What is conversion optimization, or CRO?
What are conversions? How to get more conversions for an online store? How are conversions measured? What do all entrepreneurs need to know about conversion optimization?
A modern online store, which has invested in both search engine optimization and advertising campaigns, but the cash register is not ringing. Or the newly refurbished company website, which does not collect any more contacts than before.
If the above sounds familiar, you should look into conversion optimization.
Indeed, every entrepreneur and online retailer should understand at least something about conversion optimization, as it helps to increase website conversions, i.e., sales and contacts.
In this article, we explain what conversion optimization (CRO) really entails and how an entrepreneur can improve the productivity of an online store or website through conversion optimization.
Conversions are sought-after actions on websites
Let's start by briefly explaining what conversions are.
Conversions are any actions that the entrepreneur wants the website visitors to take.
Making a purchase in an online store, filling out a contact form, or joining a mailing list are some common examples of conversions.
Conversions also include things like registering on the site, clicking an affiliate link, and following a company's social media account. There are many different forms of conversions, and therefore the conversions sought on a website often depend on the goals of the company.
What is conversion optimization?
In simple terms, conversion optimization means increasing the productivity of a website or online store and thereby increasing a company's sales either directly (e.g., purchases from an online store) or indirectly (filling out a contact form).
In conversion optimization, you start by figuring out what produces conversions on your own website and what prevents them from happening. Based on the findings, you begin improving the conversion rate of the online store or website.
A higher conversion rate = more conversions. We will talk more about measuring the conversion rate at the end of this article.
In practice, raising the conversion rate happens by improving the site's quality and performance through various actions, which vary from site to site. Since every website is different, the conversion optimization of one site may include entirely different areas than another.
As professionals in conversion optimization, however, we continue to encounter recurring problems that almost every website's sales.
To help you identify the problems with your website and fix them as quickly as possible, we will next discuss the most common pitfalls that are probably present in your own online store as well.
The most common mistakes that hinder the creation of conversions
The communication on the online store or website is confusing
Too often, services and products are marketed on websites and social media in a way that even after a long story, no one other than the entrepreneur understands what is really being sold. Yet the power of clear communication is constantly underestimated.
The entrepreneur may not always be able to express their message in exactly the words that increase interest and trust in the company and convince the target audience to buy this product or service.
The most common mistake is to write dry, difficult-to-read text or text full of industry-specific terms that do not speak to the target audience on a personal level. Artificiality and contrived text also hinder sales because this way the company probably seems inauthentic and disreputable in the eyes of customers.
Confusion also arises when a company's communication is contradictory across different channels and, for example, social media communication does not correspond in any way to the company's website.
For these reasons, it would be advisable to work with a marketing professional to refine brand communication once and for all, but if desired, the entrepreneur can also clarify the communication themselves.
If you suspect the quality of your communication, a good trick is to ask for honest feedback on your company's website from someone who belongs to your target audience but is not familiar with the industry. You know you need to change communication if this person does not understand what your company does or is not particularly convinced by your offering.
The online store does not provide enough information to customers
In addition to clear communication, your online store or website should address the obstacles to buying that your target audience may have and most certainly does have.
Therefore, find out all the potential barriers to why your product or service could not be bought and the concerns related to making a purchase. Then remove the psychological obstacles to online shopping from the minds of customers by addressing the issue on the company's website and, for example, in a Frequently Asked Questions section.
Furthermore, it's advisable in the online store to emphasize free return rights, good customer service availability, and many payment options, if available (and hopefully they are).
It is also highly desirable to showcase positive customer experiences, as people trust and like to read reviews given by others. So remember to ask your customers for reviews!
The online store is not technically implemented correctly
Just a great product or service alone does not guarantee sales in an online world that is already teeming with great products and services. Even a single poorly executed aspect of an online store gives the visitor a reason to interrupt the purchase process or never start it in the first place.
A complicated structure, incorrect placement, mixed categories, lack of contact information, mandatory registration at checkout, and poor payment options are common mistakes that make a potential customer abandon the shopping cart.
An optimized online store structure, on the other hand, helps the customer find the desired product or service and encourages completing the purchase process.
To turn as many visitors as possible into paying customers, the purchasing threshold should be as low as possible. This means making it as effortless as possible for the customer to make a purchase, join a mailing list, or perform any other desired action in the online store.
The required clicks and key presses should be kept to a minimum, because the more hassle for the customer, the less sales for the company. And the opposite is true as well.
