10-Step Strategy to Drive Conversion Rate Optimization for a Website

The very essence of a website's existence and success lies in its ability to optimize conversion rate – conversion optimization is both art and science that involves creativity as well as a systemized hypothesis. It is, in fact, a lot of fun and a game that gives marketers a sense of achievement and revenue to the business.

A few things should always be considered while planning to get the best possible CRO results – there is no alternative to agility! Regular iterations and improvements followed by testing and measuring results is a constant thing of CRO.

THE MODERN CONTENT MARKETER’S BUYER GUIDE

Welcome to the 2019 edition of The Modern Content Marketer’s Buyer Guide. About 10 years ago, marketers realized that content is a critical piece of their pie, and have since been working overtime to generate content to help win the prospect’s attention.

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The following ten basics will set you on the path to healthy conversion optimization outcomes:
 

1. Know your visitors

Make all efforts to know your visitors and customers. Understand why they visit the website, what they are trying to find out, which links they click on and how long they stay on the site – all their on-site activities. It is imperative to glean in-depth insights about your visitors, their pain points, and their interaction methods by not just tracking on-site analytics but also communicating with the people in your company who spend the most time with customers. It is ‘a must' to list out the pages with maximum problems/bounce rate and other website issues that will initiate the process of hypothesis and testing followed by changes and improvements.
 

2. Converse with customers and collect feedback

After gathering insights from your internal team, also involve customers and ask them directly for their input. Live chat tools like Olark and in-page survey tools like Qualaroo often help marketers interact with visitors and engage customers in understanding major website issues and troubles that they face. Several feedback tools are being used by marketers on a daily basis to initiate and improve the process of conversion optimization.

3. Think about a theory for test hypothesis

Once you have all the data and details about the critical issues and website problems, build a strong hypothesis or a reasoned statement about the website element that you are going to test. It ideally includes the problem statement, how this problem impacts the conversion and how it can be solved. Find answers to questions like why you are going to test it, what are you looking to achieve from the test, and what will be the outcomes, results, and alterations (regarding position, perception, message, content, simplification, contrast, etc.). Provide details about the data insights that you have arrived at from the first two steps and ensure you have an open discussion or brainstorming session with various internal stakeholders and team members to gain varied perspectives on the problem areas.
 

4. Time for testing

A validated A/B testing gives proper direction to your ideas and analyzes the results with correct conclusions. However, it is crucial to consider specific factors to unleash the real results from the testing before finalizing a decision or implementing a change. When you are applying A/B testing, ensure you wait for at least 100 unique visitors to each page under test. It is advised to run the test for a week or two to understand the behavior variations on a daily basis and to gather insights from the same. Allow the test to run and reach 95% of statistical significance before taking a final decision about applying any changes. Companies also perform multivariate testing, wherein multiple website elements and variables are tested and modified to determine a winning combination/variation that performs the best out of all other combinations.

5. Create simple landing pages to enhance the personalized experience

Everyone loves a simple landing page. Short, direct and impactful content and a clear CTA without dreary form fills is the thumb rule. Incorporating the right elements into the landing pages at the right places, without hampering the flow of information, impresses visitors instantly. When in testing mode, simplify your landing page with a firm yet short headline followed by a complimentary sub-head, easily comprehensible and small informational pieces with bulleted pointers, and a brief value proposition statement with a well-placed CTA (all to be tested). Studies show that visitors who are bombarded with information or asked for too much information on the landing page often leave the page at once. Also, web pages with less information at the top generally increase the possibility of scrolling down to read the rest- as long as the content is compelling. The second aspect of landing pages is that you can customize several different landing pages depending on the context of where the visitor is clicking through from. Several tools are available to create multiple ‘personalized’ landing pages that can improve the conversion from the pages.

Also Read: You need more than technology to solve your CRO problems

6. Pay attention to your confirmation pages

The next step is to optimize the post-conversion experience. The criticality of creating an engaging confirmation page cannot be ignored. Confirmation page acts as a doorway leading your ‘just converted' visitor into further brand interaction and hence a marketer must pay close attention to what is being conveyed in the confirmation pages and what the visitors are being told to do in those pages. Ideally, visitors are asked to follow the company pages on Twitter and Facebook, and sometimes they are given some bonuses or takeaways for ‘sign-ups.' But nothing stops you from being more creative than that. The confirmation page can include requests for email and newsletter subscriptions. It's important to understand what your visitors will like to do after the conversion and create confirmation pages accordingly.

7. Produce great content to back greater conversions

There is no substitute for excellent content; it is the backbone that optimizes conversion in the first place. Smarter companies give more importance to inbound marketing and quality traffic in generating relevant leads. Everything boils down to creating an inventory of super useful, insightful and intriguing content that cannot be found elsewhere. Landing pages with relevant content (a perfect balance of text, images, videos and interactive elements) compel visitors to discover more and explore further, finally leading to enhanced user experience and repeated visitors with higher chances of conversion. Keep your content interesting, informative, insightful and unique to facilitate improved CRO.

8. Analyze your achievements and shortcomings

The next useful step is to analyze the success (or failures) of your CRO testing phase with transparency and an open mind. It is significant to analyze and understand the success factors as well as the challenges and the shortcomings to draw the necessary lessons for creating better CRO strategies in the future. At the same time, sharing achievements motivate the team to adopt innovative and agile methods for increasing the conversion rate. Discussing the after-effects of the CRO testing phase clears a lot of myths and misconceptions while paving the way for improved perceptions around conversion optimization across the project team stakeholders – ideally including content, design, development, marketing and sales specialists.

9. Keep a record of the results

Keep a record of all the CRO tests results to ensure the findings and insights are handy for future reference and further tests and experiments. These test results serve as invaluable data that should be duly documented and preserved with all the details including the lessons learned from the hypothesis, test results, and the overall observations. This information can act as a marketer's guide in the future and can also be shown to the stakeholders and management teams in the form of case studies and success stories, which can help build the business cases for future investments while learning from the experiences.
 

10. Keep improving each page quality everyday

Conversion optimization doesn't stop at just gathering the results and outcomes and learning from them. Conversion optimization works in tandem with several other aspects like UX, organic search, SEO, content optimization, customer and user experience, website navigability, design and social media optimization.

The process of testing and optimizing conversion never actually gets over but keeps evolving with time, efforts and inventions. There's always going to be some scope of improvement, and each time you will find new ways to optimize conversions. Sounds like a no-brainer but it’s worth repeating - a smart marketer sometimes waits a bit to come up with better ideas but always keep revisiting the website to continue to add, learn and enhance. The fundamental rule is to never stop being your own onsite mystery shopper!