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Conversion rate optimisation – or CRO as it’s more commonly referred to – is one of the quickest and most efficient strategies to convert your site’s traffic into paying customers. However, it’s also one of the most overlooked tactics by many marketing teams. This is perhaps due to a lack of understanding since it’s a complex process involving a lot of tools and methodologies, with only one goal – to turn your leads into customers.
We’ve spent long hours compiling vital information about it so that we can share it with you. Here’s everything you need to know about CRO optimisation.

What is conversion rate optimisation (CRO)?

Your conversion rate is the percentage of your site’s visitors who actually turn their visit into a desired action, such as buying your products or services, signing up to your newsletter, or requesting more information. Conversion rate optimisation is the process of increasing the percentage of visitors who actually convert by taking those actions on your site. Optimising your conversions means boosting your number of qualified leads, lowering costs, increasing revenue, and ultimately growing the overall performance of your business.

What are the biggest benefits of conversion rate optimisation?

Let’s say 5,000 people who visited your website last month. Your average sale is $500 and you have a current conversion (buy) rate of 4%. That means that 200 customers purchased $500 each from you, giving you a gross revenue of $100,000 from online sales last month. Sounds fantastic, right? But what if you optimise your conversion rate and it becomes 8% instead of 4%? That’s now 400 customers who will purchase from you, with a jump in your gross sales to a whopping $200,000. That’s a massive difference – and it’s all possible when you optimise.

You’ll get more buying customers from the same amount of traffic. That means you don’t have to generate more traffic than you already have. In a nutshell, CRO is all about maximising your existing traffic.

Another significant benefit of CRO is that it’s cost-effective. There are heaps of free tools out there that you can use if you don’t want to hire a developer. They can help you to identify more information about the visitors your site, so you can figure out what tactics you should apply in order to entice them into taking your desired action.

The bottom line is that when CRO is done well, you will earn more trust from your customers, ultimately enhancing your brand image.

How to get started with conversion rate optimisation

And now, for the main event! Here we give you some basic but essential elements to help you accelerate your business with CRO.

Customer identification. Understanding exactly who your target audience is – and just as importantly, who it is not – will help you create marketing messages that talk their language and will help you to reach them.

Collect and analyse the data. Remember, we mentioned that there are free tools you can use for CRO? Use those to collect and analyse data. Find the patterns in your customer’s behaviour. For example, if you identify that many of then found you through social media, then you’re social media strategy is working well. You can leverage on that to boost your conversion rates.

Run heatmap analysis. There are many pages on your website that probably need more attention when you’re doing your CRO, such as the landing pages and product pages. Running a heatmap analysis will help you see which pages gain more clicks and what your visitors use them for. Optimise the content on those pages to maximise your conversions.

Create awareness. If you’re using analytical tools correctly, you’ll start to understand who visits your site, how they got there and what they look for when the get to your site. These visitors know what their needs are and they are looking for solutions, so it’s important that you make them aware that you have the best solutions for them.

Strategise your call-to-actions (CTA). CTA’s are what direct your customers into taking actions favourable to you, so strategise what they are, and where you place them, as well as the arrows, navigation panels, and other factors that your customers can easily click.

How to measure conversion rates

Measuring your conversion rates will drive you to optimise your site further, whether it’s doing well or not because there will always be room for improvement. Use tools, such as Google Analytics to identify your CRO areas. Keep in mind that you should have at least a 2% conversion rate. Set up your goals according to these metrics:

• Traffic source
• Page views
• Bounce rate
• Average time on page
• Page load time
• Number of visitors
• Unique page visitors

CRO mistakes to avoid

No matter how well informed you are about CRO, there will always be some mistakes that many businesses commit along the way. Here are two of the most common CRO mistakes you must avoid:

1. Ignoring your website’s speed – we can’t stress it enough, but your website’s speed affects everything else, and conversion rate is not an exception.
2. Not being mobile-friendly – you’ve heard it before, but more than half of your customers use their mobiles to surf the net. Make sure it’s accelerated and mobile-friendly

Get your CRO happening today!

We’ve done our best to provide you with a quick guide to help you get started. But if you think CRO is too complicated to do it on your own, our team of experts can help you out. Check out some of our works here or contact us for a chat about how we can help you to optimise your conversion rates so you can make more sales.