Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) Strategies for Small Businesses

As a business owner, digital marketer, or website operator, one of the biggest indicators that you’re effectively managing your digital assets is how high or low your conversion rate optimization numbers are.

It isn’t surprising that everyone wants to drive more value from the traffic and visitors that their site generates, but if you aren’t earning enough sales and revenue, you’re left wondering what you could – or should – do to improve your conversion rate optimization metrics.

While the premise of making a conversion (sale) from your site seems relatively straightforward, there are a lot of technical details that go into creating an effective conversion funnel. Just because you have a trendy website with products available for sale does not guarantee that fresh, hot leads and sales are going to pile up on “Autopilot.”

Factors including your site design, website load times, and “Calls To Action” on your site all impact the number of times one of your visitors complete a desired action – or a Conversion.

One thing to remember is that for the highest conversion rates, having your website pages targeted for your desired end-result is a surefire way to rev up your results. These are known as Landing Pages. Professional Landing Pages are effective and are commonly used to gather information for List Building, Lead Generation, and Direct Sales.

For the most part, Landing Pages are created with one specific “Goal” in mind. Often, extraneous navigation and unimportant links get eliminated from these type of pages so that that site visitors will complete the desired page action instead of ‘surfing’ your site and leaving without taking the action you seek. Someone who fills out the information you ask for is considered a successful conversion.

If your website or your individual pages are underperforming, it is worth your time to review the Conversion Goals you have in place. By using data, you can pinpoint where the problem exists and take proactive steps to fix the issue.

Don’t be afraid to test and analyze to recognize bottlenecks or other obstacles that stand in the way of a customer conversion. Sometimes one of the best methods to test your site is by having someone who is not familiar with your site use it. By observing their Click Paths through your Analytics Programs, you can get a better understanding of how people navigate your site. If you find that your site visitors are making the same navigational mistakes over and over, you can make adjustments to address these missteps.

Another invaluable resource for data concerning visitor behavior is Google Analytics. This robust platform gives you access to all of the data associated with your website, giving you clues to errors or flaws that affect your conversion rate.

Here are a few finer points to investigate when examining your Website Analytics:

Most Viewed Pages – Your most viewed (or visited pages) are likely to be your most profitable pages. If your conversion rate is low on your high traffic pages, invest some time to ensure that your page has adequate Calls To Action, so your visitors have an idea of what they’re supposed to do next.

Similarly, if your pages have a high “Bounce Rate” (People only visit one page and leave), you’ll want to make adjustments to reduce the overall Bounce and retain the visitor. The simple addition of an Email Opt-In Pop-Up could be the difference between letting a visitor slip away for forever or adding them to your ongoing Email Marketing List.

Traffic Sources – It’s critical to know where your website traffic is originating. A healthy site should have a variety of traffic sources including major Search Engines, Social Media Platforms, and Direct Links. Free organic traffic is increasingly harder to cultivate, so you want to be sure that your site is optimized to turn free website visitors into new leads or sales.

User Devices – Now more than ever, people are using more types of devices than ever before to access the Internet. A mobile-friendly or Responsive website design helps ensure that every site visitor gets an optimized version of your site for their viewing screen or display, regardless of whether they’re on a Samsung Smart Phone or a Smart TV.

Website Response Speed – Think about the last time you visited a really slow site. How willing were you to stick around while waiting for the site to load? If you answered ‘not very,’ you are among the many who would respond to this question the same way. Site speed matters – especially when working with Conversion Traffic. Any unexplained delays give your visitors reason to leave as quickly as they arrived, which is no good! In other words, the faster your site is, the better.

Test Multiple Versions Of Your Conversion Pages – A/B Testing is one way to determine which of your sales pages outperforms the other. After this initial testing, you can advertise and promote with more confidence that you’re leading with a winning offer.

Split Test Email Opt-In Forms and Pop-Up Boxes – The ultimate goal of Email Opt-Ins and Pop-Up Boxes is to collect information from your website visitors so that you can market to them again later. By Split Testing, you can determine which form or landing page works best for your site demographics.

Establish Your Conversion Goals In Google Analytics – This one is important because every Conversion Goal must be setup in Google Analytics to track them properly. If you haven’t setup conversion goal tracking, there is no truly accurate way to track your progress and conversions, which offers you no competitive advantage whatsoever!

Document Any Changes You’ve Made For Reference – Should you decide to make any significant changes to your site, be sure that you document them. By doing so, you’ll more easily be able to analyze whether the adjustments you made are working or not.