In today’s dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing cli­mate, the abil­i­ty to get cus­tomers to engage with your con­tent and take action is arguably your busi­ness’s great­est asset. This process is known as con­ver­sion, and it’s one of the most impor­tant mar­ket­ing met­rics for any busi­ness that’s look­ing to remain com­pet­i­tive and, more impor­tant­ly, profitable.

Con­ver­sions gen­er­ate leads, sub­scribers, and sales. Since meet­ing mar­ket­ing objec­tives is a num­bers game, improv­ing your con­ver­sion rate is one of the best ways to boost rev­enues and see a high­er return on your efforts.

In this arti­cle, we’ll look at how to max­imise your con­ver­sions for mar­ket­ing and busi­ness success.

What Is Conversion Rate?

Con­ver­sion rate is the per­cent­age of vis­i­tors that com­plete a spe­cif­ic action on your web­site — be it a pur­chase, opt-in, or down­load. Con­ver­sions can be sep­a­rat­ed into two types: micro and macro.

When­ev­er you achieve your pri­ma­ry goal — sell­ing a prod­uct or gain­ing a sub­scriber — you have achieved a macro-con­ver­sion. Mean­while, micro-con­ver­sions hap­pen when vis­i­tors take action toward your pri­ma­ry goal. This may include sub­scrib­ing to a newslet­ter, watch­ing a prod­uct video, or down­load­ing an e‑book.

How To Calculate Conversion Rate

To cal­cu­late your web­site’s con­ver­sion rate, divide your con­ver­sions by the num­ber of vis­i­tors and mul­ti­ply that num­ber by 100 to get a percentage.

What’s impor­tant is to define what you deem a con­ver­sion, as that makes up the numer­a­tor. The next step is to define your total pool of traf­fic, as that forms the denominator.

So, if your web­site got you 30 sales out of a total of 800 vis­i­tors last month, your con­ver­sion rate is 30 divid­ed by 800, mul­ti­plied by 100, which is 3.75%.

What Is A Good Conversion Rate?

A con­ver­sion rate that’s aver­age lies any­where between two and five per cent. Con­sid­er­ing that adver­tis­ers in the glob­al top 10 see aver­age con­ver­sion rates of up to 11.45%, you would expect a good con­ver­sion rate to be any­where above 10%. How­ev­er, it’s not that sim­ple, and there are a lot of fac­tors to consider.

Con­ver­sion rates are dif­fer­ent across sources and across indus­tries. They also dif­fer accord­ing to con­ver­sion goals.

Plus, track­ing only one con­ver­sion rate means you’re miss­ing out on valu­able infor­ma­tion. This is why track­ing mul­ti­ple con­ver­sion met­rics is a great idea: it gives you a more com­pre­hen­sive pic­ture of how suc­cess­ful your con­ver­sion efforts are.

The Benefits Of Improving Conversation Rate

Improv­ing your con­ver­sion rate (also known as con­ver­sion rate opti­mi­sa­tion (CRO)) involves opti­mis­ing your web pages to turn more vis­i­tors into cus­tomers. Improv­ing your con­ver­sion rate comes with ben­e­fits such as:

Greater profits

The goal of CRO is to max­imise the val­ue of both old and new vis­i­tors. Con­vert­ing more of your traf­fic into pay­ing cus­tomers low­ers your cus­tomer acqui­si­tion costs. By improv­ing your con­ver­sion rates, your rev­enue will increase. Just a one per cent improve­ment in con­ver­sions can result in a sig­nif­i­cant return on investment.

Valuable insights

CRO con­tributes valu­able insights that help to guide strate­gic deci­sions. In fact, 70% of mar­keters use CRO to inform oth­er mar­ket­ing ini­tia­tives. When used the right way, CRO can reveal issues with user expe­ri­ence and point to oth­er key areas of improve­ment. You’ll have all the infor­ma­tion you need to make your mar­ket­ing cam­paigns more effective.

Boosted SEO efforts

With Google focus­ing on a peo­ple-first approach, vis­i­tor inter­ac­tions could­n’t be more impor­tant when think­ing about your search engine rank­ing. If your site offers a great cus­tomer expe­ri­ence that leads to more con­ver­sions, chances are, your page will rank higher.

Increased customer lifetime value

Turn­ing vis­i­tors into cus­tomers and cul­ti­vat­ing loy­al­ty depends on con­sis­tent­ly improv­ing your con­ver­sion rates. CRO gives you an in-depth under­stand­ing of your cus­tomers. By antic­i­pat­ing what they want and tai­lor­ing their expe­ri­ences, you’ll keep them converting.

How To Improve Conversion Rate

CRO is about under­stand­ing your audi­ence and enhanc­ing their expe­ri­ence for a fric­tion­less con­ver­sion process. Con­se­quent­ly, improv­ing your con­ver­sion rate will require the use of var­i­ous strate­gies and tac­tics through­out the cus­tomer journey.

