The major goal of any marketing campaign is to convert.
While it might come off as easy to some and complicated to others, conversion mechanism is no rocket science. It’s the actual optimization which gets people in sweat.
And while investing money (when invested right) can reward you with higher conversion rates, not every individual or business owner can afford to go that way.
To make things easier for marketers just starting off with CRO (conversion rate optimization), here we talk about some affordable and effective CRO techniques.
Awesome CRO Techniques that won’t leave you broke
When you try to optimize conversion rates keep the following techniques in mind.
1. Start with targeting
Do you know your audience? Are you aware of what they want? Can you be very very specific about their needs?
Well, if you can be, then this is where you start.
The first thing that any marketing campaign in the world needs to be is ‘targeted’. Targeted to the specific set of people who might be interested in the product or content being promoted.
If you’ve ever run a Facebook ad, you already know this. Not being aware of who you are talking to might bring ambiguity to your campaign. And of course, lost money!
That’s why Facebook, Google and all the other ad platforms provide you with different demographic options. Not being able to use these right can result in poor ROI.
To do it right analyze your audience behavior. Know your content. Know what is performing better. And use your campaigns’ analytics’ data to know how different sections of audiences react to your content/products/campaigns.
For example, all ad platforms provide advertisers with performance stats about their ad campaigns.
This data includes all the important information (audience’s reactions to your campaign sorted by different demographics) about your audience and how they reacted to the campaign.
For a better understanding, have a look at the screenshot below.
The part highlighted in red is the breakdown menu for an Ad Campaign. It lets you choose the demographics (age/gender/location etc) which you want to see the campaign’s results for.
Once you have this data, you can use it to optimize your conversion campaign by hyper-targeting your audience for each ad campaign that you run..
The aim is to target the right audience so you don’t spend money showing ads to people who won’t convert.
You can’t sell a car to school kids, right?
2. The right content
Content is king and always will be.
Moving further, no matter what platform we talk about, they are all evolving. All the time.
Their aim is to deliver the best user experience and weed out click-baits and thin content. If you haven’t already been doing this, it’s the time you start focusing on leveling up your content game.
Now the questions rises. What makes good content ‘good’?
Writing to optimize your conversion rate, keep the points below in mind.
- Be clear with words: This is the first great thing you can do with your content.
The aim of your content isn’t to make your users think or guess. You aim at helping, solving a purpose or a problem. That can’t be done by being ambiguous.
So, keep it simple. Keep it attractive.
- Be concise: This is how you create persuasive content.
Readers on the web are impatient. Nobody wants to read huge blocks of text. We have all been there, right?
That’s why the ability to deliver more useful information in lesser words is valued.
Try it out for your content. Shorten sentences. Shorten paragraphs. Add videos where it seems adequate. And you’ll see your audience love you for this.
- Be compelling: Because at the end of the day that’s what we have to do. Compel the readers so we can convert them into users. Give them a reason to take action.
How to do it?
Keeping it concise, try to make sense with every word you include. Look out for content that persuades you. Observe them and find out what they have in common.
Mostly, it is the way the author speaks. It seems like they are talking to the reader. Evoking a belief in the readers that the author is trying to help them.
Just as they do it, you can do it too. Talk to your readers and solve their problems.
That’s another step to push them down the conversion funnel.
3. Use the right images
Another way to optimize your conversion rate is by using the right images. What makes an appropriate image?
The right image for any conversion campaign will depend on factors like the target audience and the product which is being promoted.
For example, a company manufacturing bathing showers would have a high quality image on their landing page which would revolve around their niche, i.e., bathing showers.
Now, that goes without saying, right? Maybe yes and maybe no!
While, the picture will be related to the niche, what emotion does it have to evoke?
Pictures say a thousand words… You need to think through what message you want an image to send. Before you move ahead, understand the emotion which a viewer/visitor/potential user will or might look at your converting page with. Then you can use that knowledge to incorporate images which gel well with your content and also keep your visitors engaged.
For a better understanding let us look at the A/B test that this Dutch house-selling firm ran by replacing just an image.
So, earlier their landing page had an image of a woman saying ‘Need help?’.
In the first go, nothing seems wrong. The form is short. Text is concise. Flow seems easy too. But then there is this image.
Although, it is nice and inflicts a sense that the company wants to help. But then it’s just nice; and just nice doesn’t beat the competition.
The firm realized this and replaced the image with one of a man placing a board saying ‘Sold’ over the one saying ‘For Sale’.
As we see, there were no other changes made. Only one image was replaced. This one change rewarded them with a 89% hike in the conversion rate. Crazy, right?
It all starts with understanding how an image can greatly affect your conversion campaign and how you can use it for your benefit.
4. Think beyond the small changes
Every marketing campaign includes various tests which are carried out to find out what works the best for that particular campaign.
