CRO for increasing the number of conversions: how to implement everything

Today, almost every business has its own online presence. The official website is responsible for solving a fairly wide range of tasks, including interesting a potential client and leading him through the sales funnel as effectively as possible until he completes the target action. But is this what happens on your site? Practice shows that many resources really attract a large volume of traffic, but in the end it never turns into conversion. This means that the business does not make a profit and does not develop. In an attempt to correct the situation, advertising is used, additional funds are spent. But even in this case, the result will be as long as money is invested in promotion.

Is it possible to get maximum conversions from the site without additional investments or, within the same advertising budget, attract many more clients and improve profits? To solve this problem, Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is used - a technology that allows you to identify hidden causes that have a negative impact on conversion and eliminate them.

We will dedicate today's review to getting acquainted with this technique. In particular, we will talk about what conversion is in general and why it is so important to use CRO. Get acquainted with the average Conversion Rate indicators, which in principle can be considered the norm for an average site and we will tell you why this characteristic should be optimized. Get acquainted in detail with the main elements of CRO and step by step describe the work that will need to be implemented to improve the site's conversion rates. We will translate a number of additional recommendations that will help to increase the efficiency of the upcoming work.

Conversion: what is it and why is it so important to consider CRO

CRO, that is, Conversion Rate Optimization, is a way to improve a website aimed at attracting more target actions, be it registrations, applications, filling out feedback forms, orders. By analogy, for information portals and blogs, this will be an increase in the number of readers. Conversion (Conversion Rate, CR) is a metric that displays the number of users who have performed a particular target action on the site.

Let's assume that you are the owner of an online store. About 1,000 people visit your site daily. About 50 of them make a purchase. This means that the conversion rate of your online store will be 5%. Calculating this figure is quite simple. You need to divide the number of people who made a purchase (or any other target action on the site that you are currently taking as a basis) by the total number of visitors and multiply by 100%. In calculations, you can use figures for a day, week, month or any other reporting period.

We would like to draw attention to the fact that absolutely any business needs to monitor conversion rates, because this is the only way you can find out the answers to a number of questions that are extremely important when determining the effectiveness of the company:

• how many of all visitors to your site are directly representatives of the target audience;
• which traffic sources generate the most potential buyers and provide higher conversion rates;
• how much time does the audience spend on your site, what pages and sections does it visit;
• what needs to be done to improve existing indicators and achieve the goals you set in front of you when launching a website.

That is, knowing the conversion rate, understanding how to work with these numbers, you will be able to get all the information that will become the basis for subsequent stable promotion of the site on the market. You will be able to better understand your audience, identify certain patterns in user behavior, understand what problems prevent people from ordering your goods and services.

“Optimal” conversion rate

Let's assume that you have already calculated the Conversion Rate for your site. But how can you understand that the figure you see in front of you indicates stable business development? Unfortunately, there are no uniform standards and requirements for the conversion rate. Moreover, this parameter can vary in a fairly wide range, since it is significantly influenced by a number of external factors. Here are just the main points:

• the business goals that you set for your website or company as a whole;
• the source of traffic that is being analyzed at a given time;
• the characteristics of the target audience;
• the type of product that is supplied to the market;
• sales seasonality, etc.

In practice, it may turn out that the same figures for different websites will indicate different things. Let's say the conversion is 3% in an online store of beach accessories and on a website that sells food products. So, in the first case, such a CR will be quite good, especially if it is the off-season, and in the second, on the contrary, it will be quite low, since we are talking about an extremely popular category of goods.

However, thanks to specialized research, it was possible to establish that the average conversion rate for most modern websites is 2.35%. That is, if in practice you have achieved a CR higher than 2%, then we can say that you are moving along the right path. And this study also showed that the coveted figure of 5% is achieved by no more than 25% of all modern sites. Let us repeat: these figures are approximate, averaged over various niches and areas. But still, they can be used as a guide and taken into account when developing and implementing your own business development strategy.

We would also like to draw your attention to the fact that the conversion rate also depends on the traffic source and the type of resource used. Thus, according to research, the approximate CR from mobile devices is only 1.5%, while for desktop devices it is more than 4.1%. But advertising on Facebook gives over 9.2%. As you can see, the differences here are quite significant. You can understand what conversion rate will be optimal for your site during the work. And here it is better to pay attention not to the number itself, but to its dynamics over time, in order to understand whether the site is developing, whether it brings new target actions.

In any case, Conversion Rate is a dynamic indicator. Its optimization should be carried out on an ongoing basis. This is the only way you can keep control of the development of your own business and get the most out of it in practice.

