Many businesses feel happy to see the progress in vanity metrics as a result of their marketing efforts. Increased Pageviews, decreased bounce rates, more likes, comments and shares, and a higher percentage of return visitors create a sense of satisfaction among many marketers. These numbers may hold importance in overall marketing landscape. However, over-reliance on these metrics doesn’t help businesses in moving in the right direction. This is where the Conversion rate and the concept of Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) come into the picture.
Conversion rate directly impacts the top and bottom line of any organization. If your website gets 100-plus visitors a day without generating a few leads, then generating more traffic won’t help. You need to Focus on the CRO. Generating more revenue by increasing the conversion rate is easier than getting the same by increasing the traffic. For instance, if your website gets 10,000 visits per month with 1% conversion rate, then you generate 100 leads per month. If you want to generate 200 leads a month, then you either need to double either the traffic or the conversion rate.
Increasing the conversion rate is not only simpler but also more cost effective than increasing the relevant traffic. Moreover, the higher conversion rate will extract more revenue out of every incremental traffic. Working on conversion rates can also help you identify the potential sources of traffic which may not be relevant to your business. Thus, you can free up your resources from non-performing activities and concentrate on the platforms which deliver more business.
Here are four CRO strategies that can boost your conversion rate significantly:
#1. Retargeting Existing Users
Very few genuine buyers purchase items on their very first visit to a website until they have urgent requirements. Customers like to research and compare the prices and features of the products or services before making a purchase. Therefore, if your conversion rate is 1%, it doesn’t mean that 99% of the visitors didn’t like your offerings. A lot of them would have gone to a competitor’s site or other review sites to get more information.
As a seller, it is important for you to remain visible during the entire purchase cycle. Thus, use retargeting ads to bring unsure visitors back to your site. This data from PPC Hero suggest that remarketing ads can significantly boost the conversion rate and lower the cost of customer acquisition. It is advisable to offer an attractive incentive for users to come back and complete the purchase. This strategy can be useful when users left the purchase cart midway due to various reasons.
#2. Rethink the Lead Magnets
Many businesses offer a free trial of their products as a lead generation strategy. A lot of product-based start-ups and small businesses engage influencers in promoting their products. They offer a free version of their products or a trial membership for a limited period to convert the fence sitters. A test by HubSpot suggested that the offers like free trial helped them fetch more leads as compared to the offers like Free Product Demo.
However, the conversion rates were higher for the leads, generated through free product demo request. Similarly, SendPulse decided to end their free trial offer and introduced a low-priced subscription program to generate leads which were more likely to pay. Although this strategy may not work for all businesses, you must keep trying new lead magnets to see what is working best for your business.
#3. Use Text-based CTA in the blog posts
HubSpot generates most of its leads from text-based CTA (Call to Action) on their blog posts. The banner placed at the end of the post contributed only 6% to the total number of post’s leads whereas between 47% and 93% of a post’s leads came from the anchor text CTA alone. Neil Patel uses at least 2-3 anchor text CTAs in all of his blog posts. In fact, most of the affiliate marketers generate a majority of their revenue through the text-based call to action and hyperlinks.
Due to banner blindness, the value of text-based CTA is only going to increase in the future. Thus use a few CTAs in your blog posts and experiment with their position on the blog. You can use OptinMoster or Leadpages software to integrate text-based CTAs quickly in your blogs and other pages. These tools will provide actionable insight that is used to optimize the anchor text CTAs further.
#4. Live Chat and Email Automation
The importance of live chat is already discussed by many prominent internet marketers and bloggers. The use of Live Chat can boost the conversion if it is intended to help the users achieve their goals on the website. Sending customized emails to users based on their particular actions on the site can boost conversion rate significantly. For instance, sending an email to users who have abandoned the cart can help the e-commerce companies bring back the lost customers.
Similarly, a SaaS company can send an automated but customized email to the users who have visited their “Pricing” page on the site. It increases the brand recall rate and also helps users achieve their goals. Develop a sound content strategy and use email automation to attract visitors who left your website without making a desired action.
Concluding Words
Improving website conversion is an on-going effort. You need to try various tools and techniques to see what is working for your business. You need to go beyond A/B testing and use clever hacks to increase conversion rate. Focus on every page and blog post – and not just the landing page – so that every element of the site helps in nurturing the users who are at the various stages of the purchase cycle.
All the blog posts, infographics or creative should help users achieve a particular goal on your site. Before you plan to adopt advanced conversion strategies, you should ensure that basic factors such as simple contact form, easy navigation and compelling copy are in place. The tips mentioned above can improve your conversion rates significantly irrespective of number of visitors.
