The term ‘conversion’ certainly makes its way around the internet. It’s the prolific buzzword that pops up time and time again whenever a discussion surrounding digital marketing arises. Especially when it comes to Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO).

Conversion is considered the ultimate goal in an online marketing strategy. It centres around the fulfilment of brand goals through digital consumer behaviour. It’s essentially getting a consumer to respond to your Call to Action.

Brands worldwide aspire to maximise their conversion rates whether that be in-store or online. The ultimate goal being a 100% conversion rate. However, the average online conversion rate for a UK business is a meagre 1.2%. With the highest performers peaking at around 30% conversion. So let’s get to work!

What Is Conversion?

In order to gain an understanding of how to optimise your brand’s online conversion rate. It’s firstly important to have a concrete understanding of what conversion is and means to your brand. To expand on our previous definition of conversion as the accomplishment of brand goals through consumer behaviour. A conversion rate refers to a key metric in your brand’s online performance as it demonstrates the percentage of customers doing what you are trying to encourage them to do.

Whether that is to place an order, making a booking, complete an enquiry form or sign up as an email subscriber. Conversion is all about how you convert an online visitor to an active lead or sale. Which introduces the burning question: how exactly do you get your target audience to convert?

What Is Conversion Rate Optimisation?

The first step to optimising your brand’s online conversion rate is determining what you want your conversions to focus upon. In other words, what do you want your web visitors to convert into? Will it be macro-conversions, micro-conversions or maybe a bit of both?

Macro-conversions are the conversion goals which centre around the selling products through your website. For example, purchasing a product or requesting a quote. Meanwhile, micro-conversions are those actions which do not relate directly to sales but can occur before or after a macro-conversion. An example being a visitor creating an online account or placing a product in an online basket. The latter being an excellent way to introduce targeted Facebook or Google Remarketing strategies. These remarketing strategies can then act as a supplementary effort to optimise macro-conversion rates. So, it’s safe to say that both conversion types are hugely beneficial in improving brand performance.

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Once you have an understanding of which elements you want your conversion rates to improve upon based on what’s going to be best for your business’ overall performance. It’s time to introduce Conversion Rate Optimisation!

Introducing CRO

Conversion Rate Optimisation refers to the systematic and strategic effort to increase the percentage of visitors fulfilling your conversion goals. This involves a great deal of behavioural analysis. Including taking the time to understand exactly how visitors interact with and move throughout your website. Observing what they do during their visitation and hopefully identifying the location or reason why they are not converting.

This type of observation can be done through software like Crazy Egg, a service which provides access to heatmapping. This means that businesses can literally watch their online visitors’ movements whilst active on their website. This allows brands to obtain a true-to-life, genuine view of exactly where their pitfalls are on their webpage. Enabling them to view where visitors are lingering or at what point they exit the website altogether.

Maybe your website isn’t providing the user experience visitors not only want but expect nowadays. How easy is it for users to navigate your website to find the information they are looking for? How simple it is to find and complete an enquiry form? Is the purchase process streamline, reliable and simple to use for customers?

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Through obtaining data on how well your website is performing and where the issues may lie. You can brief your web design and development team comprehensively. Informing them of exactly where changes and improvements can be made to improve user experience.

The Importance of SEO for Conversion

Whilst CRO can be a crucial tool in your digital marketing strategy. It is completely useless if consumers are not able to find and therefore visit your website. This is where Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) becomes a crucial preliminary tool to enhancing conversion rates.

SEO refers to the process of increasing the quantity and quality of visitors to your webpage through organic search results. It centres around boosting where your website to appear higher in search engine results. Resultantly increasing the likelihood that they will be visited. With the ideal search engine result ranking being within the top 5. A space which is notoriously difficult to occupy in the vast majority of searches.

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Therefore it goes without saying that SEO and CRO are a digital partnership. One can’t really exist successfully without the other. As if people can’t find you through SEO then improvements made through CRO won’t be appreciated. Likewise, if CRO isn’t ensuring an enjoyable user experience then users won’t spend much time – if any at all – on your website. This lack of engagement then lowers the website’s search ranking and SEO efforts are weakened.

Why Is Conversion Rate Optimisation Useful?

Conversion Rate Optimisation is a key element to any successful, sustainable digital marketing strategy. It is not possible to create a website and not touch it for several months, or even longer, before updating. A company’s website is a demonstration of the brand, its capabilities and quality. It has to grow with the company. Adapting to serve your existing and prospective customers based on what they want from their user experience. This can change from week to week, based on a variety of components which tend to be unique to each individual brand.

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For example, trending products made easier to find on fashion e-commerce websites to boost macro-conversion rates. As their website visitors will be expecting to click through in seconds to find exactly what they are looking for. This means that continuous observation should be conducted to ensure that the website is truly optimising conversion.

Therefore, Conversion Rate Optimisation can drastically improve sales and overall brand awareness. Not to mention it can enhance positive brand associations. As consumers relate the brand to an enjoyable website user experience. Furthermore, any continued marketing material users have signed up for – through fulfilling micro-conversion goals. Will act as a consistent reminder of the brand. Improving the likelihood of engagement and purchase.

How Do I Calculate Conversion Rate Optimisation?

It’s all well and good discussing Conversion Rate Optimisation and the benefits it can bring but how do you know if it’s working? This means it’s time for a little bit of maths…

To calculate your CRO simply take the number of web visitors who have completed the conversion goal you wish to analyse. Then divide that figure by the total number of web visitors your website has received over a given period of time. This can be done through Google Analytics.

This sum will produce a percentage and as you continue to make improvements to your website based on observational analysis. Once you begin to implement Conversion Rate Optimisation it is important to monitor these rates consistently. Hopefully to watch those percentages continue to rise time after time.

The introduction of effective and well-informed Conversion Rate Optimisation can help a brand to achieve its wider marketing and sales objectives. It can help proper a brand’s performance to reach its aspirations and is an increasingly vital element to digital marketing strategy in 2019!

Get in touch to discuss how we can help your brand with Conversion Rate Optimisation today.