The main task of CRO

Optimization of conversion rates is This is the main task that specialists are given when conducting Conversion Rate Optimization. With its help, you can provide your company with the following results:

1. Significant savings on the budget for business promotion, website promotion. There is a simple pattern here: the higher the conversion rate on your website, the lower the cost of attracting a new client. This is especially important in cases where traffic is attracted through paid channels. This means that every coin invested in attracting users should be transformed into a person who will place an order on your website. Otherwise, all these funds are wasted.
2. Increasing business profitability. You will be able to attract new clients more effectively without going beyond the initially established advertising budget. That is, a higher conversion rate will indicate that with equal investments, your business profit will increase.
3. Improving user experience. Experience shows that websites that were highly rated by the audience during the first interaction most often automatically attract repeat orders. If the buyer was satisfied with the previous interaction with your business, if he was able to quickly find the goods he needed, easily pay for them, arrange delivery, then why should he look for alternative solutions? He will return to you with new orders as soon as the need arises.
4. Increased competitiveness. Thanks to a more positive reaction from the audience to interaction with your online presence, the brand's reputation in the market will improve. People will leave positive reviews about cooperation, recommend your site to their friends, respond with greater enthusiasm to launched advertising or new offers. This is what will increase brand awareness, improve loyalty from the audience and allow your business to effectively stand out from the competition.

As you can see, the benefits for business from implementing CRO are quite significant. This means that you clearly should not throw this method out of your practice. And here we have come directly to getting acquainted with the main components of this technology.

The Main Elements of CRO

We have already briefly mentioned above that various external parameters have a significant impact on the conversion of a website. They can all be conditionally divided into 2 large groups:

1. Form. It is responsible for the comfort of users' work, and also systematically moves them to perform a particular target action. Here we include the loading speed of the site, its design solution, thoughtfulness of navigation and online forms.
2. Content. These are the factors that finally convince a person of the need to cooperate with a specific site and stimulate them to place an order. These are CTA and copywriting.

That is, as a result, we get 6 main indicators that have a direct impact on the conversion rate. And this means that they should be taken into account during CRO. Now let's look at each of these points in more detail.

Page loading speed

Internet sites that load too slowly irritate people - and this is a fact that does not require confirmation. That is, as a result, we get an emotion that will not push people to subscribe, get acquainted with the product catalog and add certain items to the basket. In addition, slow loading has a negative impact on the effectiveness of SEO, which also significantly reduces conversion rates.

If you do not want to alienate your audience literally from the first second of their acquaintance with your site, take as a basis a number of norms and requirements characteristic of an effectively functioning site:

• not only text material loads quickly and efficiently, but also pictures, animation, video, and their subsequent work - stable;
• a simple and intuitive interface that allows the audience to instantly find what they are looking for;
• the site is equally convenient and accessible for interaction on various user devices, including mobile phones;
• the site provides a secure connection, there is protection of personal user data;
• the information on the site is constantly kept up to date, the information itself is useful and interesting for the audience;
• the menu structure itself, the search is clear and logically built.

This is what will positively affect, among other things, the number of conversion actions. On average, you should focus on a loading speed of 2 seconds. This is what is considered the so-called "gold standard" today. If it turns out that your pages will load longer, even by a split second, you are guaranteed to lose visitors, and with them - conversion actions. That is why speed optimization is one of the key principles of CRO.

Website structure

A person who would like to make a purchase of a product or order a service via the Internet, for the most part, rarely stops at the first site they come across. They always study several options, delving deeply into the site itself, finding out what is important to them. And if it turns out that at some point in time, while exploring the site, they encounter a problem, then with a high degree of probability they will simply switch to another option. The reason for this in this case will be an illogically built structure, ill-conceived navigation of the site.

Modern people are used to valuing their own time. If it turns out that the necessary information or product on the site is not found in a matter of seconds, such a platform closes. This means that you should not count on targeted actions from this person. Good navigation is what will allow the user to find the necessary sections, information with a minimum number of clicks. That is, it is important to make it as convenient as possible for people to use your resource. And this means that you need to remove all complex solutions, even if, in your opinion, they add originality or take into account some trends. The best solution is to bet on a simple and working structure.

Website design solution

Design is the first thing that any website visitor notices. If it turns out that the page they see is ugly, oversaturated with elements or, on the contrary, overloaded with text, if the external solution turns out to be too difficult to perceive, then most of the audience will leave such a site, taking conversion actions with them. Research conducted in this area shows that most people draw conclusions about a site within the first few seconds after connecting. If the effect is negative, then the CR here will be extremely low. Of course, there are always situations when one or more people do not like the design. However, if this practice is widespread, then there really is something wrong with your site and you need to make the appropriate adjustments.

High-quality, thought-out design is an excellent solution for improving the reputation of a brand, increasing its recognition in the market. This is what will work for the future and in itself will attract a loyal audience to you. At the same time, the level of user trust will increase, the number of recommendations will increase, and along with this - new visitors and their target actions. Otherwise, an unprofessional and outdated design solution raises doubts about competence and a desire to go look for another option.

