Everyone is talking about Conversion Rate Optimization – but does everyone do it? Most of the times CRO is put on sidelines while planning for your digital marketing strategy. Is it important or you can afford to ignore it? Let’s find out.
CRO is a process of creating compelling user experiences for your site visitors to motivate them to take an action – the action you want them to take. It could be anything – buying from you, registering for your services, requesting a free trial or subscribing to your newsletter and so on.
Various elements include optimizing on-site design or landing page, testing different versions of content, improving visual experience for better CX and UX, and other measures.
It’s a practice
CRO is not about finding quick-fix solutions to a site or a landing page. Though sometimes tiny changes can significantly impact conversions but understanding what these changes are, requires investigation. You must analyze numbers, perform a survey about customers’ needs, develop hypothesis and test to extract the full potential out of your CRO. And Repeat.
Is SEO and CRO same?
SEO and CRO go together, but they are not the same. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) concentrates on driving traffic to your website but once that traffic comes to your website, it is CRO’s job to convert them and help them take a favorable action.
CRO focuses on how to set up your website for your existing traffic. It directs efforts on optimizing the experience of the traffic already on the site. It is more cost effective, as you are trying to convert the existing visitors rather than acquiring new ones (who may visit or not visit, who may convert or not convert).
Your marketing efforts should integrate both SEO and CRO, where one will drive traffic and the other will capture it.
Why should you pay attention to CRO?
- Increase the value of website visitors: With a successful SEO and advertising, your website or landing page gets the traffic. CRO can help turn this traffic into a quality one. When you are optimizing for conversions, you can generate more sales or leads with the same traffic.
As Rand Fishkin, Founder of Moz in an interview with Conversion Rates Experts says, “CRO is simply a must-have. CRO is the most important marketing activity because it makes every visitor exponentially more valuable”.
- Profits: CRO aims for converted customers. When your conversion rate increases you are more profitable. Yes, you will spend more on scaling up to the number of customers but your advertising cost and other ‘fixed’ costs will remain the same, which increases your profit. Analyzing and making small cost-effective changes will increase the value of your site, instead of rethinking costly strategies.
- More Customers: More profit also translates to more customers. Once conversions happen and profits increase, you can divert some of your budgets to increasing your advertising bid prices, which can help you reach more audience and eventually more customers.
- Customer-centric approach: CRO makes it easier and simpler for the potential and existing customers to browse through your pages and take actions. An approach that keeps customers at the nucleus will be able to design features that customers will appreciate. Adopting changes keeping customer behavior and preferences in mind will turn happy visitors into happy customers.
- More Traffic: As a matter of fact, a website optimized for conversions will get the visitors hooked. These visitors, if they enjoy what you present to them, will spread the word and bring in more traffic. And if it is relevant traffic, the probability of conversions shoots up.
- Stay ahead in the competition: CRO involves improved functionality, enhanced user experience, better site value, and great content. By understanding what appeals to your audience, you can create juicy content, which gels well with your audience. Tailoring content to customers’ needs will attract your target audience and help you stay ahead in the competition.
CRO is not the ‘be all, end all’ approach but it is also not a strategy to be put on a back-burner. It must be integrated with other strategies to complete the story of your marketing efforts. A research-oriented and data-driven approach to understanding what suits your customers, testing your decisions and a focus on how you can serve your customers better is the key to effective Conversion Rate Optimization.