Conversion Rate Optimization Strategies To Implement In 2024

Table of Contents

• What Is Conversion Rate Optimization?
• Why Is Conversion Rate Optimization Important?
• How to Calculate Conversion Rate?
• 1. Homepage
• 2. Pricing Page
• 3. Blog
• 4. Landing Pages
• Conversion Rate Optimization Strategies 
• 1. Create text-based CTAs within blog posts
• 2. Add lead flows to your blog
• 3. Run tests on your landing page
• 4. Help leads become MQLs
• 5. Build workflows to enable your team
• 6. Add messages to high-converting web pages
• 7. Optimize high-performing blog posts
• 8. Leverage retargeting to re-engage website visitors
• Tips: How to Improve Conversion Rate Optimization
• Create compelling CTAs and place them at optimal points
• Enhance user journey by placing visual content on landing pages
• Ensure coherence between your ads and landing pages
• Top Conversion Rate Optimization Tools You Should Start Using
• Web Analytics Tools
• User Behavior Analytics Tools
• CRO Testing Tools
• Closing thoughts

If you want your business to grow in 2023, you need to have a functioning eCommerce site. However, that does not always guarantee a consistent flow of paying customers. You need the right digital marketing strategy that would not only make your product pages visible to the target audience but also increase conversions.

Conversion is the process of turning potential customers into paying ones. You can find a site’s conversion rate on its Google Analytics account. A higher conversion rate often translates into a higher number of sales. So, if you want your website to do well, you need to know about conversion rate optimization techniques. But first, let’s understand the basics.

What Is Conversion Rate Optimization?

Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is a set of practices that allows a website owner to increase the percentage of visitors who perform a desired action on the website. The desired action is defined by the objectives of the business and typically involves filling out a web form, clicking on an ad, subscribing to a newsletter, buying a product, or opening an email.

To optimize your website’s conversion rate, you need to perform content enhancements, workflow improvements, and split testing. If you can successfully optimize your website’s conversion rate, you may witness increased revenue, highly qualified leads, and lower acquisition costs.

Why Is Conversion Rate Optimization Important?

Conversion rates are one of the major Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that help you have a clear and accurate assessment of a particular marketing campaign. Conversion rate optimization is only possible through reaching the right audience. Once they start noticing your ads, they are more likely to spend money on your products or services. This ultimately leads to a higher return on investment (ROI).

Moreover, conversion rate optimization (CRO) allows you to reduce your customer acquisition costs by taking advantage of the visitors and users your website already has. With successful conversion rate optimization strategies, you can increase revenue per visitor, convert more leads into customers, and grow your business.

How to Calculate Conversion Rate?

Calculating the conversion rate of a campaign is fairly easy. You only need to perform the following steps:

• Count the total number of conversions
• Divide that number by the overall number of website visitors
• Multiply the result by 100

That is how you get the conversion rate percentage. However, you need to evaluate the conversion rate in relation to your business objectives to ensure that the marketing campaign meets your desired goals.

If you want your website conversion rate to be high, you need to make sure that your website is properly optimized for search engines. Also, the average conversion rate of a website depends on the effectiveness of its certain pages.

1. Homepage

The website navigation plays a pivotal role in determining conversion rates. Since most visitors arrive at the homepage first, the clear and intuitive navigation of the homepage that is optimized for user experience keeps the visitors engaged and increases their chances of taking the desired action.

Put emphasis on links that lead to product details, offer a free signup button, or introduce a chatbot on the homepage that helps answer simple questions that most visitors have after arriving at your homepage. Your objective is to retain the visitors to the website and guide them further into it.

2. Pricing Page

The pricing page of the website is one of the crucial elements of the conversion funnel. As you may realize, customers typically visit the pricing page when they have decided to make a purchase. If your pricing page is properly optimized, it is more likely to have a higher chance of converting customers.

Allow the visitors to modify pricing intervals (monthly, half-yearly, annual), describe the additional features associated with each price, or ask them to get a personalized quote by calling a toll-free number. These practices can help boost the number of conversions for your website.

