Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is a technique for increasing the percentage of website traffic that converts. Naturally, this will increase your number of customers, revenue, and helps grow your business.
Conversions are the users who have entered your sales funnel and completed the action you asked them to do. This could be buying a product, signing up for an email newsletter, or downloading an app.
Whatever the case may be, it’s important to track your conversion rate so you can improve your process and increase conversions. CRO tactics are used to increase the likelihood of conversions and increase your total conversion volume.
Before we dive into some common CRO mistakes, let’s take a more in-depth look at what CRO is and why it’s important.
Benefits of CRO
CRO allows you to obtain more value from your current customers and users as well as open the doors for new customers. It will increase traffic to your site, consequently revenue. CRO is essential to growing your business, and if you are just getting started with this strategy, one of your first areas of focus should be user experience.
Improving the landing page that your audience visits will guide your audience through the sales funnel until they exit by completing an action. But, don’t just give your landing pages a makeover. Like
Make sure your website is organized, detailed, and easy-to-browse. You’ll find that the conversions start to spike almost instantaneously.
Now that you understand the basics of CRO, here are some common mistakes you should avoid.
Your Website Isn’t Optimized for Mobile
It’s important to track the amount of traffic coming from mobile users because many users prefer browsing from phones. If you have a really low percentage of mobile users, chances are that your percentage of desktop users is even lower.
To successfully convert your leads, you should have a responsive mobile website design that loads quickly.
Optimizing your pages for mobile doesn’t have to be complicated. Sometimes, it’s as simple as increasing the size of your CTA buttons or having comparison table data in a single column so visitors don’t have to scroll sideways.
Your CTAs are Weak
Call-to-actions may not seem important, but they are vital to the success of your business. CTAs are the last piece of content that users see before deciding to complete a purchase or leave your sales funnel. It makes sense that you’d want to spend some extra time crafting yours.
The simplest piece of advice that you can follow is to make your CTAs bright and large. The eye naturally gravitates towards things that are colorful and noticeable. Whatever color you decide on, make sure it’s different from the color palette of your website.
In addition to those small changes, make sure you choose a legible font. Use phrases like “See the Latest Price,” or “Read These Reviews.”
Your Sidebar is Crowded
Sidebars make it easy for users to navigate your site. It’s where users can see everything that your business has to offer and decide where they want to navigate to first.
Having too many choices may deter website visitors. Be very selective with the pages you display on your site. Don’t intimidate your audience. Stick to the bare necessities and make it easy for potential customers to pursue your products.
If you have them jumping through hoops to buy something, they’ll be motivated to leave the site and find a similar product elsewhere.
Your Site Isn’t Direct Enough
When internet users visit websites, they usually do a quick scan to see if the site they’re on is relevant to their search. This process happens almost instantaneously, so you must make sure that a user’s first impression of your site is a great one.
You can do this by using these simple strategies:
- Use a lot of white space – people don’t like to look at clutter. Make sure you’re only publishing important content.
- Prioritize images and videos. If you’re able to get a message across using a picture or video, do it. People are more willing to look at an image than they are to read even a short paragraph.
- Take advantage of bullet points. When a user sees bullet points, they’re less intimidated by the amount of writing on a page.
- Create smart headlines. Your headlines have to tell it all. Make sure your headlines summarize the content so users can find out what they’re supposed to even if they don’t read through the entire piece of content.
CRO Strategies
Now that we’ve covered the most common CRO mistakes let’s take a look at some effective strategies that you can implement into your marketing efforts.
A/B Testing
A/B testing is when you create two different versions of a page and show groups of visitors different versions of the page.
This allows you to compare the two and uncover the strategies that are making one page more effective.
A/B testing takes the guesswork out of marketing. The best part is that it’s specific to your business. You get to learn what works best for your business and audience.
Behavior Tracking
Online marketing is a bit challenging since you can’t directly track customer behavior. With a brick-and-mortar store, you can easily see who is coming in and out and the areas they are spending the most time in.
However, there is software that you can implement into your site to track user behavior. These types of programs show you what pages have the most activity and engagement.
Once you know this information, you can model all of your pages after the more successful ones.
Get a FREE CRO Audit
Conversion rate optimization is an important technique that can dramatically improve the performance of your business.
Before you can make meaningful improvements to your site, you need to find out what areas of your site need a bit more substance.
Get a free CRO audit to learn more about the state of your website. This data- and research-based assessment will reveal the weak points of your website.
Knowing these weak points takes the guesswork out of CRO. Take advantage of this convenient assessment and get started with CRO today!
conversion rate graphic -DepositPhotos
