Conversion rate optimization is all the rage these days. But why is it creating so much hype? What is it all about?
To understand conversion rate optimization, it’s essential first to understand what a conversion is.
You create a website, and you want people to visit it. Then what? What do you want people to do when they visit your website? Do you want them to call you and make an appointment? Do you want them to fill in a form? Do you want them to purchase from your store?
Whatever action you want your visitors to take when they visit your site is a conversion. And since we are talking about WooCommerce stores here, we are basically talking about getting people to buy from your store.
In a WooCommerce store, your sales are your conversions. Pretty much clear, right?
Let’s move on to the next question, then: what is a conversion rate?
Conversion rate is basically the number of conversions divided by the number of unique visitors to your site. So, for example, if you are getting 100,000 hits per month but only 100 people are buying from your website, the conversion rate would be 100/ 100,000 * 100. This equals to a conversion rate of 0.1%
Now that you know how to calculate the conversion rate let’s get down to conversion rate optimization – one more complex term added!
So, what’s it all about?
Conversion rate optimization simply means to increase your conversion rate by optimizing your existing website and your sales funnel.
If you feel that your business isn’t growing and sales are plummeting, what course of action will you take?
There are a lot of things you can do. You’ll probably sit down with your team and come up with a few plans of action.
You can introduce more products, spend more on marketing, or do targeted SEO to bring more visitors to your site.
All of these options will cost a lot of money, and you don’t know whether the results will bear any fruit or not. What else to do then?
Instead of spending more on more things, you can take what you already have and optimize it so that more and more people who come and visit your site convert into customers. You want your existing visitors to buy from you instead of bouncing off from your site.
This is conversion rate optimization. And there are a variety of ways you can achieve it.
There is a whole science involved in CRO. But here, we are getting down to some simple things you can do to your website, and some WooCommerce plugins you can use that will help you optimize your conversion rate.
Reduce Page Loading Times
The first thing to check when trying to optimize your conversion rate is how long your site takes to load. Most site visitors abandon a website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. So, if you want to increase your conversions, you have to make sure your site loads up quickly.
Here are a few things you can do to optimize your site speed.
- Use performance testing tools.
- Use a lightweight theme.
- Remove unnecessary plugins
- Choose an optimized WooCommerce hosting.
- Use a CDN – Content Delivery Network
- Use a caching plugin.
- Compress JavaScript and CSS files
- Reduce your image and media sizes
How are your visitors going to convert if they land on your website, but they are not sure what they are supposed to do?
If you want your visitors to convert on your WooCommerce store, you need to make sure your store is easy to navigate so that your visitors know where they should click if they want to buy something.
The CTA should be clear, and your store menu should be uncluttered and straightforward – including only the items that you need.
Play With the Urgency Effect
The Urgency effect is when you go to buy something, and you find out it’s sold out, and then you want it even more. You regret not coming earlier to grab it.
The urgency effect drives sales because it makes people want to buy something quickly before it runs out.
There are different ways you can play with the urgency effect on a WooCommerce store.
One popular way is to display how many pieces of that particular product are left in stock. Sold out items are also displayed on the product page but with a clear ‘Sold Out’ label. This also creates an urgency effect.
Simplify the Checkout Process
If you make your visitors go through too many hoops before they check out, they will likely abandon your site before converting.
That’s when you ask for too much info or make your visitors click on too many buttons before they can finally place their order.
The key is to simplify your checkout funnel so your customers can quickly add products to their cart and place their order in as few clicks as possible.
One way to do that is to install a Quick Order form on the store, which allows your visitors to search for multiple products right from the form and add them to the cart without having to browse individual product pages.
Experiment on Your CTA
There are a few things to consider when it comes to Call To Action buttons. Their placement on your site, color, and copy all make a difference to your conversion rate.
But there is no clear answer as to what is better and whatnot. You need to keep experimenting with A/B split testing to see which type of CTA performs better than the other.
Include Customer Reviews on Your Product Pages
Your checkout funnel consists of four stages: Awareness, Interest, Decision, and Action. Including customer reviews on your product pages will particularly help your visitors in the Decision stage.
Most customers want to be sure of the product before they buy it. Is it worth it? Does it work? Should I buy it or not? There are so many questions that pop up in a customer’s mind before they make the decision and finally take action to purchase.
Customer reviews help to reassure the visitor and encourage them to buy. Good reviews will help build credibility and help your customers make an informed decision.
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