What is CRO

Conversion optimisation or Conversion Rate Optimisation involves making improvements to a website with the intent to increase the proportion of visitors who make a desired action.

In the context of an e-commerce website this would ultimately involve ensuring user behaviour results in a purchase. For a services website it would involve increasing the propensity for calls, enquiries or other lower commitment actions such as e-newsletter registrations or social media followings. Ultimately, everything depends on the purpose of your website and your internal goals.

Bad CRO

These are the types of things conversion optimisation tasks people who don’t know what they are talking about will focus on at the expense of the more powerful drivers of conversions.

• button colours
• layout
• click counts
• number of form fields
• general design elements
• Unbounce
• heat mapping
• split testing

Good CRO

Don’t get me wrong, if your website has thousands of visitors per day, experimenting with different button colours could make a small difference in your conversion rate, sure. We’ve experimented with hundreds of variables with each of our clients and found that there are three very powerful conversion optimisation elements that you first have to consider, which often get overlooked.

1. Not going to tell you for free
2. Not going to tell you for free
3. Not going to tell you for free

Advantages of CRO

There are only disadvantages to CRO if you waste time and resources focusing on the wrong areas. Some of the obvious advantages are:

• Efficiency – increase in goal completions without increasing user traffic
• Synergy UX/UI – improvements can be self-fulfilling, which in turn further increases the conversion rate
• ROI – small investments can produce proportionally large returns

Disadvantages of CRO

• Skill – often custom website development skills are needed and generic-themed website structures can make this difficult. A high degree of coding knowledge is required as improvements affect multiple levels of code both front end and back end. Script conflicts are very common.
• Measurement – e-commerce goals are far more straightforward than with service websites. Complex call and form tracking can be difficult to implement without specialist expertise.
• Long Term – good CRO takes time to collect data and test what is statistically significant and what is not. Depending on the amount of traffic the website receives, the data collection time frame can be large.

The Process

Best practice, quality CRO looks at multiple areas of a website. A big focus should be on creating the most effective User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX) for the user. New design elements are introduced periodically and then tested before being followed by adjustments in a structured feedback cycle. That person overseeing the improvements has to be part marketer, part designer and part website developer. I cannot stress this enough. For good CRO you really need to understand all three disciples to a high degree.
Some online stores require specific attention to shopping carts and payment gateways in order to convert window shopping into a sale. If you want to find out a good way to do this, you don’t need a CRO agency. Simply go to Amazon or any other pure retailer and copy their checkout process.

Analysis

Website data are first collected so we can identify what is working well and what could be improved. Heat mapping, user flows, exit intent surveys, and even live user observation are used to collect valuable data with which to make informed decisions.

Improvements implemented

This can include by not limited by:

• Condense – simplification of the requirements on the user when interacting with the website. Less is more concept
• Colour – changes to buttons, highlights, icons etc – visual cues
• Layout – re-ordering of content and the flow of information
• Forms – sometimes removing a field requirement can have a large positive affect
• Content – introduction of specific user-focused text, images or video
• Positioning & offer – this is by far the most crucial aspect

Measurement

A number of tools are used to benchmark and measure the differences post improvement implementation.

• AB split testing
• Heatmapping
• Exit intent surveys
• Event and goal tracking set-up
• Customised dashboard creation
• Advanced event tracking

Conversion Optimisation is a cyclic process

CRO Is An Ongoing Experimental Process

To do CRO properly we recommend you engage with a company over a 3-6 month period at a minimum and be prepared for change. CRO can be expensive and time consuming but the rewards can pay back any investment 5 times over.

CRO Is a Long-term Performance Solution

You should know that CRO is not an overnight fix, but a long-term solution that has been proven to produce excellent results over a steady and extended period of time. We guarantee that CRO is efficient, reliable, and cost effective to adopt. Above all else, the process of CRO is guaranteed to deliver results that will deliver a maximum return from any investment in online marketing campaigns.

Case Studies and Examples

Due to the sensitivity, breadth of data and specificity of CRO to particular websites types, please contact us for more information should you require specific references.

A final note

If you are interested in improving leads, page clicks, and sales from your website, you owe it to yourself and your company to adopt any measure that has a chance of solidifying your presence, not only on the Internet, but throughout the international market place. CRO is a process that can deliver these results to you.