Here we would like to draw attention to the fact that by the concept of “design” we are talking not only about a harmonious combination of forms and color solutions. Here it is also very important to think through the structure, navigation, layout of text, multimedia, graphic content to the smallest detail. It is important that a person can easily find what interests him, find out the answers to his questions. And then you can get good conversion rates even without additional investments in advertising.

Custom forms

Here we are talking about those forms that are designed for site visitors to indicate their data. They play a very important role in optimizing the conversion rate. And here your task is to remove unnecessary elements, but do not forget to include the most important ones. In particular, the user form must meet the following requirements:

• simplicity and clarity, no unnecessary elements that can mislead the user;
• minimum number of fields for information, ensuring quick filling of information;
• correct display on absolutely all devices, regardless of the screen diagonal;
• laconic, but at the same time attractive design that fits into the overall style of the site;
• the presence of a pop-up window that will inform the person that the form they filled out has been sent to managers.

Consider the fact that entering information into such a form is, for the most part, the final step of the audience on your site, which, among other things, can also be attributed to conversion actions. Therefore, it is in your interests to make sure that a person can fill it out and send it as quickly as possible. If the form turns out to be complex and time-consuming, most of the audience will change their mind about interacting with your site.

Call-to-action button

The CTA (call-to-action) button plays a really important role in a brand's marketing strategy. By and large, it is the user's last stop in their sales funnel. That is why the call-to-action button is rightfully considered the element that has a serious impact on the conversion rate. There is a direct relationship here: the more people click on the site, the higher the CR will be.

Today, there are several options for developing a call-to-action button. So, you can offer the user to perform this or that action right now, learn more about the product, book or purchase a product, get a free bonus, or choose a plan that suits them. There are also many options that involve personalization and even humor, interactive content.

Copywriting

After the visitor evaluates the external solution of your site, his attention will definitely be drawn to the text content. And here it is important to ensure that the initial positive effect is preserved. This means that the text part should be written in simple and understandable language, contain a structure and be perceived literally on an intuitive level. It is important to make sure that a person can easily navigate the presented material and quickly find what interests him at a given moment in time.

The phrases themselves should be capacious, but brief. It is important to reveal the essence of your offer in the simplest language possible, unobtrusively push to perform a conversion action. Here it is necessary to follow the key rules of marketing, but not to allow excessive pressure. That is, it is important to make sure that the audience does not even guess that you are calling them to this or that target action. Here it is also very important to observe the Tone-of-Voice, that is, the voice of the brand, but at the same time avoid complex formulations, relying on those phrases that will be closer to your audience. It is important to understand that it is the text that can evoke emotions in a person. And it is important for you to make sure that they are positive, because this is the key to good conversion.

The main stages of Conversion rate optimization

To launch conversion rate optimization, you will need to complete a number of key stages step by step. Follow our recommendations to implement these works as correctly as possible and without outside help:

