You’ve built up your website and started generating traffic. You’re done, right? Not quite yet. Ian Wheller explains why conversion rate optimisation (CRO) should be at the forefront of your website strategies.
COMPANY PROFILE • NAME: Pepperstone • FOUNDED: 2010 • SECTOR: Forex • WEBSITE: Pepperstone.com • TWITTER: @PepperstoneFX
It can be tempting as a client or affiliate to want to shout all your product or service messages out at once to your audience. But this can be detrimental to your business model. We live in an age of information overload so the challenge for businesses is to cut through the clutter to make it easier for people to find what they’re looking for. Here are five things you can do to help improve visitors’ onsite experience and drive conversion.
1. CREATE CONTENT THAT MATCHES VISITOR INTENT
The purpose of your site is to generate conversions. So, when planning content, focus on matching your headlines to what your visitors are searching for and what’s relevant to them. By using analytics tools such as HotJar, you’ll be able to identify where people are bouncing from or where there might be erroneous clicks, such as on text or images without links versus what they’re looking for when they find your site.
2. KEEP IT SINGLEMINDED
As you promote clients, make sure their products stand out. Bolding the relevant text helps, as does laying out the benefits clearly. When listing the benefits of your site, iconography with short, punchy sentences is an effective way to present multiple items clearly. It’s important to be succinct – studies have shown we have about eight seconds to hold someone’s attention. And that’s probably being generous. Don’t underestimate the power of plain language: speak in a way that your audience understands to help them convert faster.
3. USE CLEAR CTAS
Ultimately, you want your audience to take the desired action, whether it’s comparing products/ services, or clicking on an ad, so it’s important to make sure you signpost exactly where you want people to take each action throughout the site. Make sure your CTAs are action-oriented and in line with best practice content strategy; for example, ‘compare now’ rather than ‘click here’.
4. REMOVE LEAKAGE POINTS
Leakage is calculated as the amount of revenue potentially lost by people dropping off the path to conversion at each page. Stopping opportunities for leakage is especially relevant for landing pages, which are designed with the sole purpose of direct response in mind. Work with your clients to reduce distractions, such as links to irrelevant material or a different website altogether by minimising or removing hyperlinks, contact details or downloads on a landing page focused on one specific call to action. The better your client’s landing pages, the more successful your referral.
5. TEST, TEST THEN TEST AGAIN
Finally, test your site and often. Start with a list of hypotheses around what you want to test, who you want feedback from and on what pages. Knowing what data you want to measure is the cornerstone of successful optimisation strategies. Make sure to combine both quantitative research, such as visitors, sales, conversion rate, earnings per click, highlighted features and page sections visitors engage with, as well as qualitative or people-focused research, highlighting what you could do to improve your site.
Successful CRO is all about understanding how people move through your site and how you can optimise their experience so they take the action that’s going to drive conversions. By committing to an optimisation mindset with testing and learning, you’ll see an improvement in the number of people who hit your desired onsite goals and ultimately increase your conversion rate.