What is Conversion Optimization? The Tools You Need to Convert
Imagine that you're the owner of an ecommerce brand. Your brand is working hard to build a name for itself in your space of baby furniture.
Your business sells baby furniture at a lower cost than your competitors. You're selling hundreds of items a day.
There's only one problem: Your company has stopped growing.
You look at charts of your growth and become horrified. Every chart looks like a flat line — that's not good.
You can't go into new markets, and you can't charge more because your brand is known for selling the cheapest products on the market.
So what can you do? If you're smart, you'll hire a conversion optimization specialist. But, what is conversion optimization?
Stick around. We're going to define conversion optimization and explain why it's essential for every business.
What Is Conversion Optimization?
Conversion optimization, or conversion rate optimization (CRO), evaluates and increases the percentage of visitors that land on your website and become paying customers. Another way of defining it is the percentage of people who visit your site and take an expected action.
You can track conversions in various ways:
Increasing the opt-in rate for a landing page
Growing the number of visitors that turn into leads
Increasing the number of visitors that buy your products
Let's go back to your problem. You need to increase your company's growth, but you can't expand into new markets or raise your prices. The best way to make more money is to get a higher percentage of your customers to buy your products.
The equation for calculating conversion rate optimization is this: Conversion rate equals the number of goal achievements divided by your visitors.
Hence, growth. Make sense?
Why Is Conversion Rate Optimization So Important?
Let's assume you have a new business. But, your business is in a very tiny niche. In fact, only 100 people on the entire planet are interested in your business. But, those 100 people will buy anything attached to that niche.
You could keep making products in this niche forever and dominate the market. No one knows more about the niche than you.
Now, you have 100 customers.
But, you have a new problem: Only 15 out of your 100 visitors are buying your products each month.
In short, you're not converting visitors into sales very well. As a result, only 15% of your tiny market is buying your products.
You hire a conversion optimization specialist, and in the next month, you get 30 out of your 100 visitors to buy your products. In essence, you're doubling your sales.
You went from a conversion rate optimization of 15% to 30% in only one month! That's a 100% increase! That's the power of hiring the right conversion optimization expert.
Why is conversion rate optimization important? Because it can:
Increase your sales revenue
Help you hit key performance indicators for growth
Bring in more leads to your business if you're providing a service
Conversion optimization experts know how to evaluate a website in such a way as to increase conversions just by studying a few key metrics.
What Key Metrics Do Conversion Optimization Experts Study?
So what are the key metrics that a conversion optimization specialist will use to increase your sales and grow your business? Here are a few of the metrics that are important to use to evaluate your conversion rate optimization.
Bounce Rate
The bounce rate allows you to measure the amount of time visitors spend on your site each visit. It's an important metric to study because if people get to your site and click off, it could be because your site is confusing them.
Let's face it! We live in a world where people want information quickly. If your site is being visited, but people are leaving quickly, they are either not finding value with your site or are getting lost.
Time On The Site
Along with bounce rate is the time visitors spend on the site. You could evaluate how long people spend on your site based on their visit, whether from paid or organic traffic.
Pages Per Visit
Next, you want to factor in how many pages they are visiting per session. Are certain visitors leaving when they reach a particular page? What could be causing that action?
New vs. Returning Visitors
After that, you may want to search for how many new visitors vs. returning visitors you have. If you're noticing that your return visitors are dwindling, you may have a problem with conversions on your site.
What Devices Are People Visiting Your Site From?
Another key metric to evaluate is what device people are coming from to your site. If most of your visitors come from smartphones, but they only spend a small fraction of time on your site, you may need to optimize your site for mobile. Additionally, if you notice that your desktop visitors are spending more time on the site, this may indicate mobile site issues.
Site Speed
Did you know that the average visitor won't wait more than three seconds for your site to load? If your site is taking a long time to load, then you could be losing repeat customers.
What Tools Can Help You Track Conversion Rate Optimization
When it comes to tracking your conversion rate optimization, a few tools can help you get the job done quicker. Here are five tools that can help track your CRO:
These tools can help you analyze your conversion rate optimization and put you on the path towards success.
Increase Your ROI With Conversion Rate Optimization
Hopefully, we've answered the question: what is conversion optimization? For more information about conversion rate optimization or more support, please visit our website.
COASTR is an expert in conversion rate optimization and can help move your site to the next level. To schedule a consult, please contact us online.