Below, we dis­cuss how you can improve your con­ver­sion rates across a range of sce­nar­ios. From web­site improve­ments, land­ing page opti­mi­sa­tion, e‑commerce fac­tors, and mobile usage, we’ve got you covered:

1. How To Improve Your Website Conversion Rate

Updates to colours and fonts may cause a small increase in con­ver­sions, but if you want more sig­nif­i­cant results, you need to under­stand what your vis­i­tors want and give it to them:

Track your conversions

Mak­ing use of con­ver­sion track­ing tools such as Google Ana­lyt­ics lets you track dif­fer­ent con­ver­sion rates. Track­ing mul­ti­ple con­ver­sion met­rics allows you to mea­sure your per­for­mance against indus­try aver­ages and assists you in mak­ing strate­gic mar­ket­ing decisions.

Track visitor interactions

Opti­mis­ing con­ver­sions begins with under­stand­ing your cur­rent user expe­ri­ence. Again, Google Ana­lyt­ics is great for spot­ting issues that may be affect­ing con­ver­sions. Ses­sion record­ings and heatmaps are also great for see­ing how vis­i­tors inter­act with your website.

Determine your conversion goals

Since con­ver­sion goals vary across dif­fer­ent busi­ness mod­els, it’s impor­tant to clar­i­fy your own. What’s your macro-con­ver­sion? Is it eas­i­ly iden­ti­fi­able? There­after, you need to iden­ti­fy the micro-con­ver­sions that lead to your macro-con­ver­sion. Are you pre­sent­ing them well? How do you opti­mise them?

Optimise your conversion funnels

A con­ver­sion fun­nel is a path a vis­i­tor takes between vis­it­ing your web­site and becom­ing a cus­tomer. Under­stand­ing how vis­i­tors nav­i­gate your site enables you to opti­mise each stage of your fun­nel for increased con­ver­sions. Cus­tomers must move from aware­ness to con­sid­er­a­tion to a deci­sion as seam­less­ly as pos­si­ble to opti­mise conversions.

Get rid of distractions

When a vis­i­tor’s search intent leads them to your page, they expect to have their search query answered. If your page does­n’t deliv­er what a vis­i­tor is expect­ing, they will not convert.

Few­er dis­trac­tions mean more con­ver­sions. Unnec­es­sary links or pop-ups can divert a vis­i­tor’s atten­tion. Plus, clut­tered, hard-to-nav­i­gate pages often deter cus­tomers from engag­ing with your site, ulti­mate­ly impact­ing your conversions.

Write compelling copy

Copy that leads to greater con­ver­sions address­es pain points, push­es hot but­tons, makes a sound val­ue propo­si­tion, and pro­vides clear CTAs. It’s also checked for spelling and gram­mat­i­cal errors, as these tend to affect credibility.

Include a live chat feature

Some­times, vis­i­tors don’t con­vert because they have con­cerns or ques­tions. Adding a live chat fea­ture allows you to address issues quick­ly so they can com­plete intend­ed actions.

Conduct testing

A/B test­ing allows you to exper­i­ment with dif­fer­ent designs so you know what works and what does­n’t. When it comes to opti­mis­ing your con­ver­sions, avoid assump­tions — keep test­ing, and let your vis­i­tor data show you what they want more of.

Increase customer confidence

Vis­i­tors won’t con­vert if they don’t trust your brand. To increase trust, keep your con­tent updat­ed, avoid spam, and make your site easy to use. Bro­ken links and out­dat­ed infor­ma­tion increase per­ceived risk, lead­ing to few­er con­ver­sions. Online shop­pers are more cau­tious, so lean­ing into your rep­u­ta­tion and online pres­ence is more like­ly to increase conversions.

2. How To Increase Landing Page Conversion Rate

Land­ing pages are pages that are specif­i­cal­ly designed to turn vis­i­tors into leads. Land­ing pages usu­al­ly con­tain forms to cap­ture vis­i­tor infor­ma­tion in exchange for offers. When it comes to land­ing pages and con­ver­sion rate, you can expect con­ver­sion rates of up to 12%.

This is because land­ing pages are lim­it­ed to a sin­gle objec­tive, which makes them great for get­ting cus­tomers to take action. To increase the rate at which your land­ing pages convert:

Improve your offers

High con­vert­ing land­ing pages offer cre­ative and dif­fer­en­ti­at­ed offers. So, rethink the gener­ic free tri­al or free con­sul­ta­tion approach; instead, come up with some­thing more com­pelling. To offer some­thing with tan­gi­ble ben­e­fits, you’ll need to under­stand what your vis­i­tors real­ly want. As such, keep test­ing dif­fer­ent offers to see what works best.

State your value proposition clearly

The key to a land­ing page that con­verts is a clear val­ue propo­si­tion. The copy on your land­ing pages should be writ­ten with your audi­ence in mind. If you under­stand their goals, moti­va­tions, and needs, your con­tent will be bet­ter tai­lored to address their pain points.

Instead of sim­ply list­ing the fea­tures of your offer­ing, high­light its ben­e­fits, too. If a cus­tomer can imag­ine how your offer­ing solves a prob­lem or meets a need, they’re more like­ly to convert.