1. Assess the current picture with conversions in your business. For Conversion rate optimization to be truly effective, it is important to understand at what stage your audience leaves the site before making conversions. To solve this problem, specialized tools are used, in particular Google Analytics or Yandex Metrica. Alternatively, you can analyze the heat map of clicks and see what problem areas you have that have a negative impact on overall conversion rates. That is, you will see where exactly the problem is hidden. This means you can choose the most effective way to solve it.
2. Collect a portrait of your target audience, analyze it. Pay special attention to the behavioral characteristics of your potential customers, understand what they expect from interacting with your business, what their "pains" are. Thanks to this, you will be able to make appropriate adjustments to your website, product range, and revise the overall promotion strategy. It is also important to consider the devices through which the audience interacts with your site. The fact is that mobile device users perform this task in a completely different way than desktop users. And this specificity must be taken into account.
3. Run a user survey. The maximum useful information about your audience can be learned directly from them. Ask what exactly people are looking for in your business, what they expect from interacting with you. Analysis of the information received will allow you to take a number of measures aimed at improving the user experience. The survey itself should include 3 main stages: introduction, questions with answer options, final word. So, in the introduction itself, it is important to say why you are conducting this survey, approximately how much time it will take from the audience, note that it is confidential, that is, user data will not be announced. The questions and answers themselves should be as simple, accurate, impartial, and understandable as possible. That is, do everything so that the audience can complete it as quickly as possible. At the very end of the survey, you need to inform the person that he has successfully answered your questions and express gratitude for his time. We would like to draw your attention to the fact that today there are many special services designed to create surveys. Alternatively, you can use tools such as Typeform, SurveySparrow, SurveyMonkey, or choose any other option for yourself.
4. Analyze your closest competitors. These are the works that will help you assess the overall picture of sales of goods or services in your niche. Also, be sure to pay attention to the practices that the business uses for successful development. Perhaps you can take certain solutions to improve your own website, strategy. Today, there are also a number of services for competitor analysis, which will significantly simplify the upcoming work, speed it up. You can also perform a comparative analysis of your project and the nearest successful competitor, identifying weaknesses in the strategy.
5. Develop several hypotheses. At this stage, you will already have a fairly large amount of information at your disposal, which will allow you to analyze the work of your own business and suggest a number of changes that could theoretically improve conversion rates. Alternatively, perhaps your registration form is too complicated and simplifying it would encourage people to enter the relevant data. Perhaps your CTA buttons are incorrectly placed and should be moved to more visible places. Also, problems can be hidden in the lack of social proof. We would like to draw your attention to the fact that the more hypotheses you test, the more likely you are to find the most effective solution. That is, hypotheses can rightfully be called the basis for the subsequent development of changes and their implementation on the site. But in any case, each option must be very carefully worked out, be sure to add justification. That is, they must be based on the information received, the research carried out, and be focused on the target audience. The process of making hypotheses itself will be based on information obtained from surveys, sales funnels, various video sessions, and more. It would also be a good idea to divide the user's path funnel into certain stages. This will make subsequent testing more effective.
6. Testing itself. Several options can be used here, but the following solution has received the most practical application: A/B testing, multifactorial testing, cohort analysis. Thus, A/B testing involves comparing 2 versions of your website pages in order to determine which of them will subsequently be more effective when working with the audience and will give better conversions. Multifactorial testing involves changing different elements at the same time, thanks to which you will be able to understand what mutual influence they have on each other. Cohort analysis studies the behavioral factors of different groups of users interacting with the site at different time intervals. By and large, each of these approaches can be used within the framework of one Conversion rate optimization, ultimately obtaining the most comprehensive and complete picture. That is, your hypotheses are tested in practice here. We would like to draw your attention to the fact that this stage can take a certain amount of time, because this is the only way you can get statistically significant results. Don't jump to conclusions, because quick solutions often end up being failures.
7. Implementation of changes. If during testing you find out that certain solutions give good results and increase conversion, you need to launch them into practical application. It is also important to monitor long-term indicators, making sure that everything works as correctly as possible and you really get an improvement.

That is, working on CRO is an ongoing process that requires your attention and some effort. If at some point in time you see that conversion rates have stopped increasing or, on the contrary, have decreased, then you need to start the whole process over again, identify the cause of what happened and look for the most effective optimization methods.

Additional recommendations for conversion optimization

If you want to increase the conversion rate of your own website, provide the platform with the most stable and functional work, take the following recommendations into account:

• Regularly monitor the validity of forms. You must always be sure that all forms provided on your site are distinguished by maximum simplicity and convenience for the audience, and require a minimum of time to fill out. It is also important to constantly maintain the correctness of the work so that the audience can easily fill out forms with their contact information, get advice from managers, and order feedback. Here it is worth following the principle: the fewer fields people have to fill out, the more likely they are to complete the upcoming work. According to recent studies, reducing the number of fields to fill out from 4 to 3 increases the chance of receiving it by about 50%.
• Think about how to increase the site loading speed. At the beginning of the article, we already said that slow loading is one of the key reasons for low conversion. Experience shows that if a site does not launch literally a couple of seconds after a click, most of the audience simply leaves. The easiest way to increase speed is to optimize images: reduce their size, but at the same time maintain good quality.
• Make sure that all your forms are available to users of different devices, regardless of the screen size they open on. It is also important that the forms are filled out as conveniently as possible both on a smartphone and on a personal computer. Keep in mind that the use of mobile devices to access the Internet at the moment is approximately 75%. That is, it is important for you to create an adapted version of your site, to provide it with the most convenient navigation for each user.
• Regularly check the relevance of traffic. All advertisements and key phrases that are placed on your page must fully correspond to its content. This means that a person who goes to your resource via an external link should see exactly those goods or services that he is interested in at the moment. Otherwise, you will not get any conversions from such a transition.
• Conduct a comprehensive optimization of the landing page. Here we are talking about creating the most user-friendly and intuitive page design, filling it with concise, but at the same time interesting content that carries value for the audience. A short and precise title, structured text, the presence of visual elements - this is what will attract attention, provide a positive user experience and will contribute to a more detailed acquaintance with the site, and along with this, to the performance of target actions. That is, it is important to make it as simple and easy as possible for a person to interact with your site.

If you use these recommendations, you are guaranteed to see an improvement in conversion rates.

Let's summarize

CRO - this is the process that is designed to improve a site or a separate advertising campaign in order to increase the conversion rate. This is what will ultimately help you save your budget significantly, increase your own profits, take customer service to a new level, thereby improving their experience of interacting with your business. As a result, you will be able to bypass your closest competitors with less time, effort, and material resources. Here, in general, you need to review the visuals of the site, its content, as well as the various forms that are provided on the site and the loading process itself, its navigation.

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