A few weeks ago, we learned about the Importance of Conversion Rate Optimization and how it’s just as important as Search Engine Optimization and Pay Per Click Advertising.
We learned briefly about how ClickFirst Marketing can help you with the selection of well-crafted words, design, pictures and videos when designing a website page with the intent of getting more of your visitors to take action and convert to customers for your business.
In this post we discuss why and how Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is important.
So, why should you spend money, time or resources on CRO?? Think of all the traffic that goes to your website, whether it be from search engines, paid advertising or from visitors who find your website address on a business card or company vehicle. The hard part is over because you’ve been successful at getting people to visit your website, but what’s the value of that traffic if none of it turns into revenue for your business? CRO is the art and science of taking that traffic and turning it into customers, clients, purchases, quotes, leads or whatever the first step is in your business’ sales funnel. Through testing, revisions and implementation your website is molded into a highly efficient sales tool that turns visitors into business .. and that’s why CRO is important.
Before doing anything else, you must discover a process of how to make your business grow.
There are many people in the web marketing world that will say ‘use this best practice’ or ‘choose my best practice’. However, the truth is that there is no one set of practices that fits all businesses and their websites. And, just like each web merchant, all visitors have various needs and purposes for visiting a site. When a website owner accepts these facts, the sooner they will move their business towards growth.
In learning how to grow your business, the first step is research. That research includes understanding your goals, intentions and that of the visitors. For each position on every page of your site, there must be a goal and purpose. Prioritizing those goals, will help decide where each item is placed.
Next, learn how a visitor reaches your site. They may come from email, social media or organic search. Each of these channels can lead visitors to various places on the site. These places are often called landing pages. So, your intentions and the information presented on these pages are key to having visitors take the desired actions you want.
The majority of the information on how visitors reach the site can be found in analytics. ClickFirst Marketing can help you make sense of the many numbers and charts that you will find on many analytical spreadsheets. Those numbers will create a picture of how the visitors are interacting with your presentations.
After seeing a pattern in the analytics and coming up with ideas to better steer the visitors toward your desired end results, the next best thing to do is to start testing. As stated earlier, there is not one blanket formula for every site. Your tests may include changing the wording, photos, colors or positioning on the page or moving some things to an entirely different page altogether.
Finally, as you see your business begin to grow, you will be reaping the benefits of Conversion Rate Optimization. Unlike the other processes, CRO never ends. Its process must be followed for every new initiative. Also, remember people are constantly changing. So, the personalities of your visitors will change too. That means you may have to re-examine earlier changes that no are no longer working or have slowed in growth.
