Three Key Examples Of Conversion Rate Optimisation

Conversion rate optimisation (CRO) is the science and art behind converting a bigger percentage of your existing website traffic into sales or leads. The industry conversion average currently stands at a meagre 2 – 3%, meaning there are still huge gains to be made in terms of improving the number of site visitors who actually make a purchase. CRO isn't just about sales either as the same logic can be applied when converting traffic into potential leads or encouraging visitors to sign up to your monthly e-newsletter. So what are three key examples of CRO that can make a real difference to your site?

1. Calls to Action

Calls to action are some of the most simple, yet effective methods of CRO. Doing exactly what they say on the tin, calls to action inspire and encourage the visitor to make that all important purchase or enter their details. Calls to action can also be time sensitive to add a sense of urgency. For example, 'Buy now, only 2 items left in stock!', encourages the visitor to make their purchase sooner rather than later to avoid disappointment.

2. Remove Unnecessary Content

The key to CRO is to make the journey into and through the conversion funnel as smooth and seamless as possible. Websites that exhibit a poor conversion rate are likely to offer poor accessibility into the conversion funnel e.g it might be unclear how to make a purchase, product pages might be displaying regular 404 errors or the customer may be unsure how to navigate around the site. Assessing what is necessary to the customer making a purchase and what isn't is a good place to start when attempting to make your pages more minimal and streamlined whilst subsequently reducing bounce rate.

3. Build Visitor Trust

When it comes to e-commerce in particular, the conversion rate of a website can be severely restricted if a customer perceives the site to be untrustworthy or unsafe. Integrating a VeriSign payment system or offering the use of PayPal will go some way to dissuade customer security concerns. Furthermore, for companies that do not have products to buy online but perhaps want to improve the number of leads and enquiries being made to their company, adding in client testimonials and case studies will go some way to engage trust and interest in the service on offer. Either way, conversion rate optimisation can be applied to e-commerce and non e-commerce sites in equal measure.