Conversion Rate Optimisation: The Basics

Conversion Rate Optimisation, or CRO, is the act of increasing the number of visitors that convert into paying customers, leads, or completing the goal that you want your website to achieve.

Whilst that may sound simple, it can actually be a time consuming process, with a great deal of trial and error going into making your website a successful, converting one.

You will find that all popular websites will have either invested in CRO in the past, or invest in it on an on-going basis to ensure that they stay ahead of the trends. It used to be a case of basic AB testing, where two different designs were presented randomly and then compared at the end of the month to see which performed better.

However, thanks to advanced user tracking, we can now go much further.

Just from a basic install of Google Analytics, you can see a vast amount of data about the users on the website, including what page they are currently visiting, which page they entered and exited the website from, the amount of time spent on each page, and much more.

Armed with this information, we can ensure that any work conducted on the website is aimed towards increasing conversions, as well as tracking and monitoring these correctly.

So what is involved in CRO? Here is a few examples worthy of a mention:

• Call to Actions (CTA) – This is what should prompt the user to make the first move towards the end goal. Usually presented in the form of a button, the CTA can usually be found on a landing page, and usually contains text in the form of ‘Buy Now’, ‘Sign Up’, and ‘Download Now’.

• Multivariate Testing (MVT) – This takes into consideration the individual parts that make up a page, such as the images, copy, colours, and more. MVT can help you determine which colour CTA performs the best, which copy doesn’t quite attract as many conversions as expected, and whether certain images make people turn off quicker than expected!

• Conversion Funnel – The conversion funnel is the ideal path that you would want a user to take on your website. For example, if you had a website selling software, you may want the following path: Landing Page->Data Capture Page->Download Page.

• A/B Testing – We briefly mentioned this above, and while it has been around a while, it is still very relevant. Where MVT changes around the elements used on a page, A/B Testing changes the actual page. This is usually a different design, a change in the positioning of the CTA, text only, image heavy, simple, whatever you like really. And while it is called A/B Testing, you are not restricted to two design variations. However, it is advisable not to have too many, as you will only have to run it longer to get reliable results.

Finally, we’ll go over some of the main figures you should be looking out for when carrying out CRO. Without these figures, CRO will be an exercise in futility as you will never truly know what is working, and what improvements could be made.

• Conversion Rates – An obvious one, but important none-the-less. You need to keep a track on the percentage of users that are converting on your website.
• Bounce Rates – The bounce rate is the percentage of users who leave your website, without viewing a page, other than the one they landed on.

• Time on the website – Monitoring the amount of time that your visitors stay on your website, or page, will help towards deigning the next round of A/B Testing, or MVT.

• Click Through Rate (CTR) – This is great for seeing how effective your call to actions are, again, these will help towards the next round of changes to the copy, or imagery used on your CTA’s.

So, whilst these figures may seem to more advanced, and you may be struggling to figure out where to even start, there are a few simpler steps you may be able to take straight away.

These include simplifying the registration and checkout process of your eCommerce store, as this is more likely to lead to more users purchasing your products and services.

The one page checkout is something we are always looking to try to implement, as it has been proven that users are more likely to convert when things are made easy for them. You’ve probably had an experience yourself where you have given up ordering something online because of a difficult check out process.

Another idea we always suggest is to ensure your website quick to load, easy to navigate and simple for the user to find what they want. Again, how many times have you found yourself hitting back because the page is slow to load or you can’t find what you’re looking for?

We hope that you found this article helpful, and if you would like to find out more about CRO or any of the services we offer, please feel free to get in touch via the CTA button below!

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