Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) or Conversion Optimization is done to increase the number of users on websites into customers or increase the number of users who will perform a desired action on the website. This desired action can be anything depending upon the website and the business if you are running a clothing store, the desired action might be purchasing a product or adding it to a cart. Conversion Rate Optimization is a gal of every e-commerce business operator and it has become an obsession with time to get higher and higher conversion rates.
However, due to this race of getting high conversions, people often start taking shortcuts and forget that conversion optimization needs to be a consistent effort that will take effort and patience, and time, especially if you want your website to have consistently improved conversion rates and not just for a short period of time. In this article, we will discuss what is conversion rate optimization and what are the steps of conversion optimization that will benefit your business and help you achieve your desired action.
Conversion Rate Optimization:
The practice of converting the users on your website into customers or increasing the number of users who perform a specific action on your website is called Conversion Optimization or CRO. The specified or desired action can be anything from filling out a form, signing up for a newsletter, subscribing, purchasing a product, adding a product to a wish list, clicking on a link, or adding a product to the cart. CRO usually consists of generating different ideas for the desired action that you want your users to do and then performing various tests to select the right one.
What are the Benefits of Conversion Rate Optimization?
Conversion Rate Optimization is a great practice as it can save you a lot of time and money as it lowers the cost of acquisition of new users and instead allows you to get more valued responses from the users that are already present on your website. For example, if you get monthly 5000 visitors on your website and your home page has a current conversion rate of 10%, that means your website is generating 500 conversions per month. However, if you increase this rate by an additional 10% then your conversions will be 20% and you will get 1000 conversions per month. You can increase the revenue per visitor, attract more customers, and accelerate your business growth by using conversion optimization.
What Are the Steps of Conversion Optimization?
If you also want to increase your conversion rate on your then here are the steps to help you accomplish conversion optimization.
- Research and Analysis:
People often make the mistake of copying popular CRO strategies without realizing that they vary from business to business. The CRO strategies that are working for everyone else might not work for you and this is why you need to do research and data gathering. Track your conversions and see which part requires improvisation. You can use quantitative data analysis that helps you understand how your users are reacting on your site, quantitative data can include click-through rate, bounce rate, demography, user’s browser information, traffic source, and much more.
You can also use qualitative data that will help you understand why your users are reacting the way they are. Things like surveys, polls, focus groups, and user interviews are used to gather qualitative data.
- Hypothesis:
Use all the data you have gathered and analyze it thoroughly to create a hypothesis. Based on your metrics and statistical data, you will be able to see the hypothetical result clearly. For example, you may realize that if your products feature things like “only 2 left in stock”, you can have a 2% growth in added-to-cart action. Make sure you have created all the hypotheses that could come out of your gathered data.
- Prioritization:
Before you move to the testing stage, you need to figure out which hypothesis will work best and should be tested first or given prioritization. This will help you target more serious problems on your website. You can use different frameworks like PXL Framework and P.I.E Framework to identify which page or issues require the most attention.
- Testing:
After you have created a hypothesis and are done with prioritization, you are all ready to implement and test them out. Testing includes putting up your hypothesis on the existing version of your website and it can include A/B Testing, which consists of testing 2 different variants, A and B, to see the user’s response. A/B Testing uses minor and slight changes in design and layout, Split Testing is used for more complex changes such as different URLs, and Multivariate Testing which includes making different and multiple changes on a page simultaneously to test each combination separately.
- Learning Phase:
After the testing of your hypothesis, you will know if it was right or wrong. If the result comes out positive, you need to implement that change on your website and if the result comes out wrong, you will need to recheck your hypothesis and review all your research data to come up with a new one. You will also need to keep performing the steps for consistent conversion optimization.
So, these are the steps to conversion optimization that will help you increase your users, generate more conversions, save your cost, and increase your sales. Make sure you have made your landing page simple and easy to navigate. You should also include the reviews that people have given about you on your website or the rating you have because nothing will influence people more than seeing what other people think about you. Conversion optimization can also be done by asking your customers directly and taking their feedback regarding what changes would they like to see or how you can increase the quality of their user experience. If you are starting conversion optimization, it is really important that you create a strategy that works and performs well.
