Attracting website traffic is crucial for a business – it doesn't matter if it is organic or paid traffic. So, most businesses focus on increasing site traffic using Blogs, Ads, Guest post collaboration and more.
However, your website traffic won't matter if you can't get any conversion out of them. Prospects visiting your traffic are great but converting the prospect to a customer is essential.
Most businesses are still oblivious to the fact that traffic without conversion will not bring any success. But if you're here reading this article, you're the 10% of business owners who know this.
So without further ado, let's learn about conversion rate optimization and how you can increase it to achieve business success.
Conversion rate optimization or CRO is a systematic process of enhancing your website based on the visitor's activity to persuade them to take action on your website.
The action includes signing up, purchasing the product, subscribing to the newsletter, booking a demo, and more.
Your primary goal should be to deliver the best experience to the visitors that convinces them to act and get converted into customers.
Here's a common misconception – high website traffic is enough to get sales.
This is far from reality.
Customers are essential for business success as they drive sales and increase word of mouth.
For example, if your website has higher traffic but the visitors exit without clicking on anything or purchasing/subscribing, you have no customers because your website cannot convert them. And without customers, there is no way you're going to increase the ROI.
Your website will be visible to your target audience, and when they enter, you should be able to push them to take action or make them click your CTA. If they exit without acting, there are high chances of them not coming back.
A prospect lost is a sale lost – so you have to perform a series of necessary tweaks to your website and convince your visitors to act so that you can convert them into customers.
Here are a few more reasons why you need CRO:
Now you know CRO and why it is necessary for your website. Let's discuss how to optimize the website to increase the conversion rate.
When a visitor enters your store, they will just skim through the content. Anything that grabs their attention in this stage will persuade them to click on it.
And there is no better attention-grabbing tactic than displaying a popup.
When the prospect is on your landing page, blog page, etc., you can display a popup asking for their email address to subscribe to their newsletter.
Show them what benefits the prospects can get by subscribing, give them a value, and they will act on it.
Convince & Convert did a great job here. By displaying a popup, they grab the visitor's attention and show them the value they can get by subscribing to their newsletter.
This persuades the prospect to enter their email address which can be used for email marketing.
Sometimes a visitor will have an impulse to act but wonder if they're making the right decision. Here, you need to assure and convince them that they are making the right decision.
But the prospect will not take your word for it, and this is where you can showcase social proof/customer testimonials on your website to convert customers.
Reports say that around 61% of customers read reviews/testimonials before deciding.
So, display what your customer says about you and the ratings you earned from experts on your homepage. Customers trust recommendations from fellow customers, which makes social proof a smart conversion-boosting tactic.
It will be hard for you to increase conversion if you don't know how the visitors interact with your store.
You can easily understand your audience's interaction using analytics tools like Hotjar, Screen Recording, and more.
You can see things like the areas where they stayed the longest and where they scrolled faster. With such insights, you can identify the areas that need improvement and enhance them to convert visitors.
Now you know how your visitors move around and interact with your site. You can use this data and personalize your website based on their activity, location, demographic and more.
For example, if a visitor enters your store from a specific location, you can later the homepage's header image relevant to the visitor's location.
You can see how IBM personalized its homepage relevant to the visitor's location. If the heatmap showed that a customer spent a longer duration on a pricing page but didn't purchase the product – then the next time the prospect visits, you can display a popup with a discounted price exclusive for him.
Doing this will show how much you value the prospect and drive him to purchase the product. You can use platforms like CustomFit AI to personalize your website to deliver the maximum value proposition for individual leads.
Personalizing your website is a huge conversion-boosting tactic, so never miss out on it.
You must understand your target audience's interests, pain points, goals, and more. This will help you write content that resonates well with your audience.
Most importantly, state the benefits instead of features. Show your customers how your product can transform their business and add a value proposition to convert your visitors.
The content must add value to them, and your product/service must act as a solution to their pain points and goals.
Don't hope for conversions if your website doesn't have compelling Call to action buttons. This is a basic conversion rate optimization tactic.
CTAs guide the visitors on what to do – consider them milestones you see on the roads. Without them, the visitor will be lost, not knowing what to do.
Use the CTAs strategically, do not overcrowd your website with them. A best practice is to use three CTA per page – one on the header, the next in the middle, and the last at the bottom of the page.
Use actionable words instead of boring ones, and ensure the CTA is bright and stands out from the rest of the page. CTA is the one that actually influences conversions, so you must nail them.
What happens when you're in doubt? You seek expert counsel.
The same goes for your visitors too. Users who enter your website will have queries or doubts regarding your product and services.
They won't take action unless their queries get sorted out. Having a Live chat option on your website will make it easy for your visitors to get their questions answered by your team of experts.
Higher website traffic is redundant if your visitors are not taking action on your website. Conversion rate optimization is the process of tweaking the website to convert site visitors into long-term customers.
Not only does CRO convert visitors, but it also minimizes your customer acquisition costs and increases customer loyalty, word of mouth, and brand awareness.
Adding popups and showcasing social proofs are common ways to increase conversions on your website. Newer tactics include personalizing your website for an individual visitor, adding a Live chat button to answer customer queries, and more.
So, what are you waiting for? Employ these tactics in your website and start converting visitors into customers!