If you’re still struggling to get people to click on any button on your website, then it’s time to use a conversion optimization strategy.
Can you imagine investing in an expensive website and you’re not even getting a good amount of people signing up for your digital course, free product, etc.?
It can be frustrating knowing all your hard work in putting up a website isn’t even making you money.
Plus, you even paid for an expensive hosting service and a domain name just to make it stand out and look unique.
Getting high conversion rates is what puts a smile on every marketer’s face since it could indicate that their marketing efforts are becoming effective.
But how do you know if it’s effective or not and what methods should you use when optimizing conversions?
Today’s article talks about conversion optimization, where you’ll learn how and why your website isn’t converting well even if it’s already ranking high on search engines.
What is conversion rate?
In digital marketing, conversion rate is the percentage of users that complete an action on your website such as, clicking the ‘Buy Now’ button, joining your newsletter, etc.
It can be determined by the number of conversions divided by the total number of users who visited your website, then multiplied by 100 to determine the percentage.
For example, a website has 350 visitors in a month and has generated at least 65 sales during that period, the rate is computed by dividing 65 by 350 resulting in 18.57%.
A high conversion rate means that your marketing strategies are working well.
Factors such as headlines, call to actions, images, ads, and more can influence your conversion rate.
This metric is actually very versatile since you can keep on repeating this process on any page of your site and not only on your landing page where there’s an offer.
Why is it important?
Conversion rates are important since it tells how effective the CTA’s are in your website.
In affiliate marketing, conversion rates also play an important role, and getting higher conversion rates could mean higher commissions.
In sales funnels, conversion rates are also used as a basis to determine how many users are successfully converted into customers.
Conversion rates can also be computed per funnel page and it doesn’t always mean that a potential customer bought something since this metric can also be used along with other strategies.
Like in lead generation where you determine how many people gave their email address in exchange for a free product such as a free template, checklist, e-book, pdf file, and more.
This is how you convert them from prospects into leads.
Knowing the metrics helps improve your sales process and overall business to get the most out of your traffic.
What is conversion optimization strategy?
Conversion rate optimization or CRO is a strategy that enhances or optimizes the content of your website to get higher conversions.
This helps in increasing the number of good leads, revenue, lowering acquisition costs, and anything that helps your brand grow.
Since conversion in a sales funnel can happen in any funnel page, optimizing can maximize the number of potential customers and conversion rates.
Why do I need conversion rate optimization?
Conversion rate optimization is highly beneficial especially for marketers who run their businesses online.
No matter how big or small your company is, converting your followers, leads, or prospects into customers through CRO will help your business grow in the long run.
To put it simply, CRO makes your marketing efforts worth it since it is what persuades your users while you’re giving them a good experience in your website.
And since it’s designed to simplify the entire process of getting higher conversions, it can also help in lead generation, analytics, split testing, and more.
Conversion optimization methods
When trying to improve conversions, it can be confusing the first time especially when you’re not familiar with what your website analytics is telling you.
And yes, we’ve all been there.
If it’s your first time optimizing conversions, this section will teach you the best and most effective methods to use.
Check CTA buttons
Your call to action buttons might be in the wrong places or the wrong color.
Try using a different color on your CTA’s and place it in a visible area that your prospects can easily click.
Create urgency and scarcity
Prospects act quickly whenever they think that a product or service is only available for a limited time.
Try using this method in your sales funnel and see how it increases your conversion rates.
Add social proof
Adding social proof encourages prospects to take action more since it gives them an impression that they can expect to receive the same value that other people did.
Do split testing
Split testing is a method of conducting two different tests that are often controlled to see if one method is as effective as the other.
Check visual elements
The visual elements in your website might also be causing people to hit the exit button on your website.
Take note that people interact more on things that are attractive for them so you might want to check the colors, images, and videos across your website.
Check pop-ups
Websites with too many pop-ups can be very annoying for website visitors, and if you have too many of thee then it might only increase the bounce rate and not conversion rates.
Optimize blog content
Get your blog content to rank high on search engines by applying SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to get more people visiting your website.
Websites that use SEO can get a good amount of traffic and increases the chance of getting higher conversion rates.
What are funnel leaks?
Imagine yourself carrying a bucket full of water from the stream and working hard to carry it back home only to find out it’s been spilling all along.
Frustrating, right?
Now, think of it as your sales funnel that you just finished building for a couple of weeks and are thrilled to start running campaigns to get more people to visit your website.
Except that this time, you don’t know yet if there are leaks in your sales funnel.
A funnel leak occurs when there’s something wrong inside your funnel that has been affecting your conversion rates
How to identify funnel leaks
Knowing the performance of every page in your sales funnel is the first step to determine if it needs more attention or not.
To understand how well your funnel pages are performing, let’s talk about two important metrics that you should always remember: CPA and ACV.
CPA or Cost Per Acquisition will tell you exactly how much was spent to acquire a customer.
It can be computed by dividing the total cost of ads (running a campaign to acquire customers) by the number of sales from your funnel page.
For example, you spend a total of $105 on ads and there were 15 people who bought something from you, your CPA would be $7 ($105/15 = $7).
On the other hand, the ACV or Average Cart Value is the average amount that a customer will spend inside your funnel.
It’s computed by adding all your funnel’s sales divided by the number of customers.
Example: The total sales of your funnel is $3500 from 50 customers, then your ACV is $70 ($3500/50 = $70).
Once you’re done computing these two metrics, the next thing to do is to compare the two and use this guide as a reference:
CPA < ACV = GOOD (it’s working)
CPA > ACV = BAD (something’s wrong)
As long as your ACV is higher than your CPA, don’t hesitate to spend more money to acquire a customer.
Why are you getting low conversion rates?
One of the most common reasons why people aren’t getting good conversion rates is that they often forget a simple framework that’s always found in every sales funnel: The hook, story, and offer.
The hook is your headline that hooks or attracts people to click on any link or button on your website.
Next is your story that builds interest in your offer.
This can be on the same page as your hook or somewhere else.
Lastly, the offer is the element that you give to people in exchange for their email address or money.
These three elements are what optimizes conversion rates especially when it’s effective enough to do what it’s supposed to do.
If you think about it, no one wouldn’t be interested enough to click on your headline and if your story doesn’t increase the perceived value of what you’re selling then it will only fail.
Do you see how simple everything is?
Some people like to complicate things, in fact these three elements are the only things that they need to focus more on.
No matter how attractive or well-built every page in your sales funnel is, if the hook, story, and offer aren’t working, then it’s time to use new ones instead.
Check out more sales funnel strategies by reading our DotCom Secrets book review here.
