The Importance of Conversion Rate Optimization

At Zelst, we talk a lot about the importance of search engine optimization. We’re massive advocates for how it can drive more traffic to your site and increase brand awareness.

However, anybody who works in digital marketing would agree, at least to some extent, that SEO is a slightly grey area. Yes, we know it is vital to keep your site ranking well on Google, but how exactly does this correlate with the amount of sales/actions that you receive? How can we tell if your SEO and content efforts have been successful?

This is where conversion rate optimization comes in. Your SEO has helped your page reach your audience, and it’s got them to click through to your site. But how do you turn a visit into a conversion? Both SEO and CRO are vital aspects for the success of your site. They work side by side, your search engine optimization should draw customers in, and your CRO should improve rates of them carrying out the desired action.

The aesthetics of your landing page have a huge impact on your potential customer, especially those visiting for the first time. Great design elements, engaging visuals and an eye-catching call-to-action button are all important aspects of improving conversion rates.

This is essential for both SEO and CRO reasons. Optimizing the text on the page includes choosing a target keyword and adding valuable, authoritative content. This is especially important when you have competitors selling identical/similar products, a common occurrence with e-commerce sites.

If the customer sees that you have more information on the product, then they are likely to trust your site more than that of your competitors. Google’s algorithms are also largely based on user experience, and it will recognise your page as more valuable and rank it higher.

A site visitor only has so much patience, and technological advancements mean that we’re used to getting what we want, when we want it. Customers not only want but expect a fast conversion.

Whether your goal is to get people to sign up for a free online newsletter or to buy a top of the range product, it is important to remove any unnecessary steps to improve your chances of the customer completing their transaction. For example, you could remove the need for credit card details when a customer signs up for a free trial. Inputting details requires time and effort for a product that the consumer has no loyalties with. Simply asking for an email address is sufficient- your product trial should be able to convince them to convert.

There are several ways to test and optimize your conversion rates on your site, however the most popular by far is A/B split testing. This is when you create two versions of the same page, one as a control and one as a variant. The variant can be as different as you like, for example it could include images on a page that previously didn’t have them, or it could involve a complete redesign.

Next it’s time to enable some split testing software. This could be a tool such as Optimizely or VWO which will randomly assign one version of the page to visitors and measure the results. It is important to let these experiments run long enough to collect significant data before you begin to implement any changes.

If you would like informative, no obligation advice on how you can improve the performance or your site, get in touch with the Zelst team today. We have an experienced team who would be happy to help with any issues you may have.