Would you like to know why people visit but don’t convert? Would you like to make appropriate changes and enjoy increased sales?
Read on and see what is available to you.
CRO is the future If you ever saw yourself working in the secret service, as a child, then I reckon a spot of conversion rate optimisation is for you. You don’t need to be part of the Resistance movement holed up in some Norwegian cave tapping out Morse code – instead you can sit with a cup of coffee and a ginger biscuit looking at heat maps of how viewers look at your website. Hey, I’m hooked, this kind of software really does bring out the very worst in all of us and makes old fashioned curtain twitching very low res; CRO is the future!
Understand Your Audience First
Whatever website you own, there will be times when conversion rate optimisation (CRO) is probably sadly lacking. Unfortunately you don’t have the luxury of being able to pump out the smell of freshly baked bread or book an end aisle but you can borrow a simple supermarket trick to help you increase conversion rate; the longer your customer spends browsing your site the likelihood of them spending more is significantly higher. Of course you could devise creative ways to present existing varieties to keep customers interested and perhaps alert them to something they hadn’t noticed before. The key is to actually show customers how to do new things with the products already on display. It’s too easy to get hooked up on the next idea when time should be spent on selling what you already have! If you are really canny purchases will include a featured product but also the expensive items you’ve paired them with! Crucially, you must understand your audience first if you want to increase sales.
Increase Conversion Rates and Increase Sales
The ultimate aim of CRO is to increase conversion rates, it seems a pity, after all, that a customer is in your internet shop but leaves without buying or contacting you. You assume they’re there because they want what you are offering. However, if you’re SEO or PPC campaigns are not well targeted then you might discover ‘all sorts’ frequenting your premises with no intention of making a purchase – a pointless exercise. Yes, it’s tempting to try anything to increase footfall but what’s the point if they don’t buy. Ultimately you need to attract traffic that is looking for what you are offering, if you can do that, you are half way there to increase your sales. Make sure you carefully target keywords, and audiences that have a high relevance and and suitable “intent”, so when they land on your website they feel like they have arrived in the right place to satisfy their needs. This way you are more likely to increase conversion rates.
CRO emerged after internet competition ‘hotted up’
CRO really emerged after internet competition ‘hotted up’ and everyone wanted to know just how efficacious marketing strategies really were and marketing types immediately experimented with how web design, page layout, content and graphics made a difference to conversions. Whistles and Bells or Systematic and Analytical? Nowadays you normally find two schools of thought on how to approach CRO: you can go down the improve the landing page/ website or email campaign by applying all the whistles and bells you can think of. You could also adopt the careful, measured approach where you spend time analysing your viewers in a systematic manner. The aim is to produce messages which are bespoke, targeting particular people, unerstanding their needs and then making the sale. It’s only when the profile is complete that testing mechanisms will be used which directly impacts on conversion rates.
Campaign Tweaking Optimises Sales Opportunities
You may well be asking, is this yet another thing I have to be involved with? Isn’t it just another time-consuming fad? Well, Wikipedia offers a definition of “optimization” which is ‘the discipline of applying advanced analytical methods to make better decisions.’ Now, that looks like a no-brainer to me and gives every business the opportunity to actually define business goals, eliminate guesswork and impact directly on increasing conversion rates. Campaigns and strategies can be tweaked to optimise opportunities. Why would you waste money doing anything else? The economy might favour creativity but guesswork is too costly when companies need to increase sales however they can.
Combining SEO Services With Conversion Rate Optimisation
Your SEO efforts should be making sure you get the best, highly targeted traffic to your website. Combine that with Conversion Rate Optimisation and you are on course to making your website successful.
Think of it this way, wouldn’t you like to know why people visit but don’t convert? Wouldn’t you like to make appropriate changes and then enjoy increased sales? It also takes away the, ‘it worked for them so it must work for me’ syndrome. One size definitely does not fit all and I am afraid there is no “Magic Button” for internet marketing despite what all the so called Guru’s tell you. An effective SEO campaign coupled with CRO and some seriously hard work is how the successful guys do it!
Vivienne
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