Whether you’re B2B or B2C, online marketing can be challenging. And when you launch a marketing effort and see your traffic spike, it can be pretty exciting. But what if you’re pulling in the people, and not building your business?
If you’re seeing great homepage traffic and still not getting the conversions you expect, you can fix it. Start by knowing what a good conversion rate looks like to make sure your goals are reasonable.
Next, we’ll talk about 9 solid conversion rate optimization (CRO) strategies.
What is Conversion Rate?
Conversions are any action you want your website visitor to take. Typical types of conversions include:
- Visit your website
- Sign up for a newsletter or a webinar
- Download content
- Click through to read more on a topic
- Create an account
- Contact you
- Become a customer
Conversion rate is the percent of people who take the desired action when compared to the total number of email recipients or website visitors to your website.
The ultimate goal, of course, is to earn, engage, and retain customers.
Website conversion rates vary by industry. Your conversion rate will be influenced by your industry, product or service, how well you target your audience, and
Median conversion rates are around 2.35%. In other words, 45 visitors landing on your site, only 1 converts.
Do you have to settle for average? Nope. The top 25% are converting at 5.31% or higher, and the top 10% have conversion rates of 11.45% or higher. – Wordstream
Top conversion rates vary considerably by industry:
Variations also exist within industries. In retail, for example, gifts and health & pharmacy are at the high end of the scale, averaging 4.9% and 4.6% respectively, while consumer electronics is at the bottom, averaging just 1.4% – Smart Insights
Average conversion rates for business services is 10%; but the top conversion rate is – hold on to your hat – 65% – MarketingSherpa
If your website conversion rate is 65%, your targeting and messaging is spot on, your marketing campaigns are successful, and your conversion optimization game is strong. But if you’re closer to the bottom rate for business services, 1%, that’s a big range to work with. Wherever you are on the scale, you likely have plenty of room to improve.
With these numbers in mind, you can measure your current conversion rate and set realistic goals for improving your digital marketing performance.
How to Calculate Conversion Rates
Figuring conversion rate is simple. Divide the number of page visitors by the number of people who take the desired action. If 10,000 people follow an ad to your landing page, and 200 of them download the gated content you advertised, that’s a 2% conversion rate.
You can measure any number of metrics for a single campaign, including click through rates (CTR), email open rates, engagement rates, bounce rates, and conversion rates.
9 Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) Strategies
1. Personalize videos
Identify your 100 dream clients on LinkedIn and personalize videos for them. Much like landing pages, personalized content can be added to videos to intrigue and entice customers. Vidyard and Wideo make personalized videos easy.
2. Personalized landing pages
Reward returning visitors with a truly personalized user experience. Personalization can go far deeper than greeting users by name. With the right program, you can increase conversion rates by customizing every page.
With Experiences, each page element is customizable and personal. And you don’t have to write a single line of code.
Use the knowledge and insight you glean from user data to create a unique journey for each customer. Think Amazon or Netflix. When you browse those sites, you see content tailored to your taste, based on what you have purchased or viewed before, and on what others with the same buying habits have done next.
Want to see real examples of personalization that increase conversions?
- Personalize visitors relevant CTAs on your blog based on the post’s topic. (Profitwell increases blog leads by 162%)
- Personalize the visitor’s company name and logo on your homepage. (KlientBoost achieve 11% increase in proposals)
- Personalize your landing page and demo to the visitor’s industry. (Proof increased demo registrations by 54%)
What if you had that kind of power in your hands? If you could say, based on other users with similar behaviors, we think you’ll want to do this next?
Imagine being able to adapt your content for every visitor to show them the content that’s mostly likely going to convert them into a customer? That’s the power of Experiences.
3. Compelling Copy
The words you put out there matter. Beyond SEO value to raise your search engine ranking and lure visitors to your site, your copy needs to be rich, informational, interesting, and inspiring.
Yes, inspiring. Your copy should inspire visitors to take a desired action. It should lead them in the direction you want them to go. It should communicate your unique value proposition, build trust, and establish your brand authority.
That seems like a lot to ask from words on a page, but the most successful websites are jam-packed with compelling copy.
4. Increase Page Speed
Fast loading pages are a must. See how your site measures up with Google Pagespeed Insights
53% of mobile users leave a site that takes longer than three seconds to load. And the average mobile site takes 15 seconds to load. – Think With Google
Visitors who bounce due to slow loading pages don’t convert.
5. Create FOMO
Fear of missing out (FOMO) is a powerful psychological incentive. You can create FOMO in several ways. Limited time offers are one way. Social proof is another. Create social proof with:
- An on-page customer counter – show how many others have bought your product or service. Use customer counters on landing pages and product pages.
- Ask customers for testimonials. People are 270% more likely to purchase a product with 5 reviews than a product with no reviews. – Spiegel
- Case studies detail how your product impacted your customers. Here’s one of our case studies:
How BuildFire optimized their SaaS signup flow conversion rate.
6. Add Video
Video makes great content, and it’s highly effective. Here are the 6 types of video content that can boost your website conversion rates.
Want a great example? Watch #ScaleOrDie with Ed Fry, SaaS growth consultant, on the future of data to personalize experiences.
7. Chat Box
Adding a chat box to your site helps first time visitors and established customers alike find what they’re looking for, get answers, and make comments…immediately and in real time. The average response time to handle a customer service request is 12 hours and 10 minutes – SuperofficeYikes! Do better and you’ll beat your competitors. Real customer service should not be a lost art.
8. Prefill forms
This one is simple. Everybody hates to fill out forms, so do it for them. You have plenty of data you can tap, you just need a software to fill in the fields. The easier you can make it for potential customers to take the desired action, the more prospective customers will become actual customers.
9. Guided customer journey (personalized CTAs)
How many CTAs do you see every day, and how many are…the same? Click here. Buy now. Learn more. Ho-hum. Use customer data to invite your visitors to do something they really want to do. Make your CTAs personal by generating them on the fly based on their own preferences and behaviors.
When ProfitWell invites you to Get Your Free Book, it’s not random. It’s the content you came to find; the content you want and need – right now. And you have not already downloaded it.
Conclusion
These nine actionable steps will help you personalize the customer experience, make your website more responsive and easier to use, and ultimately boost your CRO by giving visitors what they want. The bottom line is that every element of your site and your marketing makes a difference. Achieving maximum CRO requires planning, A/B testing, and ongoing attention.
That’s why we make it so easy for you. It’s a lot of work. Higher conversions is your goal. We provide the tools to make it happen. Get started with 14 days of Pulse for free – right now.
