Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is the process of making your website more effective at generating leads. This is done by improving the content, testing different versions of the site, and streamlining the process. CRO leads to more high-quality leads, more sales, and lower costs.

The other half is re-engaging those leads in the future. Nowadays, the primary objective for most marketing teams is to channel traffic towards their websites with the expectation that this will result in potential customers becoming leads for sales representatives to then close. This is only half the story, the other half being engaging those customers again in the future.

Increasing the amount of traffic and leads that are converted into customers can help companies grow in a sustainable way. This is where conversion rate optimization (CRO) becomes important.

Conversion Rate Optimization Strategies

1. Create Text-Based CTAs Within Blog Posts

While it’s considered a best practice to include CTAs (calls to action) in a blog post, they sometimes fail to entice visitors to take your desired course of action. Why does this happen?

Banner blindness is something that happens when people get used to ignoring information that is presented in a banner-like way on websites. This lack of attention, combined with the fact that people don’t always read all the way to the bottom of a blog post, means that a different approach is needed.

Across the board, we saw that the text-based CTAs outperformed the regular CTAs, whether they were styled as an H3 or an H4. If you’re looking to increase the conversion rate of the traffic on your website into leads, consider using a text-based CTA rather than a regular CTA located at the bottom of the page.

In a test conducted by HubSpot of 10 blog posts, it was found that regular end-of-post banner CTAs only contributed to an average of 6% of leads generated by the blog posts. However, up to 93% of a post’s leads came from the anchor-text CTA alone.

You can increase traffic to your website by using well-targeted call-to-action options. The headline is an important element on every platform your visitors see. CTAs are always key conversion elements to get your consumers or visitors to perform a certain action.

You need to use colors, font, and call to action text that is most attractive and effective. Sometimes you need an expert with more experience to get this done, but you will likely be grateful for the results. Make sure that your CTAs are visible without scrolling. Visitors sometimes just don’t read through all the text and miss the important part.

Be careful with the design and security of your “Sign Up” sheets to get customers to sign them.

2. Add Lead Flows On Your Blog

A lead flow is a pop-up that is designed to be high-converting and to attract attention. It offers value to the user.

Slide-in boxes, drop-down banners, and pop-up boxes are all options you can use to increase the rate people click through on your offers. A study done by HubSpot in 2016 showed that a slide-in box increased clickthrough rates by 192% and submissions by 27% when compared to a regular CTA at the bottom of a blog post.

3. Run Tests On Your Landing Pages

Landing pages are an important part of the modern marketer’s toolkit and play an integral role in conversion rate optimization. In other words, landing pages can be thought of as digital storefronts for businesses.

A landing page is a web page where a visitor can become a lead or an existing lead can learn more about your brand. You can optimize a landing page by running A/B tests to find the best design and content features for your audience.

You can use A/B testing to figure out which versions of your website copy, content offers, images, form questions, and web pages are most effective with your target audience and leads.

A/B testing enabled China Expat Health to improve their lead conversion rate by nearly eighty percent. One of the most influential changes was replacing the headline “Health Insurance in China” with “Save Up to 32% on Your Health Insurance in China”. This let visitors know right away what kind of value they could expect. This value proposition was then backed up by customer testimonials.

4. Help Leads To Immediately Become A Marketing-Qualified Lead

Conversion Rate Optimization: 12 Best Practices To Boost Sales

Sometimes visitors want to speak with a sales rep rather than being nurtured.

There are actions you can take to increase the likelihood of high-intent visitors completing actions that will turn them into marketing qualified leads. This can be done by designing web pages that are easy to use, have copy that is compelling and clear, and have effective call-to-actions.

This has resulted in more people signing up for product demos, which in turn resulted in more people converting into paying customers. At HubSpot, staff found that people who sign up for product demos convert at higher rates than people who sign up for free product trials. So they optimized their website and conversion paths for people booking demos or meetings with a sales representative. This resulted in more people signing up for product demos, which led to more people converting into paying customers.

The best way to increase sales is to find out what generates the most customers and then optimize for that process. It’s helpful to look for ways to make the sales process smoother and remove any obstacles that might discourage potential customers.

5. Build Workflows To Enable Your Team

Automated workflows created with marketing automation software can help your team be more effective.

This means that, with marketing automation, you can send automatic emails with workflows to leads. Then, they can book meetings with reps in one click. Reps will receive notifications when leads take high-intent actions, such as viewing the pricing page on your website.

If you work in eCommerce, you can send an email to people who abandon their shopping cart as a reminder. According to research from Moosend, abandoned cart emails have a high open rate of 45%. Of the emails that are opened, 21% are clicked, and half of the people who clicked make a purchase.

