Conversion Rate Optimization – Increase ROI

Wondering how to increase your conversion rate? Optimizing your conversion rate can be done in many ways by making adjustments to elements which matter to your prospects. If you know how to use tools like Google Analytics and Webmaster tools, you can improve the performance of your website according to what the data suggests. There are many online marketing companies out there that offer eCommerce SEO services or PPC management services for eCommerce Websites but few actually take things a step further by optimizing your websites conversion rate. Good conversions are not just a result of compelling copy or high impact call-to-actions, they are a result of a holistic approach to marketing, ranging from understanding your customers and positioning your products or services in the most efficient way possible. Below are some conversion rate optimization tips that will help you improve the profitability of your marketing.

1. Evaluate your Business

Before you start optimizing your website, evaluate your business to know how it is performing online. Take some time to develop a long-term strategy, determine your goals and how you will measure success, reporting and data is the driving force behind conversion optimization so its crucial to setup the right type of performance tracking. Look at your competition and find out what they are doing better than you. All your findings should be based on data, not assumptions. If you have an eCommerce website (aka shopping website) you will need to be able to track your online transactions and shopping funnel to ensure that you can find areas for improvement going forward. Wondering how to track purchases with Google Analytics on a third party shopping cart? The most important thing is understanding the buying process, which is why we make it a requirement for all of our eCommerce clients to properly integrate ROI and eCommerce revenue tracking. We use Google Analytics to find out what frictions are there when you are trying to make a purchase on your website. Seeing your website through the eyes of your customer will help you know what to optimize to improve conversion rates, by using the robust marketing tools offered by Google, this can be done quite easily. Having the right team or individual to oversee the process is not so easy, thankfully The Miami SEO Company is here to help you make the most of your marketing budget by offering you a full service marketing solution which conversion rate optimization at no additional charge. 😉

2. Know Your Traffic Sources

Know where your customers are coming from when they visit website and which pages they visit first (landing page), having this type of data can go a long way. Get a good understanding of the entire conversion funnel; which landing pages do visitors land on and how do they navigate your site compared to the visitors that entered your site via other landing pages? Understanding which sources are bringing you higher performing traffic and pin pointing exactly where they come from can help you optimize your conversion rate because you are bring higher quality traffic to your website. Spending more time and money on getting higher quality traffic to your eCommerce website can help your ROI increase as well.

Its very important to identify the areas where customers seem to have great interest in and which ones hold the greatest opportunity for conversions. For instance, you can use heat map applications to know which parts of your website visitors hover over or click more. You can check the activity of visitors on your website using real time reporting with Google Analytics and that’s just scratching the surface. Knowing how to use these robust tracking tools can do wonders for your marketing campaign.

3. Understand your Visitors

Get into the visitors’ shoes and find out why they are or are not converting. To know this, you need to know the different types of visitors and their intentions, their user experience problems and their objections. User intention analysis can play a vital role optimizing the conversion rate of your campaigns.

When researching the keywords that you would like to optimize your website to rank for, knowing the intent of the person typing the keywords can help you effectively choose the right keywords. Ideally, you should target keywords used by prospects that are looking to make a purchase rather than researching a topic or price shopping. Also, check your website for items that may bring friction during the conversion process. For example, a longer check out process can lead to high cart abandonment rate. Things as simple as not requiring visitors to create an account before they can make a purchase can help increase your conversion rate.

4. Study Your Market

Every market is unique, study your industry experts, competitors and what customers are saying about your industry on review websites and social media. From the information you gather, you can explore possibilities of improving your offers by better addressing the needs of your customers. Reviews sites like Consumer Reviews are great sources of information and feedback about your industry. Don’t be just another player in the industry. Instead, offer more value to your customers than your competitors do.

5. Expose Your Business Value Proposition

Find out which aspect of your businesses is likely to persuade customers to convert. For instance, you may be offering guarantees on all your products while your competitors do not. Expose this value proposition to your customers at the right time during the buying process. Give customers a reason to buy from your and not your competitors. Invest your time in gathering, acquiring and creating value propositions that are helpful to customers and will make them see they are getting a better deal by doing business with your company.

6. Develop a Conversion Strategy

Take all the ideas you have brainstormed or researched about and lay them down in a plan. Prioritize the ideas from the ones that will take the shortest time to implement to the ones that will take longer. Making bold changes on your website can give you more profit and quicker returns faster. Some changes will only take a few hours to implement while others may take a couple of days. Make sure monitor the activity on your website after making any changes to see the resulting impact.

7. Experiment With Your Web Pages

Sometimes, you will need to redesign your website pages to improve conversion. Other times, you may only need to change a few elements on the pages or the copy. Make sure the changes you make will be more user-friendly and persuasive than the currently existing versions.

Design several web pages and find out how customers are likely to react to them. Get feedback from designers and your customers. Use buttons with different colors and different call-to-actions and place them on various parts of the website.

8. Split Testing For eCommerce Websites

Try out A/B testing on your website to determine which product page layouts result in the highest conversions, try tweaking your conversion funnel to see if you can reduce that abandonment rate. When testing, focus on a single element so that you can control as many variables as possible. For example, you can test the placement of the CTA button and later test the copy to have more accurate data. Avoid testing different elements at the same time since it will be impossible to know which change will have led to the results you will get.

You can use different A/B testing software to know which pages are resulting in the highest conversions. Make sure any web pages you settle on are arrived at after comparing substantial data from your users. Click here to learn more about split testing your website.

9. Multi Channel Marketing

Find out how the insight from your highly profitable campaigns can be implemented in other parts of your marketing funnel. For example, if you have a high converting landing page, chances are that it will also produce spectacular results for your PPC campaigns and maybe your social media campaigns too. You can also adopt that landing page for offline campaigns. Multi Channel Marketing is a diversified marketing strategy that can help you gain a upper hand against your competitors if done correctly.

If you have an affiliate or partnership program, your top converting keywords, landing pages or graphics can also help your affiliate improve their conversions.

Conversion rate optimization involves a lot of testing and tracking. The process should be approached in a holistic manner to get the best conversions. Our team can help you optimize your websites conversion rate with professional strategies that are effective and efficient. Call us today to speak with a Google certified representative.

About The Author

Jason Hawkins / http://www.themiamiseocompany.com

Jason Hawkins is the CEO & Co-Founder of The Miami SEO Company. He has over ten years of experience in search engine optimization, conversion rate optimization and lead generation. His core responsibilities include identifying ways to increase value of services rendered, training staff on advanced SEO topics, and A/B testing internal processes to consistently improve client return on investment.