badly designed website with misplaced or missing labels will force customers to leave. Ensure your website is easy to navigate, has an effective site search and the content is easily readable. Haphazard navigation systems, in-your-face design elements that have no functionality irks users and will force them to leave.
Tech Solutions To Track & Improve CRO
Visitors to your website must be reassured regarding their safety. How safe is it to make purchases on your website? Is your payment gateway secure? What security measures do you have in place in the unfortunate event of an attack? Being transparent about your security measures and displaying your security credentials gives authenticity to your website. Measuring conversion and optimising conversion rates can help track, optimise, strategise and know the return on ad spend (ROAS). With conversion rate optimisation marketers can make informed decisions. Knowing these can help marketers reduce their spend and increase ROI.
