If one of your landing pages, or your website in general, is getting a lot of traction lately, but the traffic isn’t converting into leads or sales, there’s no reason to panic. But it could be a sign that you need to be taking conversion rate optimization seriously and start looking for solutions. Unless you address your conversion issues, all that good traffic will be going down the drain and your efforts will be in vain. And if you really want to turn your conversion rates around, you’ll have to consider doing more than some simple A/B testing or trying different button colors. Here are a few essential CRO tips that will help you maximize your traffic.
Take a Look at the Competition
If you notice that one of your competitors is doing particularly well, it would be wise to look at what they’re doing and see if you could implement some changes on your website accordingly.
If a long-standing competitor is outperforming you, it probably means that they’ve performed a CRO analysis themselves. And when you look at their websites, you are actually seeing the result of their hard work in action.
Every time you go to a successful competitor’s website and see something different, we suggest that you take a screenshot. You should also visit them regularly to see if they are making any changes to their website. Looking at their progression could give some insight on what they’re doing to improve their site’s conversions, which can give you ideas as well.
Give Multiple Step Forms a Try
While adding more steps to forms might seem counterintuitive at first, there’s a clear rationale behind it. By adding multiple steps to your form, you are making each form much simpler, which will make the whole process easier for your clients. And they might be more compelled to complete the form process if it is broken down into smaller, simpler steps.
Groupon is a perfect example. Instead of asking people to complete a long complex form, they break the process down into three easy steps. First, they ask for your email address. On the next step, you will be asked to add your Zip code. They will then ask you for the specific types of deals that you prefer from a selection. Users often prefer this approach, since only seeing one simple step at a time may seem like less work for them. Once they have started the process, they are more likely to continue instead of leaving halfway.
However, you should remember that this strategy will not necessarily work for you, so it’s important that you test different forms and see what converts the best.
Harness the Power of Pricing Tables
If you’re wondering why so many websites are using pricing tables nowadays, the reason is simple: they work. Attractive pricing tables always grab readers’ attention and you don’t have to be a tech genius to add one to your website. If you’re running your site on WordPress, there are tons of plugins that will allow you to install one on your website in seconds. You’ll be able to quickly create a pricing table that sells and will be directly connected to your shopping cart for fast conversions.
Use Heat Maps
Using heat maps to see what page elements your clients are looking at or where their mouse is hovering can be a very valuable tool if you’re trying to optimize your conversions. Looking at heat maps could give you insights on some of the elements you added for conversion and see if they’re actually catching your visitors’ attention. You may notice that a new button you added is being ignored or that people are blind to that generic stock photo you put on your landing page. You’ll then be able to make instant changes and see what works.
Use Urgency to Generate Sales
Making your customer feel like they might be missing out on a deal if they don’t act now is also a great way to increase your conversions. One example of a company that does that especially well is Amazon. During the buying process, Amazon will often specify that you’ll be getting free shipping on a particular item if you buy it within 25 minutes. This is the kind of incentive that will allow you to reduce shopping cart abandonment rates and push your customers to act.
Try to Build More Trust
Privacy online is becoming an increasing concern, and making sure that you gain your visitors’ trust is very important in this day and age. Establishing trust can be done in a variety of ways. Using security seals is one of them, with Norton’s and Verisign’s being the most respected and recognizable.
Another thing you could do is reassure visitors that their email address will not be used for spam when they sign up. As a matter of fact, it was estimated that not including a no spam policy message could result in a 18.7% drop in email signups.
Improve Your On-Page Content
You have to make sure that your on-page content is as personalized as possible if you want your customers to keep coming back. This means that calls to action, landing pages, and overall experience has to be geared towards your users and their specific needs. This will allow you to retain them better and engage them no matter what stage of the customer lifecycle they’re at right. So, may sure that you use methods like behavior-based personalization to make sure that every single piece of content is actually relevant to your audience.
Improving your conversion rates should be an ongoing effort, and unless you get serious and do what it takes to see where you’re going wrong and make adjustments immediately, all your other marketing methods will be futile. So, make sure that you follow our suggestions, and dedicate yourself to constantly improving your website if you don’t want to get overshadowed by your competition.
