Conversion is the ultimate goal of any website or landing page.
It’s when a user makes a purchase, calls your organization, or makes an appointment.
And if you’re like most of our customers, you want to increase your conversion rates.
One marketing niche that helps you do just that is called conversion rate optimization.
In this article, I explain conversion rate optimization, why it’s an important part of marketing, and our favorite best practices to consider.
I also share common mistakes to avoid.
What is conversion rate optimization (CRO)?
Conversion rate optimization increases the number of people who take the desired actions on your website (such as buying/selling, registering, submitting forms, calling, scheduling an appointment, etc.).
CRO can refer to optimizing your website, a single landing page, or a digital marketing campaign.
Why is CRO important?
CRO offers several advantages.
1. Maximizes ROI
Optimizing your conversion process maximizes return on ad spend (ROAS), allowing businesses to lower acquisition costs and increase revenue. CRO also creates maximum value from existing website traffic and increases revenue per visitor.
2. Better consumer insights
CRO helps businesses identify the type of messaging that resonates best with high-intent audiences.
3. Better user experience
Understanding which paid ads, content, and messages inspire user action allows marketers to devote more time and resources to those high-performing elements.
4. Strengthened confidence
Creating an efficient and intuitive path to the content your target audience values most builds trust and encourages higher click-through rates.
The recipe for a successful CRO
Since CRO is optimizing a web page or landing page for conversions, the key to a successful campaign comes from knowing
- Where to optimize?
- What to optimize, and
- Who to optimize for?
In other words, best practices for CRO are not a one-size-fits-all approach, just like best practices can be for SEO.
CRO efforts respond to quantitative data analysis that reveals how people behave on your website.
Before you dive into what you need to optimize, you first need to collect the right data, including
- What page do people land on first?
- What features do people engage in the most?
- where did they come from? For example, what did they click on that brought them to your site?
- Who are they?
- Where and when they leave your site or web page.
Along with understanding how people behave on your site, you can also find out why they behave the way they do. You can use various CRO tools to collect on-site surveys, user testing and satisfaction surveys.
Once you’ve collected the data and figured out some of the flaws on the landing page or web page, it’s time to start optimizing those areas for conversions.
10 Best Practices for Conversion Rate Optimization
If you’re just starting out in the digital marketing field of CRO, here are 10 things to consider:
1. Optimize for the right keywords
Increase qualified website traffic by identifying, optimizing and bidding on the right keywords. Tools like SEMRush can help identify popular keyword variations, but examining your website’s keyword traffic data is critical.
2. Write a persuasive example
Show your target audience that you understand (and can fix) their problems. When writing copy, keep the following questions in mind:
a. Does the copy include benefits written for your target audience?
b. Does it reflect and provide solutions to their pain points?
c. Is it convincing with accurate information and confidence factors?
d. Does it have compelling headlines?
e. Is it emotional?
f. Perhaps most important, is the message clear?
3. Add enticing calls to action
Don’t be afraid to be creative. Just make sure you’re asking the visitor to take the desired action (eg Request an appointment, Download the case study, Start your journey, etc.). Here are some more points to remember.
a. Include only one clear call to action per page.
b. Make sure it’s attractive and clickable.
c. Follow the button copy instruction, such as Download Your eBook or (first person) Subscribe to me.
4. Remove obstacles from your sales funnel
Review your paid search and on-site analytics to determine where potential leads are dropping out of the funnel, find out why, and make the necessary changes. You can start by reviewing these common issues:
a. Your content isn’t delivering a personalized experience or resonating with highly targeted users.
b. Your brand’s voice and tone are inconsistent across channels.
c. Your content doesn’t flow well across channels or different stages of the buyer’s journey.
5. Improve the usability of your website
User experience (UX) and CRO go hand in hand. You’ll get more conversions with an aesthetically pleasing, easy-to-use website when there’s also an intuitive conversion path that’s simple, fast, and fun.
6. Consider and optimize site colors
Your website’s color scheme should be attractive, complementary, well-contrasting and consistent across channels. A consistent color palette not only improves brand recognition, but can also help increase conversions. Research your target audience and create personas to identify colors that appeal to them. Note: your CTA button should stand out from everything else on the page.
7. Maximize your site speed
Keep users engaged and increase conversions with a fast loading website. The faster the page loads, the more likely they are to take the desired action. The ideal page load speed is two seconds or less. Bonus: Improving site speed also helps SEO.
8. Optimize navigation by avoiding distractions
Classic landing pages are single, standalone web pages with a unique URL. Landing pages should not have distractions that take them away from your site. That means no outbound links, navigation, or social media icons.
When optimizing a website, you will need a logical navigation structure optimized for desktop and mobile that will drive more traffic to your website and your sales funnel. Look for ways to reduce the amount of work your users have to do, and they’ll convert more often.
9. Build functional and easy-to-use forms
Forms that are quick and easy to fill out and submit will have higher conversion rates. Here are some best practices to consider:
a. Less is more. Collect only the information you need to quickly follow up or forward.
b. Aesthetics are key. Attractive forms provide a better user experience. Make it consistent, easy to read and highlight required fields.
c. Privacy Issues. Tell users clearly how you intend to collect and use their personal information.
10. Great design is important.
Talented designers can turn the average page into a “conversion machine.” Consider
a. Eye flow. Is the content organized in a way that is logical and leads the eye to a call to action (CTA)?
b. Does the CTA stand out?
c. Does the page look attractive and relevant to your audience?
d. Is the page design “on brand”?
e. Are the photos right for your audience and are you experimenting with different approaches?
f. Is the copy legible?
is. Is your visual hierarchy intuitive?
Now that you know some of the best practices, here are the common mistakes people make with CRO.
6 CRO Mistakes to Avoid
- Running a campaign without proper measurement and in-depth analysis of your target audience.
- Implementing CRO elements without a strategy because your competitors are doing it.
- Making changes based on opinions or gut feelings.
- Not doing A/B testing.
- Measure the success of your campaigns.
- Failure to make continuous adjustments.
Done right, these practices can significantly increase your healthcare website conversion rate, increase sales, and maximize your marketing ROI.