First off, if you’re unfamiliar with the term “conversion rate optimization (CRO),” please head over to this post before continuing.
Conversion rate optimization is all about making your business more efficient. The higher the percentage of people you can turn into converted customers, the more successful your business will be. And as we all know, in business, Greater Efficiency = Higher Profits.
But what are some things you can do right now to boost your conversion rates and increase your business’s efficiency?
Let’s take a look!
5 Things You Can Do To Improve Conversion Rate Optimization
1. Include A Blog On Your Site
Blogs can have both a direct and indirect effect on your business’s conversion rates. Here are some of the reasons why:
Blogs provide the perfect place to post product reviews – 61% of consumers read online reviews before making a final purchase decision. Blogs make it easy for you to post positive reviews from previous customers to help those still in the decision stage to be more comfortable with spending money on your products or services.
Blogs can help increase your SEO score – Posting high quality content to your website that contains specific keywords and phrases that people are searching for is a fantastic way to drive traffic to your site. Blogs provide you with a platform that allows you to do exactly exactly this. Needless to say (but I will anyway), the more people you attract to your site, the more sales/signups/conversions you can expect to make.
Blogs are a cost-effective form of advertising – How much would it cost to run a 1000-word ad in a magazine? A lot. And out of all the people who read the magazine, how many people are just going to flip right past your ad? Again, a lot.
But what if you could write a 1000-word ad for a fraction of the price and have an audience that actually goes out of their way to read it? That’s essentially what a blog can do for you. Blogs have much higher conversion rates than traditional advertising methods because they market to “warm” prospects rather than “cold” ones.
People actually want to read your posts. And if you have a knack for subtlly promoting your products and services while still providing a high level of value to the reader, it can work wonders for optimizing your conversion rates.
2. Optimize Your Pricing Page
The pricing page may be the single most important factor when it comes to optimizing your website for conversion rates.
This is the place where customers decide to either pay for your product/service or navigate away to check out the prices of your competitors.
So how do you optimize your pricing page so it converts?
- Incorporate a clean and simple design – So many businesses adopt the idea that “more is better” when it comes to their pricing pages. They believe that the more information they convey to customers, the better their chances of making a sale will be.
However, often a minimalistic approach is the best way to convert customers. Instead of overwhelming people with dense paragraphs of text and unnecessary graphics, stay true to the purpose of your pricing page – to present an offer in the simplest way possible. - Use concise language – Don’t try and sound professional or intelligent by going out of your way to use complex words on a sales page. This will only confuse prospects, or worse, make it appear like you’re trying too hard and that you’re desperate for their business. The same rule applies here as mentioned above for design – less is more.
- Include flexible pricing options – Consider adding pricing plans to your pricing page. For example, if you offer a service that requires a yearly subscription, don’t just list the price as $299.99/year. This could overwhelm customers and turn them away. Instead, try splitting it up into 12 monthly payments of $24.99.
For example, take a look at the pricining page from Bluehost, a popular web-hosting company:
Notice how all their prices are listed by month?
Even though the customer is still paying the same amount for one year’s worth of service, this subtle psychological shift can make a major difference in your conversion rates.
3. Add Live Chat To Your Site
Joe Sugarman is one of the most successful direct-mail copywriters of all time. In his book, The Adweek Copywriting Handbook, he mentions that one of the most difficult aspects of selling is overcoming the customer’s objections.
And if you’re just hoping the content on your site is thorough enough to answer all of their questions and concerns, you may be in for a rude awakening.
Luckily, things like live chat help you to have a direct line to your customers so you can gain valuable insights into where they’re struggling to see the value of your products and services. If you address these problems, you’ll immediately begin to see better conversion rates.
Also, live chat provides you with valuable information about each customer that you can implement into future marketing campaigns. For example, live chat can tell you:
- Your customer’s pain points
- Why your customer is interested in your product/service
- What demographic your customers belong to
- What competitors products/services they’ve tested and why they were better/worse
- Problems your customers may be experienceing with your products or services
Live chat can be an important tool to use when trying to improve conversion rates on your website. But this is only the case if you make sure that you choose the right provider for online chat services.
To talk with the staff at CreoLogic about how their online chat services can benefit your business, feel free to send them a message!
4. Leverage Customer Reviews
Reviews have been a part of human life for thousands of years. They were necessary for the survival of our ancient ancestors.
Picture this – you and your paleolithic friend are out gathering food and come across a thriving bush full of ripe and juicy berries. He eats some. He dies. Do you keep this information to yourself?
No, you go back to the tribe and say, hey, maybe don’t eat those berries over there. That’s a bad review for that bush of berries.
Historically, evolution has rewarded those who follow.
And because of this, what genes do you think were passed on to us through natural selection? The follower/tribal genes!
We look to see what the group is doing, and if it seems to be working, we copy them. If it isn’t, we don’t.
That’s why positioning positive customer reviews for future website visitors to see can have such a profound effect on your conversion rates.
5. Consistently Monitor/Test
When you’re trying to lose weight, you don’t just weigh yourself once, change your diet, and hope it all works out. Instead, you might choose a certain day each week to do a weigh-in so you can measure your progress.
The same goes for optimizing conversion rates on your website. It’s important that you have the tools and technology in place to help you understand what’s working and what isn’t.
This way, you can experiment by changing your web pages to try and boost conversions. For example, you might change the copy on one page to see if it has a positive effect on sales for a particular product. Or maybe you add a button to the end of each blog post to encourage customers to sign up for your services.
Whatever your goal, constantly monitoring and testing your site can help you achieve it!
Looking To Improve Conversion Rates?
CreoLogic has been providing web solutions to clients since 2002. To inquire how their knowledgable staff can help you optimize conversion rates, contact them today!
