Ever wondered why a Google search only shows some websites on their first page and not the others? How do search engines decide to rank a website? Can you make your website show up like this? Yes and No. The reason that a website shows up higher on a search result is because it is optimized in a way so that search engines can find the website easily. Conversion Rate Optimization or CRO is the process of increasing the number of users from visiting your website to actively interacting (make purchase) as the end goal.
It is not easy as it may sound. From the web page design to the content, every aspect of your website has to be thoroughly optimized in order to compete with other established websites. With an optimized ecommerce website, you will receive more customers visiting and in turn purchasing from your online store. An independent business owner can do the optimization by him/herself or hire an outside agency to help with the task. But at the end of the day you will be happy to know that the ROI was worth it.
Let’s explore the benefits of conversion rate optimization for your ecommerce website.
Basics of Conversion Rate Optimization
When someone searches for a screwdriver on their search engine, they see a bunch of hardware stores around the vicinity that sell screwdrivers. Now imagine that you own a hardware store but the search engine does not show your business among the list. That is how you lose a prospective customer, because your online presence was not recognized by the search engine. In order for your hardware store to be found, you have to make sure that your website is optimized.
Conversion rate optimization is the process of making your hardware store visible when someone searches for a screwdriver. And once the customer visits your website, finds the product and places an order. The smooth process of finding your store to purchase happens because of conversion rate optimization. Understanding the user behavior and the customer journey while they are on your website helps you to implement changes to ecommerce stores for a streamlined purchase process for the customer. With the help of a conversion rate optimized store, you can rest assured that more customers who visit your ecommerce store will end up buying products.
Benefits of Conversion Rate Optimization
If you are an ecommerce business owner and want to improve the success of your store, then you should have a conversion rate optimized website. The whole purpose of doing this is to improve the performance of your website by increasing the number of visitors who purchase products. Most of the popular ecommerce stores are successful today because they were able to increase the number of leads, sales and overall revenue of the business by adopting an optimized website.
With the help of conversion rate optimization, you can analyze the behavior of your website visitor, identify areas of improvement and make necessary changes to improve user experience. This in turn will increase profit for your business while improving customer experience when they visit your website. You will also improve customer retention and loyalty in the process. It is only a win-win when you optimize your website.
Improve User Experience
User experience is an important aspect for an online business. Without a good user experience, customers will navigate to your competitor stores. You have to have a strategy before you start your online store. Conversion rate optimization provides useful insights on user interactions across your website, so that you can learn and improve from them in order to maximize the user experience. With conversion rate optimization you can test different aspects of your website to monitor under performing elements and focus on working on those.
Some of the most common ways to improve your website performance include testing different page layouts, navigation options to name some. You can do an A/B testing wherein you can try two versions of a page and determine which one works the best. An improved user experience in turn results in customers revisiting your store for multiple purchases. The amount of customers that an ecommerce store loses every day because of poor user experience is far too high. It’s like having a physical store, but all the products are kept in odd places and no customer service to assist you.
Optimizing Content for Maximum Conversion
Too much content or too little content does not help in conversion for your ecommerce store. The content should be of the right amount to get the most effective results. With conversion rate optimization, you can pinpoint where your website is lacking with respect to content. By analyzing user interactions on the webpage, you will have a better understanding of what works and what does not work content wise.
Based on the analytics, you can start changing the content, for example, trying different headlines, changing the call-to-action buttons or adding relevant content where necessary. By tailoring content for the user, you will receive more interaction which will convert to higher sales.
Use A/B Testing
A/B testing is something you should do before you finalize on a strategy/idea. In this test method, you make two versions of an element on a website and run a test to see which one performs better. These elements can be landing pages, sign up pages etc. Once you do the test and get the analytics, you can cherry pick the best performing elements in order to create the final page. In this way, you can be sure that the final version is the one that has the highest conversion rate.
A/B testing is not just limited to webpages. You can apply the same method for various things like email marketing, brand colors and more. By thoroughly testing different elements and finding the most conversion rate optimized version you can be confident that your business will gain more customers purchasing products or services.
Conversion Rate Optimization for Mobile Devices
Everyone has a smartphone these days and so do your customers. According to SEMrush, mobile visits are 313% more compared to desktop visits for a website. These numbers are proof that you have to have your website optimized for mobile viewing. Conversion rate optimization for mobile viewing will increase mobile conversion rates and in turn profit your business. With conversion rate optimization, you will have mobile user analytics that can be used to improve key areas for mobile users.
The key areas include customer journey, testing different versions of mobile experiences and optimizing the whole mobile experience for customers. With these key areas improved, your website will be able to provide a more mobile user friendly version for smartphone users.
Landing Page Optimization
Landing page is part of an important sales funnel for a business. Landing pages helps you get leads or a sale based on how you create them. Either way, the purpose of the landing page is to generate some form of business with regards to what you have to offer. In the digital marketing world, a landing page is a key element where the customers are led to when they interact with a digital ad. By making your landing page optimized, you will lead the visiting customer to take action immediately and make a purchase.
Conversion rate optimization for a landing page involves analyzing the existing performance and fixing any elements that are under performing. Some of the changes that can improve the landing page conversion rates are compelling headlines, engaging visuals and eye-catching copy. Besides the content, make sure the landing page is optimized for mobile viewing since most digital marketing is focused for mobile devices.
It is essential for landing pages to load quickly when a user visits. You can do this by compressing large files so that it doesn’t take too much time to load. Once all the things mentioned above are done, create two versions of the landing page and do an A/B testing on a small scale.
Conversion Rate Optimization Tools
Optimizing your website is key in your ecommerce performance, but you don’t have to do it all alone. There are plenty of online tools free and paid to help you with that. These optimizing tools allow you to measure and analyze the performance of your website and help you fix them. By understanding how customers interact with your website, you can focus on improving those areas for a higher conversion.
With conversion rate optimization tools, you will get insights into customer interests. This will help you create more effective marketing campaigns for your store in the future.
Conclusion
Now that you are well versed in the benefits of conversion rate optimization for your website, it’s time to put it into practice and see your business soar. Once you are at that stage, you will require a solid payment solution provider that you can rely upon for the increased number of transactions.
Enter RapidCents, an all-in-one solution for all your payment needs. With RapidCents, you don’t have to worry about any missed payments. RapidCents provides tailored solutions for any business of all sizes and types. Sign up with RapidCents today to know more on how we can help your business with payment processing.