6. Add Messages To High-Converting Web Pages

Using live chat software, you can chat with your website visitors in real-time. You can also offer support and guidance as needed. By adding these messaging features to your high-performing web pages, you can increase conversions. For example, you can add these features to your pricing and product pages. This way, leads will get the information they want in real-time.

If someone has been on your page for more than a minute, you may want to automatically offer help and answer any questions they have. You can do this easily with a live chat tool like HubSpot.

7. Optimize High-Performing Blog Posts

Publishing blog articles is a great way to get more conversions. This is especially true if you already have existing blog content on your site. At HubSpot, most of their monthly blog views and leads come from posts that were published more than a month ago.

To improve your blog’s performance, find the posts that get a lot of web traffic but have low conversion rates. The problem may be due to poor SEO, the content, or the call to action.

HubSpot saw a 240% increase in conversions for a blog post about press releases when they added an inbound press release template offer.

Additionally, take a look at your blog posts with high conversion rates. You can increase the number of qualified website visitors to those posts by optimizing the content for the search engine results page (SERP) or updating the content as needed.

8. Leverage Retargeting To Re-Engage Website Visitors

Most people who visit your website will not take the action you want them to. You can use retargeting on Facebook and other platforms to try to engage people who have left your website.

Retargeting works by showing ads to people who have already visited your website as they visit other websites. This is most effective when you show ads to people who visited your most successful pages.

The same inbound rules that apply to other marketing still apply to retargeting – you need good copy, engaging visuals, and a compelling offer.

9. Set Vivid Conversion Goals

It is important to set goals for conversion rates.

It is a good idea to have a conversion roadmap for your upcoming campaign. You should also make sure you understand your technical requirements. If you don’t have the required tech for your goals, you will have a harder time achieving them.

What are your business aspirations? This could include increasing your annual profit, expanding your customer base, or establishing a reliable but gradual stream of income.

10. Analyze Your Conversion Rate

Conversion Rate Optimization: 12 Best Practices To Boost Sales

It is crucial to stay on top of your customer flow. It’s to be expected that you’ll lose some visitors during the checkout process, but you don’t have to lose them all. By monitoring your conversion rate, you can see where visitors are dropping off throughout their journey.

You need a conversion funnel to measure your conversion rate. A conversion funnel can tell you where you start losing significant traffic.

To find the source of a problem, you can use click heatmaps, scroll heatmaps, segment heatmaps, or session replays.

You should check the customer trends on a regular basis to see how well your conversion rate is going. Always keep in mind what your target audience wants and needs. If you have a website that is up to date and meets their needs, you are more likely to succeed.

11. Make A Slick Homepage And Landing Pages

The most important thing for your visitors to see (after your ad) is your landing page. You should make this a top priority, and approach it from your customers’ perspective. If you’re happy with your landing page from that point of view, you’re on the right track.

Keep your website simple and appealing, rather than providing too much data.

The volume of pictures, videos, and text content should be balanced.

Around 90% of individuals use numerous devices for web-based actions, while 40% state they use their cell phones to lead research before making a buy. Right now, 44.7% of eCommerce traffic originates from mobile devices.

If you want to stay competitive, you need to optimize your website for mobile devices. Excellent performance will make your brand more recognizable to customers.

12. Optimize The Checkout Process

We understand that you have experienced this before. You look for a product, find the one that is the best fit, add it to your cart, and then get to the checkout only to close the page. All of that effort and it’s for nothing. In most cases, it’s because of a complicated checkout process. We imagine you don’t want the same thing to happen to your customers.

Guest registration

This will allow more customers to proceed to payment.

Pros of registering

Try to make them feel that choosing your option is a good choice and let them know that they can make the choice without any pressure.

Highlight the “Add to Cart” button

This option (or even a cart logo) can stay with the customer when they scroll down the page. It is easier to check your cart without having to go back to the top of the page.

Have a “To the Top” button

It is simply more comfortable for your customers.

Show similar products

This field will help your customer make a decision if they are unsure about what they want to buy.

Begin Using CRO

There are many different ways to improve your website’s conversion rate but, ultimately, you need to find out what your customers respond to, and what works best for your business.

Keep these three follow-up actions in mind when getting started with CRO today:

  1. Use the formulas to start a conversation about CRO.
  2. Try out different CRO strategies to see what works best for your business.
  3. Use the PIE (Potential, Importance, Ease) framework to help you figure out what your priorities should be when it comes to your strategy.

 

About the Author Brian Richards

See Brian's Amazon Author Central profile at https://amazon.com/author/brianrichards

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