With the following conversion rate optimization best practices, you’ll successfully improve your website’s or landing page’s conversion rate, tailored to whatever goals fit your business’s needs.
What is CRO
Conversion rate optimization is a strategy for increasing the number of visitors to your website or landing page who complete a desired action. This desired action can be just about anything, depending on your goals. It could be filling out a form, purchasing a product, or signing up for a newsletter.
In order to successfully increase conversions, it’s important to understand how visitors navigate your website, what they do on your website, and what may stop them from converting. Conversion rate optimization will help you get the most out of your website and increase your business’s revenue.
Best Practices – There are no best practices
There is no one size fits all list of best practices for perfect conversion rate optimization.
Every website is different, has different goals, and because of this, will require different things from conversion rate optimization. When it comes to CRO best practices, you can’t expect that what has worked for someone else will work for your website, especially if it doesn’t fit in with your specific goals.
The true best practice for improving conversion rate is to focus on what the data tells you and using that to implement a strategic approach to testing and optimizing for CRO.
Base Decisions on Data
It’s important to use data from tools like Google Analytics to learn what needs to be optimized and what doesn’t.
Going into the optimization process, you may have some ideas of what you believe needs to be optimized, but any decisions need to be made based on data and facts. With help from web analytics, lead data, and customer survey data, it’s easy to find the information you need to understand your audience. Using this data will clearly tell you where your website visitors arrive from, what pages they leave your website from, where they convert, and what may be stopping them from converting.
Once you’ve used the data to understand your visitors and their behavior, you can begin testing out potential solutions to the problems that you’ve found.
Check Out Your Competitors, But Don’t Copy
If you know that your competitors have had a lot of success with conversions on their website or land pages, it’s understandable to want to take what they’ve done and make it your own. However, just because it worked for them and their audience, that does not mean that it will work for you as well. In addition to this, you may see that your competition has a great-looking website and you may want yours to look similar, but again, liking their design doesn’t mean that it actually works.
When you implement something on your website, it should work for your visitors by helping them to complete the task they’ve come to your website for and, of course, convert. As we talked about in the previous section, changes and testing should be based on the data that your analytics tools provide you with. It’s fine to check out what your competitors are doing and test out whether or not their methods work, but ensure that they align with your goals and make it your own.
State Clear Hypothesis Before Testing
A hypothesis is “a statement of expectation or prediction that will be tested by research.” Stating a clear hypothesis prior to any testing is an important step in conversion rate optimization best practices.
A/B or multivariate testing for CRO is essentially an experiment for the purpose of determining how to best optimize your website. Hypotheses provide a clear understanding of what you’re testing, as well as a way to determine whether or not it worked once your test is finished.
So how do you set your hypothesis? It starts with identifying your problem, determining a solution that you believe will solve that problem, and setting a key metric that will tell you whether the solution was successful or not. When you test with a clear hypothesis, you’ll always be on your way to an optimized website, whether the test is successful or not.
Have Well-Defined Goals For Your Tests
Although a hypothesis will help your tests succeed, setting well-defined goals is part of this process. The hypothesis states what you expect your test will solve, but a goal defines whether or not the test is successful. Keep in mind that in addition to setting a defined goal, your goal should also be relevant to your experiment.
For example, if you’re optimizing a form, your goal should be something along the lines of increasing form submissions, not getting more sales, which would be further along in the customer journey. With this goal, you’ll know if the changes you’ve made to the form are having an effect on your goal, form submission, which will help you track whether or not the changes were successful.
To help you with your goal setting, it will be helpful to use SMART goals. SMART goals refer to goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-based. This will help ensure that your goals are both well-defined and tangible, rather than abstract and difficult to accomplish.
Don’t Restart Tests & Let Them Run Their Course
If you find an issue or think of a better idea for your test, you may think that it’s a good idea to stop, edit your test, and continue it. Unfortunately, this may skew your data in the middle of your test, making it difficult to interpret once it’s completed. It will also be difficult to determine whether your test has met the primary goal you set for it.
Experts recommend that even if you determine that a change should be made to the test, it’s best to stop the test entirely, copy the test, add your changes, then restart an entirely new test. This will ensure that your data isn’t compromised when it’s completed and will help you reach your conversion rate optimization goals.
In addition to this, it’s best to let your test run until it’s reached a statistical significance of 95-99% before you check the data. Another rule of thumb is to allow your test to run for at least 2 weeks. Checking before this point may lead you to think that your test isn’t working, but it may only be due to the sample size. Let your tests run their course!
Failed Tests Are OK
You may end up conducting a test for a change you think will help lead to more form submissions, and in the end, this may not accomplish the goal. Conducting a failed test isn’t an issue, as long as you’re learning from these failures. A failed test also provides data that can help you determine the best optimization for your website. Your tests may not always be successful, but regardless of their success, they’ll provide you with important insights.
Continue Optimizing
Even once your experiment is complete, optimization isn’t done. It’s best to run your test multiple times to ensure that the data is accurate. In addition to this, the insight you gain from one test can help you plan for future tests. Finally, keep in mind that conversion rate optimization is ongoing. Things can change and update, and you may need to make new changes to your website and landing pages to keep up. Keep your eye on how your landing pages are performing and continue optimizing!
Need Help Implementing Conversion Rate Optimization Best Practices?
When you take the time and make the effort to improve your conversion rate, your business will see the benefits. Implementing these conversion rate optimization best practices will go a long way in helping you get the most out of your website and landing pages.
In addition to these tips, building trust between you and your audience can help lay the foundation for improving your conversion rates. We know that trust is the foundation that most relationships are built and maintained on. We’re here to help you accomplish this by connecting you with the perfect audience for your business. If you’re interested in sharing your story to start building trust with your audience, let us help you share your story by signing up to be a guest.
