CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization)
What is more important… Conversion Rate Optimization or Search Engine Optimization?
When should you start Conversion Rate Testing?
Conversion Rate Optimization or CRO is a critical factor in converting your prospects into hot leads. These include form submissions, phone calls, newsletter sign-ups, contact forms and any other types of conversion. Whether you are building an
Whether you are building an Ecommerce SEO campaign or a local SEO campaign, you will want to start including the CRO process. CRO goes above and beyond creating a website and embedding forms in locations that you think will “convert” and generate leads. Most developers design websites with contact forms on the contact page, side navigation areas or at the footer of every page. Most developers that are running an
CRO goes above and beyond creating a website and embedding forms in locations that you think will “convert” and generate leads. Most developers design websites with contact forms on the contact page, side navigation areas or at the footer of every page. Most developers that are running an
Most developers that are running an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) campaign will not run tests (CRO) to see which forms are converting and why.
If you are looking for the highest ROI from your marketing efforts, CRO or Conversion Testing needs to be in place. Also, important to keep in mind; if you don’t already have around 50-100 conversions coming through every month, your conversions are going to take longer to measure.
To get a real understanding of your conversions, you should have about 100 leads or actions coming in each month. By having around 100 conversions already coming in each month, you can associate an X number of leads to X number of possible leads.
Running any A/B testing without a high amount of conversions is probably just going to skew your numbers and frustrate your team. Not to say it can’t be done, it will just be easier to run a conversion test campaign with more leads coming in, to measure.
If you do not have a high number of conversions coming in every month, focus on getting your traffic up through paid advertising or organic search first. Once you reach a comfortable number of measure traffic and conversions, you can begin to test your pages.
What is Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)?
Conversion Rate Optimization or CRO is the testing and optimization process of a website to determine which page layouts, forms and CTA’s (Call to Actions) are converting the best per the amount of incoming traffic your site is generating.
For a complete and in-depth guide on Conversion Rate Optimization, take a look at this stunning piece of content by Jack Kinsella on the Complete Guide to CRO. There is a heated debate of CRO Vs. SEO and which of these tactics/ metrics are best to use in the generation of leads, phone calls, and contact form submissions.
The basis of CRO is focusing on the single used metric of conversion when building an internal web page or landing page. While CRO focuses on the conversion metrics of a landing page, SEO focuses on the optimization of that page to increase one’s ranking in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Page).
CRO and SEO for better Rankings and better User Experience
When combining the strengths of SEO and CRO you will have better rankings in the SERPs and eventually a better user experience which leads to higher conversion rates.
The process for CRO and SEO starts with optimizing an internal landing page to the best of one’s ability and then waiting for that page to rank (depending on your DA – Domain Authority and PR – Page Rank, this may take awhile). Once your landing page starts to rank in the SERPs for your keyword(s), then the optimization of the conversion rate begins.
When starting the CRO process, you want to analyze the current data that the landing page is generating. There is an excellent article on the beginner’s guide to CRO from qualaroo.com that explains the in’s and out’s of general CRO metrics. Take a look at the link provided to learn everything you need to know about CRO.
Areas Most look at when looking into Conversion Rates
- Call To Action: (CTA)
- Graphics: (does your site look good?)
- User Experience: (usability)
- Customer Testimonials: (product proof)
- Social Status: (are you social?)
- Answers to Questions: (FAQ – link to new tab)
Areas Most SHOULD look at when looking into Conversion Rates
- Time on Page: How long is a user spending on your page?
- Heatmap Testing (Crazyegg): Where are your users clicking (CTA Confusion)?
- Traffic Flow Funnel Drop Off: What pages are your users bouncing from?
- Video Time Drops and Bounces: At what point are your users stopping video (wistia.com)?
- A/A Split Testing: Testing similar pages before moving to A/B to confirm software
- A/B Split Testing: Start running different page layouts and changes
- Mobile/ Tablet Testings: Run different tests on Mobile and Tablet devices
When starting the CRO process, you want to look at every area that can lead to a conversion which will increase your conversion rate, increase your ROI (Return on Investment) and enhance your bank account.
How to Test and Increase your Conversion Rates?
There are many areas to test and track conversions, but where do you start? Once you have consistent traffic landing on your page(s), you want to measure a number of conversions you are getting in a given amount of time. Here at Front Street Media in El Dorado Hills, we test CRO on a monthly basis.
In some eCommerce industries with a significant amount of traffic, you can tone this down to about two weeks. Two weeks to one month will give you the best data to work with when analyzing your CRO while one to two days may not be enough to quantify the data.
There are some great tools like https://www.optimizely.com/ (One easy to use platform for the web and mobile apps) out there that allow you to test, track and convert more prospects. One favorite tool that Optimizely offers is A/B split testing which lets you run simultaneous campaigns to test unique features and functionalities. With A/B split testing, you can cut your data testing time in half.
Examples of Testing and Areas to Tweak for CRO
- Changing Colors: (Headers, Fonts, Graphics, Images, Etc.)
- Changing Buttons: (Colors, Styles, Size, Layout, Etc.)
- Changing and Tweaking Forms: (Colors, Size, Layout, Formatting, Field Count, Etc.)
- Changing Page Layout: (Header Size, Above the Fold Content, Right Nav/ Left Nav, Etc.)
There are more areas to test for CRO; however, you get the point. Keep testing and tweaking these areas and eventually, you will find the highest conversion rate possible for any given website design or internal web page.
Finding the maximum conversion rate per page on your website will give you or your client the highest ROI set forth from your marketing budget.
What’s more Important, SEO or CRO?
Well, both are equally as important but to put an answer on it, SEO. Traffic from SEO is more important than CRO because you can start to quantify your ROI once you get the leads. After the leads become consistent, you can then start to run conversion tests. Running conversion tests will not do you any good unless you have the traffic to test. So, to answer the main question SEO Vs. CRO, SEO and organic traffic win nine times out of ten.
The Front Street Media SEO team in El Dorado Hills has years of experience in SEO and CRO. We can increase your current campaigns conversions and ROI with premium CRO services.
If you have any questions about Conversion Rate Optimization, contact our team today. We are located in the El Dorado Hills business parks (entrance #1).
