What is Conversion Rate Optimization? Why do you need it?
In the highly competitive nature of today’s internet landscape, it is essential for your company or business to have a high performing website. It is more important than ever to have a marketing plan that will not only draw in visitors but convert them to customers. Is your site not generating enough leads? Are you experiencing a high bounce rate on your landing pages? If so, you may be in need of some good ol’ fashioned Conversion Rate Optimization (aka CRO). CRO focuses on persuading your site visitors to sign up for newsletters, make purchases, or take actions that allow engagement with your site. CRO involves several different techniques to optimize your conversion rates, but the main idea behind this marketing strategy is to improve your website so that it persuades your visitors to act. Steps taken to optimize pages include:
1. Usability testing and user experience reviews
2. Landing page design and testing
3. Persona development
4. Website satisfaction survey intercepts and analysis
These are just some of the steps taken during CRO, however, every site will have specific needs. In order to address them, proper testing and analysis must be completed before proceeding with your CRO efforts. The benefits of doing so are substantial.
How will CRO help you?
Why should companies invest in CRO as opposed to paid advertising or PPC? Simply put, CRO is an investment for the future. Good optimizers will continuously optimize their sites and utilize CRO as a way to ensure conversions over time. If done properly, CRO can help you:
• Generate more leads
• Increase customer retention
• Create more page views
• Increase profit-per-visitor
• Increase number of email list sign ups
• Enhance website credibility (increasing chances of someone linking to it)
With the overall benefits of CRO, your business will become more competitive and experience an increase in profits. Sounds great, right? Why doesn’t everybody do it? Surprisingly, most companies use CRO as a last resort when they should be considering it as a first step. Many companies don’t know that if properly utilized, CRO will expand your business and open up opportunities for advertising and other marketing efforts.
