An Introduction to Conversion Rate Optimisation

“Content is King, Usability is Queen” Conversion Rate Optimisation or CRO, is a method of optimising the user experience of a website so that the…

“Content is King, Usability is Queen”

Conversion Rate Optimisation or CRO, is a method of optimising the user experience of a website so that the conversion rate is increased. This differs from SEO entirely because it focuses on what the user does when they hit your site rather than how the user gets to your website.

CRO has become a buzz-word in the marketing community and a lot of people offer false promises of increasing your conversions to an unrealistic value. Here at Digital Online Marketing, we know what conversions are realistic and want people to be aware that there are hustlers out there who are only interested in their pockets, and won’t help you at all.

Hopefully, this post will help you understand what is involved in Conversion Rate Optimisation and how it can help you get more from your visitors.

An example of successful CRO

One amazing example of successful CRO is 37signals, they managed to increase their sign-ups by 200% just by changing the way their call-to-action was written. All they did was test three variations of text on the button, finally, when testing “See Plans and Pricing”, they got incredible results.

A few tips when performing CRO

Don’t play the guessing game – It’s very tempting to try out that lovely beige button on your website to see if it performs better, but chances are it won’t unless there is some clear evidence as to why it will. Do not take risks, just make sure you only take calculated risks.
Be wary of trends - It’s incredibly tempting to see a gigantic green button working on another person’s website, but when you try it on your own that may not work at all. Make sure you perform some research and A/B split-testing that’s unique to your website. Remember that every website is different so not everything will work.
Analyse, tweak, re-analyse, tweak again - Make sure that you’re always tweaking and re-analysing your changes. You always need to be aware of what’s happening and how it can be improved. Nothing can really be perfect, but there’ll always be a plateau to your conversions, meaning once you reach a certain percentage, there’s probably very little that can be done, so you’re probably better off increasing the number of visitors to your site instead.

Conversion Rate Optimisation is NOT Just Changing the Colour of a Button

It’s a misconception that has taken the design and marketing world by storm. You’re not going to increase your conversions just by changing the colour of a button. CRO is a process that involves monitoring the user experience and find out what is best for the user and also what will entice the user.

A serious CRO will speak to you about metrics, usability and your objectives for the site. They’ll be able to analyse the metrics, let you know how to improve the usability (after some serious testing) and be able to give you realistic goals.

Analysing what the user is doing

Useful heatmap tools like CrazyEgg will help you understand what your users are clicking on, even if it’s not really a button.

Tools like this will not only help you be aware of what needs tweaking, it will also allow you to monitor improvements. Take historical notes when using this sort of system, so you know what’s improving, when it’s improving and why.

Another option is to set up Google Analytics Funnels, we will be writing another blog post about this soon, so subscribe to the feed to keep up to date with our weekly blog posts.

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