Conversion rate optimization (CRO) should be an easy sell for marketers and business owners, given the benefits it affords. And yet, that isn’t always the case.
People sometimes confuse CRO with SEO. But the aim of SEO is making your website more appealing to search engines and thus increasing your traffic. And while getting more traffic is great, if the traffic isn’t targeted and if doesn’t lead to more revenue in some way, shape, or form, then it isn’t going to be all that helpful.
On the other hand, the aim of CRO is getting people to take action, and that action is what’s going to lead to more revenue.
Accordingly, CRO is super valuable for marketers and business owners. To learn more about what CRO is and how it can benefit your business, keep reading below.
What Is Conversion Rate Optimization Exactly?
To understand CRO, you first need to understand what a conversion is. And in terms of Internet marketing, a conversion is any desirable action that a visitor to your website takes.
Most people think of a conversion in terms of getting someone to purchase something. But a conversion could also be getting a visitor to subscribe to your list, download a PDF, or share a piece of content via social media.
And so, conversion rate optimization is the process of increasing the number or percentage of visitors to your website who take a certain action or fulfill a certain goal, whether it’s to buy something, fill out a form, request a quote, or do whatever else you might want your visitors to do.
Hopefully, you can already see how CRO can benefit your business’ bottom line. But if you still need convincing, here are some of the specific things conversion rate optimization can do for you.
What Are The Benefits Of Conversion Rate Optimization?
Conversion rate optimization lets you better understand your website’s visitors.
To make your marketing worth the effort, you need to understand your visitors. And CRO helps you do this by collecting data about how your visitors interact with your site and identifying points of friction.
Conversion rate optimization gets you more targeted leads and customers.
CRO helps you become better equipped at capturing the attention and interest of your site’s visitors. Plus, it enables you to create an improved, more streamlined shopping experience. And both of these factors lead to acquiring more targeted leads and converting more visitors into customers.
Conversion rate optimization increases your profits.
When you practice conversion rate optimization, “you identify small areas of opportunity that will result in increased conversions—and thus increased revenue,” says Webpage FX. CRO won’t necessarily yield large amounts of revenue upfront, however. Rather, CRO increases your business’ earning potential incrementally over the long-term.
Conversion rate optimization helps you make more informed decisions.
CRO takes the guesswork out of making changes and testing. Without CRO, these types of decisions are largely based on “gut” feelings or hunches. But with CRO, you can use A/B testing tools to implement non-permanent changes to your site, check the results, and then quickly change what was modified back to the original format if you need to. Operating in this manner lets you make more fact- and data-based decisions.
Conversion rate optimization lowers your customer acquisition cost.
Customer acquisition cost (CAC) refers to the amount of money you spend acquiring each new customer on average. And so, if you optimize your website, making it so your visitors are more likely to convert, you, in effect, are lowering your CAC. When your conversation rate goes up, your CAC goes down.
Conversion rate optimization makes it possible to outrank your competition.
CRO can help you identify elements on your site that reduce your bounce rates. Plus, it can increase your traffic, social media engagement, and brand awareness, all of which factor into search engine rankings. So the more positive changes you make to your site, the more likely you are to raise your search engine ranking, thus putting you ahead of your competitors.
This is just the tip of the iceberg, really. Conversion rate optimization offers marketers and business owners tons of benefits and it’s a practice you can’t afford to ignore.
What are your thoughts on this post? How much do you care about conversion rate optimization? Let us know. We love hearing your feedback!