3. Blog

Blogs are one of the most effective components of a digital marketing strategy. Apart from helping you build authority with thoughtful and informative content about your industry, a blog can help you with conversion rate optimization as well.

Proper placement of the call-to-action buttons within the blogs can help improve the conversion rate significantly. It is important to ensure that the CTA stands out from the rest of the blog content so that the readers can identify it as a clickable link. You can ask the readers to submit their email addresses in exchange for an industry report or a relevant e-book.

4. Landing Pages

While homepages and blogs can be a little ambiguous for visitors, landing pages are generally more straightforward. These pages make it very clear what would happen once the visitor performs a certain action on the page. Since they are usually designed for visitors to take action, quite naturally, such pages have the highest average conversion rate (23%).

With a well-structured landing page, you can improve your chances of conversion by refining visitor interaction. Also, there are plenty of ways to make a landing page more effective. While some use video marketing tactics to make the landing pages more actionable, some prefer to optimize it with preview content of a resource that has a better chance of encouraging visitors to perform the desired action.

Anything between 2% to 5% is considered a good conversion rate for a website. According to industry leaders, the average conversion rate of eCommerce websites is around 2.5% to 3%.

Conversion Rate Optimization Strategies 

If the conversion rate of your website is lower than the industry average or underperforming in relation to your conversion goals, you need to think of ways to boost conversions. Now that you have a basic understanding of conversion rate optimization, it will be easier for you to acknowledge the conversion rate optimization techniques that work.

1. Create text-based CTAs within blog posts

As mentioned before, call-to-action (CTA) buttons are one of the major components of a website that help increase conversions. It can be anything actionable, from a “download e-book” button to “share this post on social media.” When they are clearly written and easily accessible, they help improve the conversion rate of your website.

When it comes to writing blog posts, you should consider using text-based CTAs within the content. Blog posts typically have 3 CTAs – one at the bottom of the page, one in the introduction of the blog, and one as a pop-up when the visitor scrolls down the page.

To make the blog post CTAs more effective, you need to make sure that the CTAs can be identified within the content. Since you need to use text-based CTAs, do not forget to hyperlink them and make them fit the context while asking the visitor to take action.

2. Add lead flows to your blog

Lead flow, if you don’t know, refers to the steady flow of leads coming to a website. This is generally associated with a lead conversion path to turn website visitors into leads. You can boost your conversion rate by adding such lead flow to your blog.

Once you have a clear idea of your target audience and understand the behavior of the users, you need to map out the sales funnel. This should include the different stages of the customer journey. As soon as the leads start to flow, you need to implement campaigns to nurture those leads.

Ultimately, you need to route the leads to appropriate sales channels using relevant blog posts. Create different blogs that serve the various stages of a customer journey. Also, try to link the blogs with one another so that the readers are directed to the next blog that serves the next stage of the buyer’s journey.

3. Run tests on your landing page

Landing pages have the highest conversion rate among all the web pages on a site. However, if your landing pages take a significant amount of time to load, they may not be able to convert leads into loyal customers. So, you must test the loading speed of your landing pages and optimize them if the loading time is more than usual.

Moreover, you need to perform A/B testing on your landing pages to understand what is working and what is not. Check which type of headlines, layout, and CTAs are converting more leads, and replicate the formula for other landing pages, too. You may need to try a new type of CTA or change the format entirely if the tests suggest you do so.

You should also check the content offers. Ensure that those offers properly align with your target audience and whether they make sense for the page or not. Instead of putting generic offers, try adding tangible and compelling offers that seem relevant to the page they are on. That would help conversion optimization.

4. Help leads become MQLs

Not every lead that comes to your website meets the basic qualifications of a customer. You must have clear criteria for a marketing-qualified lead (MQL) who indicates interest in your brand’s offerings based on marketing efforts. If you can help your leads become MQLs, it will certainly boost the conversion rate of your website.

