Conversion rate optimization is the process of optimizing your sponsored search ads, landing pages, and overall website design to raise your conversion rate. Basically, the goal is for the highest possible percentage of visitors to your site to convert.
However, conversion rate optimization requires time, resources, and occasionally testing. Nonetheless, it’s definitely worth it to familiarize yourself with the basics of conversion optimization.
Here are some strategies you can implement in order to maximize the chances that a visitor who arrives at your site will become a customer.
Intelligent Targeting
One of the best strategies when it comes to increasing your conversion optimization is intelligent targeting. Great content is important, but you need to figure out who your target audience is first.
Having a focused and targeted approach to improve your conversions is extremely important in helping your business grow. Sure, you can invest in more marketing dollars to drive more traffic and sales. However, it is much more efficient to accomplish that growth by targeting your ideal customers.
Engage and Connect
One of the best ways to engage and connect with potential customers is through social media. After all, consumers today rely on their social networks to find advice, referrals, and reviews.
Albacross is a great service to help you engage and connect with your potential customers. They allow you to track and target your ideal companies by using lead generation and account based marketing.
Video Engaging Content
Having engaging and rich video content can go a long way in improving your website conversions. This includes videos, video blogs and video demos.
In fact, videos can have a direct and measurable impact on your conversion rates. In testing for a Fashion Startup website, there was more than a 20% increase in conversion by including videos.
Videos increase engagement, personalization, and allow for much more detailed descriptions. Publishing videos on your YouTube and blog page will help your site be found on search engines.
Focus On Client Keywords
There is no reason to offer the same experience to all customers. The content on your landing page should take into account the incoming search keywords, so that it can make an immediate connection with your customer.
You can build personas of your customers based upon the top search keywords on Google, and then build sections on the website where you can insert dynamic content that speaks to your customers based upon their likely persona.
Try using a service like MixBloom to search for relevant keywords your clients are searching for on social media. Gaining insights about what your clients are interested in and what they’re engaging in will help improve conversion rates on your website.
As the customer browses your website, you can have target keywords they might have been searching for or shown interest in on social media. This does require quite a bit of planning, and some level of searching for those keywords.
However if you use a tool like MixBloom for your Social Media Automation you’ll gain a lot of insight about your clients. You will be amazed to see the level of impact this type of personalized approach could have on improving conversions.
Live Chat
Several customers want to talk to you instantly. Having a chat platform that allows you to connect with them goes a long way in closing the sale. This may sound too obvious but we saw an immediate lift in conversions by investing in chat platform that allowed us to “assist” the customers in finding the services and completing the sale.
Use live chat to find common customer questions, they expect an immediate response so if you can write down your FAQs you’ll see an increase in conversations and conversions.
High Quality Content
You want your customers to fall in love with the products based on how you describe them. The description should to be rich, informative, and should offer insights that might not be offered by other retailers.
Having an engaging and rich content can go a long way in improving your website conversions. If you do not have the resources or ability to write this type of content, you can also consider crowdsourcing it.
Try using a service link Actioned to help improve your team productivity. When creating high quality content you’ll want to prioritize your content productivity. This will help your team have a clear understanding of your content strategy.
Extra Actionable Tips
- Sort your category pages by Best Sellers: We have done significant A/B testing and found that when we automatically sort our product listing pages by Best Selling products first, it leads to substantial lift in conversion. However, it is also important to incorporate a “Freshness” aspect in your sorting results. This way, your newly added products will have an opportunity to compete for the top spot in your listing pages.
- A/B Test every call to action: We noticed small changes to call to action buttons had a direct impact on conversions. For example, instead of saying “Limited Time Sale”, a phrase such as “Sale Ends in 48 hours” works much better because it is more definitive. We even found that changing “Save 10%” to “Get EXTRA 10% off” resulted in better click-through rate and conversion.
- Create a Sense of Scarcity: When an item reaches low stock, add a phrase such as “Only 2 more left” on the product page to create a sense of urgency. We noticed that adding such messaging had a direct impact in improving the conversion for those products.
- Exclusive coupons work better than generic coupons: Customers feel special when they think they are getting something exclusive that others are not. So if you plan to offer a discount, offer it in a fashion that makes the customers feel special. A site-wide coupon code of “SAVE10” sent to all customers may not be as effective as sending several individually generated coupon codes to a group of customers.
- Add Product Categories that make sense to customers: Most platforms allow you to add categories such as color, size etc. These categories can then be used by customers on search results page, or category pages to narrow the search results. You should invest time in adding attributes to your products based upon how customers shop.
- Optimize your search results: You should be reviewing your site search keywords on a daily basis. What are the top 100 keywords that customers search for after they come to your website? Then everyday, spend 30 minutes to search for some of those keywords on your website, just like a customer would. Do the search results make sense? Are the top 10 products highly relevant to these keywords?
For generic search terms, you should consider adding a rule to redirect the customer to category listing page for that category, so that you can make sure that the customers see your full assortment under that category.
The Conversion Optimization Takeaway
Sure, you can invest in more marketing dollars to drive more traffic and sales. However, it is much more fulfilling (and efficient) to accomplish that growth by increasing your website conversions. Use your content to bring up to visitors the amount of cash they are losing, time they are squandering or anxiety they are encountering, and afterward offer them an answer.