While, for these tests you might need to try different settings, when you intend to achieve some long term goals, make sure you focus on changes which bring in some long-lasting profits for your campaign.
No doubt that doing a bit of tweaking to a Call-To-Action can bump up your conversion rates in the short-run. But, in the long run, this one change won’t do that much.
So what are those big changes?
Well, some of the biggest changes that you need to bring in to your conversion campaign are as follows.
Work on website speed
We’ve heard it time and again. Nearly half of the daily internet users log off from a website that takes longer than 2 seconds to load.
Apart from that a recent study concluded that a second of delay in page load time can cause 11% fewer pageviews, a 16% decrease in satisfaction, & 7% loss in conversions.
Some serious loss, right?
That makes website speed really crucial. And how can you work it up? Well, it’s easy to start with.
First take a website loading speed test on GTMetrix.com or Google Pagespeed Insights.
These will give you a detailed report of your website’s loading speed, including a diagnosis of problems.
Armed with this knowledge, you can go through the list of problems and solve them one by one to increase page load speed and, thus, conversions.
Note: This process might require you to get into the cPanel of your website. If you are not experienced with the same, it’d be better to consult someone who is. Screwing up the cPanel might mean screwing up the whole website.
Keep it easy to use
That is how you make your user’s journey easy.
A very very useful website can be beaten by a less useful website if the later one is really easy to use.
To lube your conversion funnel, you need to make your website easy to use.
Have a look at your website. Ask your friends for their opinions. Think of the different reactions which a user might have while using your website. If any of those reactions seem negative, find out why it feels that way and fix that issue.
You can also use explainer videos to make your user’s journey easy.
Get rid of the clutter
This is another important thing that you really need to do if you are trying to convert.
Overloading your prospects with tons of data and unnecessary information won’t lead you anywhere. Instead, it will turn them down.
You might even have come across landing pages which are totally filled up with data, numbers, small images, ugly text, banner ads, pop-ups and what not!
Does it seem like an intelligent strategy? Not really.
It’s like suicide bombing your conversion campaign by giving your visitors more reasons to be distracted off of your landing page’s main content.
For a better understanding, refer to these two different landing pages targeting the same audience.
Source
What feeling does this landing page inflict? Does it look like a decent landing page? Not really. It’s heavily overloaded with content, distracting the users from the main motto.
The designer definitely overdid it while a simple approach like the one in the next picture could have worked really well.
Source
As you can see, this landing page is clearer than the former one. With no clutter. More useful information. Easy to go through and easy to locate the lead form. Everything is simple and on point.
That’s how a landing page should be. Free from clutter and on point.
5. Fix the color scheme
The color scheme of your landing page matters a great deal.
While a good color scheme makes your content easy to comprehend, something too shady or tacky can instantly turn users off.
But what is the perfect color scheme for your landing page?
First things first, it needs to go well with your website’s design and theme.
Think about it, if the main color scheme of your website includes red and white, a landing page with too much black or blue or something on the similar lines might not work that well.
It’s too much contrast. What you can do instead is think how color psychology works.
An average web user takes less than 50 milliseconds to form an impression about a webpage. The feeling which your colors evoke contributes greatly to this impression.
Colors on your website also affect readability. If your website’s background and font colors do not gel up, users are going to have a tough time reading through your website.
To ensure that nothing like that happens pick the background and font colors wisely.
Most websites use white background and black text. It’s simple and soothing to eyes too.
6. Advanced Search > Normal Search
Search bars and navigation menus are not for landing pages.
A good landing page is supposed to hold the prospects and centre their attention to the offer.
Adding a search bar or navigation menu on the landing page can distract the users. This can result in a higher bounce rate and less conversions.
What you can do instead is incorporate an advanced search bar on your landing page.
Also, if you customize and keep it highly relevant, with your prospects’ interests in mind, an advanced search bar can be of great value.
Know how Amazon and Ebay use advanced search options?
The moment you make a search with the keyword “smart phone”, thousands of search results will be displayed. Along with those, one side of the page will have advanced search options.
From these options you can choose the Budget that you want to stay within, Brand(s) of your choice, Screen size, Operating system, RAM, ROM, and most of the features one can think of!
This is advanced search.
Its purpose is to make the user’s journey easy. Let them sort what they want. Give them choices which entertain their interest but also lead them to your products.
This can work really well on the users who are approaching the end of conversion funnel.
Final words: 80/20 of Conversion Rate Optimization
A good conversion rate is a necessity for an online business. The more you are able to convert, the more you will earn. .
While a conversion campaign might not be converting adequately, there are some CRO techniques which always work. The best part is that these don’t cost the earth.
In this article we tried to talk about some of those CRO techniques which won’t leave you broke. Crafting thoughtful content for a specific audience and focusing on the major keys to conversion will help you get more conversions without costing you much.