Usually, a lead becomes an MQL once they are vetted by the marketing team. Since the marketing team has several touchpoints with leads, they can identify the highest-quality leads, which are termed MQLs. Next, you need to understand what stage of the buyer’s journey they are in. This data will help your marketing team use a tailored approach to guide the leads down the proper conversion funnel.

To ensure that you get more MQLs, you need to create personalized content for each stage of the marketing and sales funnel. However, you should not filter all new leads straight to the top of your funnel. Clearly define stages and assign content guidelines and metrics to make out when a lead becomes an MQL. You also need to consistently provide added value through your content. Also, creating multiple omnichannel touchpoints improves your chances of turning leads into MQLs.

5. Build workflows to enable your team

Creating workflows for the processes and major requirements allows your team to automate your email campaigns, score leads, nurture them, move leads to the sales funnel, and more. If done correctly, this practice can also help increase conversions for your website. Start by ensuring that all the existing workflows are consistent and align with your company goals. If you are building a workflow, create a roadmap first.

You also need to build your workflows based on contact segmentation. The contacts need to enter workflows contextually. You have the option to set up your workflow criteria in various ways, but that typically depends on how they have engaged with your brand. It can be through CTA clicks, form submissions, email engagement, event registration, or others.

For optimum results, you need to set smart goals for your workflows once you have mapped them. Start by understanding what action you want the leads to take when they enroll in your workflow. Next, you need to test your workflows, review their performance, and conduct A/B testing to optimize the results. You also need to perform workflow audits to identify the ones that are not helping your conversion strategy.

6. Add messages to high-converting web pages

When you have several high-converting web pages on your site, you may want to look for ways to optimize their performance. And the right use of messages can help you do that. Ensure that all your high-converting landing pages follow consistent messages. This will send a clear message to your audience. You may add visual elements like images, videos, and infographics to your landing pages for better appeal, but for some websites, minimalist designs work the best.

You may also want to add quick solutions to your visitors so that they can take action promptly. Since you have already identified the pain points and problems faced by your target audience, it will be easier for you to talk about the solutions. Make sure to add a detailed description of what you are offering and highlight the major features of your products or services that separate them from their competitors.

Also, it will help your conversion rate optimization strategy if you hire an experienced copywriter for the copy of your high-converting web pages. Such professionals can help you create well-written content that aligns with your page’s intention perfectly. The message on your high-converting landing pages should be able to evoke emotions and deliver exactly what the visitors want. This will help you lead your visitors to the path of conversion.

7. Optimize high-performing blog posts

Even though blog posts are considered one of the essential marketing tools for businesses, keeping the audience interested in the blogs and then converting them can be a lot harder than you think. Once you have a clear idea about who your target audience is, you need to see whether your blogs match the user intent or not. Also, check if the blog posts offer the readers enough value.

To further optimize the high-performing blog posts, you should consider linking more relevant content to your blog posts. Encourage them to click on the product links or download content mentioned on the blogs. Also, add internal links to help the visitors find more useful blog posts on your website.

Apart from the product links and downloadable content, you may also offer previews and trial versions of your service or product. It is easier to convert the readers when they can see what they are getting. Also, these elements help establish trust among your visitors. And most importantly, make sure your blogs have catchy headlines, short and simple paragraphs, insightful data, and engaging design elements.

8. Leverage retargeting to re-engage website visitors

While optimizing every blog post of yours can help your CRO strategy, you also need to ensure that your regular visitors are converted into customers. It is comparatively easier to get your regular audience back to the website and convert them rather than attracting new subscribers. This is why you need to focus on remarketing and retargeting as a part of your conversion rate optimization strategy.

Retargeting allows you to bring your audience back to your products, blogs, and landing pages. You may have already experienced the retargeting feature for eCommerce websites. Once you visit such a website, you start getting their ads on every platform, isn’t it? That is because those sites run a retargeting campaign to remarket their offers to the visitors. You should also do the same to boost conversions on your website.

