**When developing a new website or looking at changes to an existing one, the considerations often come from two main sources: The design and how it looks, and the SEO and how it ranks.**
One frequently overlooked aspect of many websites is how well it converts traffic into enquiries, with aesthetic concerns often taking preference over more functional demands.
The process of Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) is designed to look at the website from a business perspective and analyse how it can drive more leads, sales and enquiries.
Thanks to website tracking programmes such as Google Analytics, it’s possible to record how many of your visitors are taking a desired action on a website; and, by using this information, you can take measures to increase this figure and drive more conversions.
**Define your goals**
The first step any business should take when starting out on a website project is to define the goals that will dictate the success of the website.
In the offline world, it isn’t the number of people that come through the doors of a shop that counts, it’s how many of those people leave having paid for a purchase. The same is true of a website. Traffic is great, but it is what that traffic does that counts.
One problem encountered when dictating website goals however, is that it’s not always as simple as monitoring sales. There are many different actions that can be taken by a website visitor such as filling in a form, making an enquiry, sharing a page on Facebook or Twitter or downloading a file such as a PDF. Which do you want them to do?
These goals could also differ on a page by page basis. You might want to drive sales on product pages and encourage downloads on content pages, so it is something that needs to be considered on both a site-wide and page by page basis.
Once these goals have been defined, you can then set-up your Analytics software to monitor these conversions and identify your current conversion rate..
**Tracking conversions**
By tracking your conversions, you will very quickly gain a clearer understanding of how your website is performing against the goals. At this stage, you can begin to look at changes you can make to increase the number of people taking the desired action on the website.
The power of this knowledge cannot be overestimated. If you are already running SEO or PPC campaigns that are bringing in qualified traffic, improving your conversion rate by as little as 1% can have a huge effect on your business.
Here is an example of Conversion Rate Optimisation using an e-commerce business whose goal is the number of orders placed on the website.
**Blue Widget Wedding Favours**
Mrs Jones runs an online wedding favours business. It has been operating a relatively unchanged website for 5 years and already had success with SEO and PPC campaigns, that result in 235,000 people visiting the website every year.
The company has recently looked into the performance of its website using Google Analytics and Mrs Jones has discovered that the conversion rate is 1% – a low but not uncommon figure for a small/medium sized ecommerce website.
Mrs Jones also knows that the average order value for web sales is £10.
(image: https://www.superdream.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/chart-1.jpg alt: 1% conversion rate)
By performing Conversion Rate Optimisation on the website, Mrs Jones is hoping to increase the conversion rate to 2-3%, a standard level for an ecommerce business.
(image: https://www.superdream.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/chart-2.jpg alt: 2% conversion rate)
A 3% conversion rate is by no means unachievable for any ecommerce store, and by making some basic changes to the functionality of the website; it’s possible to see some drastic changes to the performance of an online business.
(image: https://www.superdream.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/chart-3.jpg alt: 3% conversion rate)
As you can see, by implementing CRO techniques, Mrs Jones can generate an additional £20-45k in turnover.
If you are currently undertaking web marketing activities without looking at improving your conversion rate, you could be losing a large amount of income unnecessarily.
So what changes should you look to make in order to improve your conversion rate?
**Ecommerce? Look at your checkout process**
If you run an older website (4-5 years old) then your checkout process might be contributing to you losing customers who were poised to place an order.
Older checkouts can have many pages before the order is processed, and with every click you risk losing a potential customer.
All unnecessary pages in this process should be removed and any forms should be tested to ensure that they work smoothly. Some aspects of your checkout might be incompatible with newer browsers which make it more difficult for potential customers to make their purchase.
If you have to spread your checkout process over a number of pages, make sure that fields for the customer’s name, email address and telephone number are on the first page and are stored as they move through the process. This way if they do abandon their cart, you can contact them to complete the transaction.
Simpler payment solutions are also available from providers such as PayPal, who offers express checkout options for ecommerce websites.
To see what other ecommerce mistakes are costing you money, (link: https://www.superdream.co.uk/common-ecommerce-mistakes/ text: click here popup: true title: 7 Ecommerce Mistakes Your Website is Making (and How You Can Combat Them)).
**The essentials**
Not every website is an (link: https://www.superdream.co.uk/digital/ecommerce-web-design/ text: ecommerce website popup: true title: Ecommerce Web Design) though, so here is a quick guide for how any online business can improve their conversion rate – whether it is for filling in a form, downloading a brochure or generating phone calls.
– **Calls to Action** – Does every landing page have a clear, obvious call to action? Is the action easy for the visitor to take?
– **Short enquiry forms** – With every click you place between your visitor and your goal, your drop-off rate increases significantly. Rather than “click here to contact us”, put a short contact form on every landing page and make it as easy as possible for your website to capture vital leads.
– **Mobile compatibility – ** If you have Analytics installed on your website, take a look at how many mobile visits your website has received over the last 2-3 years. Mobile traffic is increasing at a rapid rate and if your website is not designed and optimised with mobile visitors in mind, you could be missing out on a huge number of enquiries.
Conversion Rate Optimisation is the next big thing in the online marketing world, but it does take serious skill, time and resource. All worth it of course, because what use are 2000 visits to your website in a month if the phone hasn’t rang once?