It never fails. You are busy working on a website, and your client says something like this,
“You know, I saw how my friend had his logo on his website. Can we make it bigger.”
Or, how about,
“I would really like to have a slider on my website? I like how they make the site look.”
Finally, how about this one,
“Can you make my website pop?”
Clients make decisions based on preferences much of the time.
Designing a website based on conversion can help with that conversation. For example, when a client says they want a fuchsia button, you can run a test.
When you get the client to agree that conversions are the most crucial goal of your website, you can always steer that conversation back to testing.
Today, we are going to take a birdseye glance at what Conversion Rate Optimization means for your WordPress business and ways to get started.
What is Conversion Rate Optimization?
CRO stands for conversion rate optimization. Frankly, it sounds more complicated than it is. Mostly, we are trying to get the highest rate of conversion for our website. We might be making sales on our site, but if we measure the numbers, we may find that our site could do better.
Looking at some definitions across some well-respected sites, here are three to consider.
Moz
Moz is known as an SEO outpost for years. The truth is, if it has to do with digital marketing, they have some expertise.
“Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is the systematic process of increasing the percentage of website visitors who take a desired action — be that filling out a form, becoming customers, or otherwise. The CRO process involves understanding how users move through your site, what actions they take, and what’s stopping them from completing your goals.”
source: https://moz.com/learn/seo/conversion-rate-optimization
ConversionXL
ConversionXL or CXL for short has a whopping 263 articles on CRO & Testing. They spend more time talking about the subject and how to perform it than almost anyone. They have a robust beginner’s guide (See here) and spend time teaching people about CRO.
Here is founder Peep Laja defines it in one of their earliest posts,
“Conversion optimization is the method of tuning websites or landing pages with the goal of converting more visitors into customers. The higher the conversion rate (%), the more sales (sign ups, subscriptions, etc) you get.”
VWO
VWO is a well known A/B Testing and Conversion platform. They define the phrase in their CRO guide,
“Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is the process of optimizing your site or landing page experience based on website visitor behaviour to help improve desired actions (conversions) on the said page.”
Why is CRO so important?
In the Moz guide, we find there are five ways that CRO benefits SEO marketers. That is, of course, the crowd they are talking to.
The benefits include Improved Customer, Better scalability insights, Better ROI, Enhanced trust, and Better user experience.
What it comes down to is improved functionality. VWO says the benefits are Improving your marketing ROI and Enhancing your user experience.
For example, if you are paying for traffic, if you can improve your conversions, it makes your money more effectively. As the guide at Qualaroo says,
“First, you are most likely paying for traffic to your site in one way or another, and a high conversion rate means a better return on that investment (ROI). It’s also much more cost-effective to convert a higher percentage of the visitors you already have than to attract more visitors. In addition to improving your ROI, optimization helps to defend against the limited attention span of your average visitor by giving them what they want before they tire of looking for it and move on.”
How can you implement CRO?
Implementing CRO for your website is where the “rubber meets the road.”
There is no way that one can learn how to do a complete CRO in a single blog post. I have no illusions about that.
What a professional needs to do is to learn as much as he or she can about the subject and evaluate what he or she can do with their property.
Analyze the data with testing
Testing is one thing that is easily implemented. Whether you are using A/B Split testing, a tool like Hotjar, or Google Analytics, these things can help you measure simple things like click-throughs and downloads.
Google Analytics has Google Analytics conversion goals you can implement for various actions on your website. Most of the software we use for optins, such as OptinMonster, include some rate of conversions.
This can be an immediate help.
If you are offering a lead magnet, most software allows you to measure the effectiveness of your offer.
Even the forms we use have a conversion percentage. This is a fantastic way to begin measuring what you are trying to accomplish.
Making sure you have some things in place to test is great, but what are things you may need to measure.
Laja puts forth an excellent process at CXL called ResearchXL. It comes down to auditing your web property and making an assessment.
Other areas necessary to conversion optimization include copywriting, design and UX, psychology, emotional targeting, emails, and much more.
A glance at the table of contents of the CXL guide will give you more insight into the things you need to consider.
CRO Guides to get you started
Here are a few guides to help you get started learning more about conversion rate optimization. Each guide has their own way of teaching about CRO and will offer a different perspective.
Conversion Rate Optimization – Moz
Conversion Rate Optimization – Optimizely
The Beginner’s Guide to Conversion Rate Optimization- Qualaroo
What is Conversion Rate Optimization(CRO)? – VW)
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO): How to Optimize Conversion Rates for PPC – Wordstream
What is Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO), Best Practices, Tools [Guide] – Crazyegg
What Is Conversion Rate Optimization? Complete Beginner’s Guide – OptinMonster
Wrapping it up
Whether you decide to dive into split testing, the psychology of persuasion, improve your copywriting or create a funnel, conversion rate optimization is a critical part of the puzzle.
If you plan on creating a business from your website, optimizing your conversion rate is the best use of your resources.
So, dive into CRO. Learn more from the guides linked in the article.