The purpose of retargeting is to help you bring back potential customers who may have otherwise forgotten about your product or service after their initial visit. You can use personalized email campaigns to re-engage visitors. This also helps you reduce customer churn rate. Moreover, displaying targeted ads to individuals who have already shown interest in your products or services can help you create a more engaging advertising experience, leading to increased customer loyalty.

Tips: How to Improve Conversion Rate Optimization

Now that you are aware of the most effective strategies for conversion rate optimization, it is going to be easier for you to prepare a plan of action. However, it is important to understand that the strategies need to align with your marketing goals. If you run an eCommerce business that sells fashion accessories, following the same strategy as a large enterprise that has an established customer base won’t give you results. Instead, you should focus on what your business has to offer and choose a conversion optimization strategy accordingly.

Here are some conversion rate optimization tips that you may find useful.

Create compelling CTAs and place them at optimal points

Call-to-action buttons are the most crucial element on any site because they ultimately lead the customer towards the purchase. So, when it comes to getting more conversions, well-written and well-placed CTAs matter a lot.

Additionally, with mobile optimization gaining more significance with mobile-first indexing, it is essential to remember that CTA design needs to keep mobile at its core, or else you might end up losing your potential customers coming through mobile devices. When you’re optimizing CTA for mobile, it makes sense to keep the CTA in the first visible fold of the page or provide directional cues to take the visitor to the CTA button where he can easily identify it and take the necessary action.

Enhance user journey by placing visual content on landing pages

A video on a landing page can increase conversion by 80%. So, when you are focusing on increasing your conversions, you must pay attention to including visual content.

Since the attention span of the people is not greater than 8 seconds, it is almost impossible to hook them without using visuals.

Ensure coherence between your ads and landing pages

For your landing page to boost your conversion rates and sales, there must be relevance between the ad/other content that brings the user to that page. Without a coherence between these two elements, your landing page won’t help you achieve your goals.

This uniformity should be kept in terms of both the design as well as the content. For the design aspect, make sure to keep a uniform color palette. For the content part, ensure that there is a sequential move from the point of origin to the landing page.

Top Conversion Rate Optimization Tools You Should Start Using

When it comes to conversion optimization, there are plenty of online tools that can help you achieve your goals. The conversion rate optimization (CRO) tools help you gather data regarding your website and the visitors. You can use that data to better understand how people use your website and identify necessary changes that would help you get more conversions. Based on their functions, these CRO tools can be divided into three major categories:

Web Analytics Tools

The web analytics tools give you a clear picture of what is going on with your website. You get numerical and quantitative data about your site and visitors, including key performance indicators (KPIs) like bounce rate, time spent on a page, and session duration.

• Google Analytics:

This is one of the most popular, free-to-use analytics tools that businesses use to get valuable insights about their websites. It automatically collects website data and generates reports in Google Docs and Sheets, focusing on metrics like internal site searches, bounce rates, and others. You also get the option to create personalized reports using your preferred metrics and parameters.

Google Analytics lets you track existing website traffic, its patterns, its sources, and goal conversion rates in real-time. The tool also allows you to keep track of common metrics like which page has the highest bounce rate, session durations, where the visitors exit, and more.

While the free app is good for small businesses, you may want to consider upgrading to Google Analytics 360 if your website registers more than 10 million visits a month.

• Adobe Analytics:

This one also helps you track real-time marketing data across various channels, including websites, apps, kiosks, email marketing, and more. It helps you evaluate user flow, track KPIs, and, most importantly, monitor conversion rates. Also, the visually appealing and comprehensive reports make this tool a popular choice for businesses.

One of the major highlights of this tool is that it allows you to mix, match, and analyze information from any digital point in the buyer’s journey. You get to improve the customer experience of your website by leveraging the in-depth analysis, predictive intelligence, and versatile reporting of the tool.

• Heap:

This one also helps you monitor your conversion optimization efforts, allowing you to improve your strategy for better results. You get a clear idea of your customer’s digital journeys with this tool, enabling you to improve your conversion strategy, retention, and customer delight.