Provide clear CTAs

Whether it’s get­ting vis­i­tors to make a pur­chase, sub­scribe, down­load a lead mag­net or share some­thing to their socials, calls-to-action (CTAs) play a cru­cial role in dri­ving con­ver­sions.

Best prac­tices for land­ing pages include using design ele­ments to make your CTA stand out and hav­ing one clear CTA goal per land­ing page. It’s also impor­tant for a CTA to be repeat­ed (taste­ful­ly) through­out the page.

Include videos

There has been a boom in video mar­ket­ing in the last few years, and it shows no signs of slow­ing down. When it comes to increas­ing your con­ver­sions, using videos on land­ing pages can increase con­ver­sions by a whop­ping 86%.

Use simple forms

Lengthy forms cre­ate fric­tion. Cus­tomers are more like­ly to aban­don an action if a form is too long. Make the con­ver­sion process eas­i­er by short­en­ing your forms. Your land­ing pages should have three form fields to max­imise con­ver­sions. In fact, sim­ply reduc­ing the num­ber of form fields to 4 could result in a 120% increase in con­ver­sions.

3. How To Improve Your E‑Commerce Conversion Rate

What­ev­er you’re sell­ing, there are ways to opti­mise your con­ver­sions for greater revenues:

Use high-quality images and videos

Because cus­tomers can’t see or touch a prod­uct when shop­ping online, they per­ceive online shop­ping as risky. Pro­vid­ing high-qual­i­ty images or prod­uct videos helps elim­i­nate some of that risk. If cus­tomers can visu­alise what they’re get­ting, they’re more like­ly to convert.

Curb cart abandonment

If you haven’t got mea­sures in place for cart aban­don­ment, you’re los­ing out on con­ver­sions. If you want to increase the con­ver­sion rate of your e‑commerce site, set­ting up an aban­doned cart email cam­paign is a great idea. By fol­low­ing up and pro­vid­ing incen­tives such as dis­counts through emails, you’ll get more conversions.

Diversify your efforts

Although search traf­fic can be one of the high­est con­vert­ing sources for online pur­chas­es, spread­ing your con­ver­sions across sev­er­al chan­nels is a great way to bal­ance risk and improve your con­ver­sion rate. There­fore, if you want to increase the con­ver­sion rate of your e‑commerce site, con­sid­er lever­ag­ing oth­er chan­nels, such as social media too.

Build a strong social media presence

Increas­ing con­ver­sions is eas­i­er if you’re active­ly engag­ing your tar­get audi­ence on social media. In fact, you can increase con­ver­sions by up to 74% by hav­ing hap­py cus­tomers spread the word about your products.

Provide social proof

97% of con­sumers check online reviews before mak­ing a pur­chase, which means that social proof can be used to increase con­ver­sion rates on an e‑commerce site. So, to increase trust and boost con­ver­sions, con­sid­er adding reviews or tes­ti­mo­ni­als to your site.

Simplify checkout

Cus­tomers aren’t inter­est­ed in reg­is­ter­ing or log­ging into web­sites just to make pur­chas­es. If they are required to com­plete this step, they might aban­don the check­out process alto­geth­er. Offer guest shop­ping options instead and watch your con­ver­sions increase

Offer great incentives

Per­son­alised incen­tives deliv­ered at just the right time can give your con­ver­sions an edge. Take advan­tage of pop-ups that offer unique dis­counts based on cus­tomer behav­iour to increase your sales. With ship­ping fees often cit­ed as one of the main rea­sons cus­tomers aban­don their carts, offer­ing free ship­ping is a sure­fire way to increase conversions.

4. How To Improve Your Mobile Conversion Rate

In light of Google’s mobile-first index­ing ini­tia­tive, mobile opti­mi­sa­tion is now more essen­tial than ever. If you’re not opti­mis­ing your site for mobile, your rank­ings might suf­fer, lead­ing to few­er conversions.

Optimise for mobile friendliness

Did you know that 40% of inter­net users aban­don sites that take more than 3 sec­onds to load? With mobile, in par­tic­u­lar, a one-sec­ond delay in page response can lead to a 7% reduc­tion in con­ver­sions. With this in mind, use Google’s mobile test­ing tool to check if your site is mobile-friend­ly. Addi­tion­al­ly, you’ll receive tips on how to enhance your web­site’s performance.

Simplify the buying process

As com­pli­cat­ed check­out process­es dis­cour­age mobile con­ver­sions, mobile pur­chas­es should be easy and pain­less. Poten­tial cus­tomers should­n’t have to deal with over­ly com­pli­cat­ed forms or con­tend with inef­fi­cient pay­ment meth­ods. Pri­ori­tise ease and make pay­ments a breeze by set­ting up con­ve­nient pay­ment meth­ods such as Google Pay, Apple Pay, or PayPal.

Final Thoughts

Under­stand­ing, track­ing, and improv­ing your con­ver­sion rate plays a sig­nif­i­cant role in the suc­cess of your dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy and, ulti­mate­ly, your busi­ness. With so many fac­tors to con­sid­er, don’t leave it up to chance. To get help improv­ing your con­ver­sion rate, get in touch with us.

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