How to Optimize Your Site for Conversions

Most website owners understand the importance of search engine optimization (SEO), or the process of attracting the right people to your website by increasing your page’s ranking. Think about it, though: You can bring thousands of new visitors to your website every day using the best SEO strategies, but if none of them are converting into paying customers, your efforts aren’t paying off like they should. Enter conversion rate optimization (CRO).

CRO is the process of increasing the percentage of people who visit your site that convert to customers. It’s evolving and becoming more popular as website owners realize they need to address conversions alongside SEO. If you’re interested in optimizing your site for conversions, consider the following five tips:

1. Understand your visitors and their behavior.

If you have no idea who’s visiting your website or what they do while there, it will be hard to encourage them to convert. You can use analytics tools to discover your website’s pain points and determine which parts of your website aren’t converting as well as they should. Consider trying:

• Attention heatmaps to visualize clicks and track the way readers peruse through your website
• Scrollmaps to show how much of your website is seen and scrolled through
• Users flow to see what visitors do after visiting a certain page

Learning more about how your site visitors interact with your website will provide valuable insight, which you can use to make positive changes that will increase your conversions.

2. Don’t ignore your website data.

Analytics tools today are more useful than ever. These tools will give you in-depth knowledge about your site visitors, such as their location, their referral source, and how they’re accessing your site. You can use this information to make positive changes for your website.

For example, if the data reveals that people are entering your website through a particular landing page and it isn’t converting well for mobile users, you should tweak the page to make it more mobile friendly. Or you might notice a large number of visitors leave your site on a particular page, so you can focus your efforts on improving those pages.

3. Follow design trends and consistently review your website.

Your website is the face of your online brand. Its appearance and functionality will play a significant role in the way people perceive your brand — and either encourage or discourage them from taking action. Stay current with design trends, review your website, and consider making changes to its design.

Always analyze your website from the user’s perspective. Think about which design trends could improve their experience and encourage them to convert. Make changes if necessary, and then assess your progress. Make more changes as needed. A good website is all about reviewing what works — and making changes when necessary.

4. Personalize the user experience.

There’s no denying that users appreciate a personal touch. Consider changing your site design if necessary, so different groups of visitors can easily find what they need and don’t become distracted by elements that don’t apply to them. You could also employ split screens to allow visitors to choose how to interact with your website.

5. Engage with your site visitors.

Your website can be more than a one-sided experience for users. Instead of bombarding them with information, consider asking them about themselves. Use surveys to ask them questions, immediately capturing their responses. You can personalize this process in a few ways. For instance, you can trigger a survey to pop up and ask a question immediately after an action, such as user abandoning a shopping cart or leaving a page.

Remember that bringing more people to your website doesn’t automatically translate to higher conversions. Be sure to track your conversions, make changes when necessary, and analyze your progress along the way. The conversions will follow as you engage in effective CRO.