A lot of businesses prefer Heap over Google Analytics because it offers a better analysis of user journeys. You also get to track common metrics like page views, form analytics, and sessions with this tool. It further allows you to automatically capture user interactions in both apps and websites.

User Behavior Analytics Tools

As the name suggests, these tools help you get a better understanding of what the website visitors (users) want. Unless you know what your audience wants, you won’t be able to prepare a conversion optimization strategy for them. These tools collect data regarding how visitors use your website and behave in a certain manner.

• Hotjar:

You can measure and track user behavior and feedback using this tool. This CRO tool helps businesses improve the user experience of their websites while aiding their conversion efforts. This tool comes with features like heat maps and session recordings that allow businesses to identify the pain points of customers when they visit their sites.

It also offers feedback tools like feedback widgets and on-site surveys, which give voice to the customers. You can use these features to learn from the users themselves what they like about the website and what they do not. The funnels feature of this tool lets you identify where in the conversion funnel the user drops off and why.

• FullStory:

Businesses use this tool to measure the digital interactions a user performs across various channels. This allows them to boost the user experience on the websites and improve conversions. You get features like heat maps, bug detection and tracking, and session recordings, which you can use to identify the areas that need work and improve user behavior by making necessary changes.

Unlike other tools that rely on screen grabs or recordings for session replay, FullStory offers high-fidelity recreation of the session users have. It is specifically designed for mobile. You can use this tool to get a clear idea about your user experience while keeping the privacy of the users safe. Even though it has a free plan, businesses prefer the paid plans for the availability of better features.

• Crazy Egg:

This behavior analysis tool also allows businesses to record the complete user session and get a better understanding of how users behave on their websites. You can use this tool to investigate visual data and test changes made to the website. Crazy Egg also offers useful features like heat maps, overlay maps, and confetti.

The data visualization feature of this tool allows you to easily understand which sections of a web page are getting the most attention and which parts are being ignored by the users. You can even run split tests on your pages to see which ones are performing better than the rest. With this tool, you can easily understand how your users are interacting with your website.

CRO Testing Tools

As mentioned before, you need to keep on testing the changes made on your website to understand which version is driving more conversions. Once you know what improvements you want to make, you can take advantage of these CRO testing tools to compare and measure changes.

• Google Optimize:

If you are using Google Analytics as a part of your CRO strategy, you should consider using this tool as well to compare and measure changes on your website. This experiment and testing platform integrates seamlessly with Google Analytics since they both are owned by Google. Businesses use this tool to evaluate the most complex changes on their websites.

This tool is capable of handling the experiments on the server side for the testing of dynamic changes on the website. You can create and set goals and objectives, track performance, specify variants, and do much more using this CRO testing tool. You can perform A/B testing, multivariate testing (MVT), and split testing of different versions of web pages.

• Optimizely:

This digital experience platform lets you develop content and conduct tests and experiments to help improve conversions. Apart from helping you manage your content, this tool allows you to run tests at scale, validate new features, and refine customer interactions. You can also take advantage of the built-in tools of Optimizely to grow your eCommerce business.

This tool is specially designed for high-traffic sites. However, it works perfectly fine on low-traffic sites as well. You can use this tool to perform split and multi-page testing. In other words, you can run a variety of experiments based on cookies, location, and other parameters on the same page in real-time.

• CRO Checker:

You can use this free resource to gain useful insights into how your website is performing. Such data would allow you to understand the potential reason why your conversion rates are low. You can test your site with this tool and detect potential areas that require improvements.

It is easy to use and only requires you to enter your website URL to get all the insights. You can also perform A/B testing with this tool and use popups as a lead magnet and conversion tool. Moreover, you can track and record user videos to see how the visitors engage on your website.

Apart from these three major categories, several other CRO tools can help you improve your conversion rate. Popups and overlays, live chat tools, and conversion funnel analyzer tools are some of those variants that you may find useful.

Closing thoughts

Conversion rates are a direct measurement of your site’s success. To enhance this value, make sure to put down the above points in your 2023 checklist.

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