Is your website experiencing low conversion rates? Have you searched high and low for some magic trick to turn your luck around?
We've all been there. It seems that no matter what you do, you can't get enough of your visitors to complete the desired action - we're talking about making a purchase or filling out a form.
Low conversion rates are unfortunate, especially in our highly competitive digital age. But that's not all, as, by default, that also means your business is missing out on potential revenue.
So, it goes without saying that having a website optimized for conversions is essential for your success.
While we can't pull a genie out of the lamp to grant your conversion rate wishes, we can provide you with our conversion rate optimization (CRO) best practices.
CRO best practices can provide valuable insights into user behavior, which help businesses fully understand what is causing low conversion rates, make data-driven decisions that will improve website performance, and drive conversions.
Ready to take your website to the next level?
We've broken down our top CRO best practices for boosting website performance, optimizing user experience, driving conversions, and increasing revenue.
Simplifying All Processes
Take a moment to consider how long your site's forms are.
Have you included fields such as zip code, credit card CVV number, birthday, and favorite word? While we may have exaggerated, we're all guilty of adding extra fields to make our life easier.
But, remember, gone are the days of sifting through information manually. Now we can all turn to automation tools to aid us in our attempts to learn more about our target market.
So, simplify this process! Not only does it not have to be long, but a confusing or lengthy checkout process can be a big reason why your leads aren't converting, as it can cause visitors to abandon their purchase or form submission.
So, when contemplating which fields to add to your forms, always ask yourself which information is necessary. Try to keep the number of sections to a minimum and ensure they're easy to understand and navigate.
The same applies to checkouts or any other process you have on your site. Back to the checkout, you can simplify it by reducing the number of steps, clearly displaying the total cost, and providing a clear call to action (CTA).
Doing this will increase the likelihood of conversions and improve the overall user experience.
Gather User Feedback
Gathering user feedback is a crucial aspect of CRO, as it enables you to gain valuable insight into what's working, what isn't, and what needs improvement on your site.
The good news. User feedback is generally easy to obtain. These days, users want to be heavily involved in all processes and will gladly give you their opinion.
You can turn to methods such as surveys, polls, and user testing to gather feedback. Surveys are great for learning about the overall user experience of your site. You can turn to polls to discover specific information on an element of your site. But user testing is a different ball game and one method that all businesses should use.
In this method, you observe users while they interact with your site, meaning you can gain valuable insights into the pathways users take to navigate your site and any obstacles they may face.
In other words, it allows you to identify problems preventing conversions and make changes to your site to improve the overall user experience.
Additionally, this opens the doors to hearing directly from users about their wants and needs, which can also help you improve your products, services, the overall customer experience, and other digital marketing aspects, such as content marketing.
Utilizing Social Proof
Us humans are social beings. We find comfort in numbers and like to follow the herd when determining how credible, trustworthy, and reliable a business is.
And this is where you can use social proof to your advantage. Social proof is the phenomenon where people are more likely to act if they see that others have done so.
By utilizing social proof on your website, you can increase conversions simply by demonstrating how other users have had positive experiences with your brand. In fact, consider the following:
- 90% of consumers read online reviews before visiting a business.
- Online reviews impact 67.7% of purchasing decisions.
- 84% of people trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendations.
Powerful, right?
So, how can you show social proof? Display customer reviews, testimonials, trust badges, the number of people who have bought a product or subscribed to a service, number of followers or likes on social media, to name a few options.
Optimize Loading Speed
While you know that a slow-loading website can be a big problem for conversions, do you know exactly how much of a problem?
We'll break it down.
A one-second delay in page loading makes page views drop by 11% and customer satisfaction by 16%. As for conversion rates, a one-second delay makes conversion rates drop by 7%.
Clearly, when a site takes too long to load, and we're literally talking about seconds, visitors will lose interest and leave your site.
Therefore, you must optimize your website's loading speed and keep it at 1-2 seconds.
