Why you NEED Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO)
Digital marketing teams are constantly focussed on driving new traffic towards websites in the hope it converts into qualified leads, and ultimately sales. To put it short, digital marketers are to sales, as stormtroopers are to the Deathstar… and similarly, the results are equally as explosive.
Lead Wars: A New Hope.
Now CRO isn’t just any old marketing service, oh no. It’s based on user experience (UX) principles combined with consumer behaviour. If you’re not familiar with UX, it’s the experience an individual has on your website or app, and if that experience is positive or negative then it inevitably results in a sale or a drop-off respectively. So CRO specialists are like the mum-friend, making sure everyone is having a good time and adjusting accordingly to provide the best experience possible.
CRO is the process of understanding your website visitors’ desires, struggles and motivations in terms of their end-to-end user experience, and then enhancing it to convince them to take a specific action. This action can be purchasing a product, downloading a whitepaper, signing up for a service, subscribing to an email list & more. At the end of the day we want to see an increase in our sweet, sweet conversion rate.
Now for the question that has existed since the beginning of time, that is rumored to have been the reason dinosaurs went extinct… what is the purpose of SEO vs. CRO?
The focus of SEO is to increase the quantity and quality of website traffic by increasing the visibility of a website in search results. Whereas the big CRO focuses on converting visitors from browsers to buyers by optimising the website based on research, prioritisation, and testing. There are six main website elements that, if done well (or harnessed by Aang, the avatar), can improve your conversions. The elements are site navigation, landing page design (colour included), page speed, copy, call to action and forms. You can find out more about how the CRO process works here.
No for the part that has us sweating, in a good way… the website testing phase of CRO. There is a pyramidal hierarchy that is generally followed with CRO, and number five is the ultimate goal. The phases are:
Screw the purpose of life, what is the purpose of your website? A website without a specific function is wasting space. Decide what you want to achieve and adapt the website to this goal. Maybe you want product sales, bookings, downloads, subscriptions, to educate, social media follows, to entertain, whatever it might be, you must have a purpose. Once you worked out your purpose then start looking at the basic functionality requirements to start you off. If you said you needed bookings above, then your functionality is… You guessed it, a booking system. Simple as that
Your site should be able to be easily accessed by everyone; so start installing the wheelchair ramps. It must be available on any device, browser, country, and visitors should be able to understand how to navigate the website and its resources. This includes adding alt tags for images, contrast between text/buttons and background, and a readability of font sizes. Your backgrounds matter people! White text on a light background is not a good look. Your website is for everyone…ish, so design it for everyone…ish.
Nobody likes a dumb website that doesn’t do as it’s told. Your site should be fast, easy to use and in a language that allows visitors to buy what they want the way they want. Just because you have the functionality and the accessibility sorted, does not mean they make a happy couple. Statistically speaking, most marriages between website functionality and accessibility end in divorce (not a real stat, but true). Make sure your website makes sense to the user without them having to work for it, don’t you dare use fancy wording that nobody will understand either. Language matters. And how on earth are they meant to buy a product if they can’t find it?
Our site needs to reduce any friction involved in the buying process. If there’s enough friction, you’re going to start a fire, and you aren’t a fireman. Make the process feel like it comes naturally. You do not want people to think about the process, keep them thinking about the purchase. Also, allow customers to ask questions and get answers quickly, beyond FAQ’s. Just don’t make life hard. K.I.S.S. Keep It Simple Stupidhead.
This is where marketing efforts come along to spice things up, but they only play nice when steps 1-4 are best friends. Your site needs to convince visitors they need what you’re selling — this is the basis of sales psychology. Everything from feature tours, product comparisons, demos, case studies, white papers and testimonials are considered persuasive. Would you want the present in a paper bag or in the box with a bow? Sweeten the deal by providing value and using compelling copy. Time to get your charm on.
The benefits of conversion rate optimisation for your brand are endless really, but we have four for you that we like the most (and they’re crucial to a digital CRO strategy).
It’s all about getting more bang for your budget, and more customers from existing traffic, because it can have a huge impact on your businesses. This is mainly because marketing budgets are limited, from a content, social, search engine and paid marketing perspective, and traffic costs money! But money does make the world go round, as does gravitational pull; both very important. With conversion rate optimisation you can increase sales without increasing your budget, which can result in:
A well-structured CRO strategy will improve the ROI on almost all of your marketing activities. You’ll gain more revenue from organic sources of traffic, and work smarter (not harder) with your marketing budget. By testing different pages and their elements, you’ll gain insights into what will yield (fancy word) the best results, and then you’ll be able to use this data to determine the next step in the testing process.
For example, if you improve your sales conversion rate by even two percent, you’ll be gaining that in revenue day in day out. With an existing high volume of traffic, a two per cent increase can effectively translate into hundreds and thousands of extra profit that even Mr. Krabs will be jealous of.
It’s almost impossible to sell to someone that you don’t understand. UX tools can allow you to embrace your inner stalker and see how your visitors are navigating your website, how far they are scrolling and where they are clicking. You can then determine if you’re providing the right information to your visitors quickly enough.
For example, if you have a page that’s showing a huge drop-off, you may have blundered up at servicing your customers needs, or maybe it’s targeting the right people but the information they need isn’t clear enough. The proof will be in the puddin’ though and by looking at enough examples of users who didn’t complete your site goal, you’ll have a better idea of what needs to improve to convince people into completing that goal.
Now you’ve got the groundwork done it’s time to channel your inner Queer Eye Fab 5 & make this website over, with your customers in mind. This personalisation can be based on their location, the time, their search history and the device they are viewing from, to name a few. With an improved experience, understanding of your business’ value and representation of your unique value propositions, your website is gonna speak to your potential customers’ souls, resulting in more sales (and souls, mwahaha) for you.
Listen, if you’re looking to achieve your business goals, you’ve simply got to make conversion rate optimisation services your best friend. Why? Because we’re really nice, and good listeners, and really loyal, but also we…
Data-driven results solve problems. At Iterate, we don’t make assumptions, we shut out the voices in our heads (shut up, Carol!) and rely on data to show us the solutions. We will also listen to your customers actions. The way they behave will tell us everything we need to know. Read between the lines, dammit.
Iterate is a small, specialist agency with the power of a large organisation, thanks to our partnership with our sister agency, Klyp #KeepItInTheFamily. Our specialists have years of knowledge and expertise in CRO, UX and SEO practices, and we focus on increasing revenue via organic channels. More dollary-doos for you.
Are transparent and collaborative
We tell it like it is. No jargon. No gimmicks. No secrets (but we’ll keep yours…shhh). We pass on our knowledge to our clients and encourage their input and expertise about their business. We are also transparent about what iterations we run on our website and use the results to educate our clients. Let’s iterate together!
So what are you waiting for? Let’s set up an iter-date and introduce you to our iter-mates! (okay I’m done).