The following steps can help you reduce load speed:
- Compress the size of images, videos, scripts, and other resources.
- Use a content delivery network to distribute the website's content and minify the code.
- Test site load speed on different browsers and devices
- And most importantly, don't forget to fix any issues that might arise.
Following these steps will reduce bounce rates and increase the chances of visitors staying on your site and converting.
Mobile Optimization
The use of mobile has truly shaken up the market, with mobile devices now accounting for over 50% of internet traffic worldwide - rest assured, this number will continue to rise. So how does mobile actually impact your conversions?
Well, a study by Google showed that 61% of users are unlikely to return to a mobile site they had trouble accessing, and 40% visit a competitor instead.
But that's not all! With Google's announcement that mobile-first indexing will be the default for new websites, it has become more vital than ever to optimize for mobile and secure your site's spot in search engine result pages (SERPs).
Here's how you begin:
- Use a responsive design; a responsive design automatically adapts the site layout to the device screen size to ensure that the website is easy to navigate and read on smaller screens.
- Optimize images. Large images can slow down a website's loading speed on mobile devices, which, as mentioned above, can kill conversions.
- Test on different mobile devices. Always test your website on various devices, from smartphones and tablets, to ensure that it looks and functions correctly on all devices.
- Make buttons easy to click: Ensure that buttons are large enough to be easily clickable with a finger.
By ensuring that your website is mobile-friendly, you can provide users with a positive user experience, improve search engine rankings leading to higher visibility and more potential customers, and increase conversions.
Personalization
If your business hasn't jumped on the personalization bandwagon yet, now's the time. While personalization is far from a new trend, it has become more influential than ever in today's market.
Consider that 80% of consumers are more likely to purchase from a brand that provides personalized content and experiences, and 63% of consumers will stop buying from brands that use poor personalization tactics.
Personalization is critical for your current and future success, so much so that 89% of businesses are investing in personalization.
Still not convinced?
As the competition in the online space increases, it's becoming increasingly vital for businesses to differentiate themselves, and that's where personalization can help. By providing visitors with a unique, tailored website experience, you can establish a deeper connection with your customers, increase loyalty, convert them, and even experience repeat business and positive word-of-mouth.
So, how can you personalize the website experience to make it more relevant and engaging for each user?
- Collect data on each visitor through forms, surveys, and cookies. Then use this data to personalize the website experience for each visitor.
- Segment your visitors into groups based on their behavior, demographics, and preferences to create more personalized experiences for each group.
- Use the data collected to personalize content and recommendations for each visitor. You can tailor product or service recommendations, email campaigns, and landing pages.
Testing and Analyzing
Wish there was a way to determine which changes to your site will have the best impact on conversions? There is! It's called A/B testing. And it enables you to make data-driven decisions regarding your website, or any other digital marketing aspect, without investing in redesign or development. You can use this strategy to test different elements of your site, such as headlines, images, call-to-action buttons, and forms, to help identify the most effective design, language, and layout for your target audience.
More so, you can perform A/B testing continuously, enabling you to keep your site optimized and adapt to changing user behavior.
Alongside testing, you should also be measuring the impact of your efforts - otherwise, how will you know if you've managed to increase conversions and revenue?
Gather data on your site using tools such as Google Analytics. Some key metrics to focus on include website traffic, bounce rate, conversion rate, and user engagement. With this data in hand, you can identify if there are any patterns that may be impacting conversions, discover which pages or sections of the site have the lowest conversion rates, which pages have the highest bounce rates, and of course, which efforts are most impactful.
Based on all these insights, you'll be ready to make the necessary improvements to increase conversions and smash your goals.
Need help improving your conversion rate? Contact our experts today to receive more CRO best practices! Not only will we ensure your conversion rates are where they should be, but we'll work on delivering all your other digital marketing business goals - whatever they may be.
Our experts are ready to hop on a free consultation call to discuss developing your tailored marketing plan today.