The entrepreneur should also ensure that the company's online store is user-friendly and that technical choices do not lead to stumbling blocks in the purchasing process at any stage.
Websites do not load properly or take too long to load
The recommended loading time for an online store or webpage is under two seconds. If your site's loading takes longer, it negatively affects the creation of conversions.
Since a potential customer can end up on any page on their first visit, in addition to the homepage, every other page must load quickly and work flawlessly. If the visitor has to wait too long for the website to load, they simply leave (likely moving on to the competitor's less frustrating, faster-functioning site).
Google also analyzes website load times. Fast sites have a better chance of appearing higher in organic search results and better results in paid advertising.
You can improve the loading time of your website easily by switching to a faster web host, utilizing server caching, optimizing website images, reducing the number of pop-ups and ads, removing unnecessary plugins, and switching to a simpler website theme.
Sometimes improving load time also requires modifying and/or cleaning up the site's code, so you may need a professional in the field to help with conversion optimization.
The online store does not use automation at all or enough
If you have a modern online store, you're probably already using different forms of automation.
But if for some reason you're still typing customer order confirmations and postal package codes manually, it's time to stop. Handling the order process manually is inefficient and time-consuming, and as an entrepreneur, you could surely spend that time on something else, such as growing sales.
Today, customers also expect an automatic order confirmation. If they do not receive it immediately after the transaction, the quality of the online store or the validity of the order may begin to be questioned. In the worst case, the customer cancels the order causing you lost income and additional hassle.
In a "better" case, the deals stay, but the positive customer experience suffers and you can't get the customer to return to your online store.
The entrepreneur should first and foremost automate at least the updating of product and price information in the online store, the updating of orders for the company or supplier, and the transfer of order information to the company's accounting. You can also automate the sending of various messages, campaigns, and customer feedback surveys.
Thanks to many integrations, online store automation can now be done very inexpensively.
The website does not have bots lowering the threshold for contact
When it comes to automation, websites should also take advantage of interactive bots that lower the customer's threshold for contacting the company.
For example, a chatbot in an online store helps quickly reach customer service in possible problem situations and thus ensure high customer satisfaction.
Service providers can also benefit from a lead bot, which aims to collect more contact information and assess the needs of potential customers for later contact.
This type of bot can also be used to accelerate recruitment, for example.
The website creation has been left unfinished
One often encounters websites and stores where spelling errors, empty sections, draft versions of texts, and buttons or links that do not work or lead nowhere are found.
Entire pages, such as About Us sections, are published with "Lorem ipsum" filler text and theme images (often unrelated to the company's activities) provided.
This happens especially when an entrepreneur is in a hurry to create websites or their contents themselves and does not have time to check them properly. Rushing is certainly understandable for an entrepreneur, but unfortunately, mistakes on a website look unprofessional and erode a potential customer's trust in the company.
From a customer's point of view, the company's offerings can't be particularly high-quality if the website or store is sloppily done or not properly checked. Details matter and should not be overlooked, especially when your goal is to improve conversions.
If you are making your website or its content yourself, remember to check it several times. Proofread the site's texts, check images, and test all links and buttons at least 3, 5, or even ten times.
The entrepreneur should also leave some time between checking because it is easy to become blind to one's own mistakes. Additionally, it would be good to ask someone else, such as employees or an acquaintance who understands grammar, to proofread the website once more.
If you have ordered a website and/or content production from a professional company, all of this is usually done for you, but you can still confirm with the partner company.
New and old customers do not receive offers from you
Personalization promotes the creation of conversions by facilitating customer shopping and providing them with individualized service online. Therefore, it should be utilized as much as possible in the design of offers for new and old customers.
Once you have embraced automation in your online store, you can also use the customer's name in messages, communicate at just the right time, for example, soon after the shopping cart is abandoned, and remember their birthday.
A personal offer valid for a certain time after the shopping cart price is accepted encourages last-minute purchases and promotes the completion of the purchase.
Then when the customer has bought from you once, you should give them a reason to come back to the online store. You can do this, for example, by offering the customer an exclusive discount code attached to the company's newsletter or invoice.
A limited-time offer usually generates more sales than an offer that is always valid, as the latter is easy to ponder for a longer time and eventually forget.
Conversion rate as an aid to the entrepreneur in measuring website conversions
The entrepreneur can measure conversions of the online store or website with the help of the conversion rate before and after conversion optimization. As previously stated, the conversion rate or conversion rate tells you how many visitors perform the desired action.
The conversion rate on the website is calculated by dividing the number of conversions by the total number of visitors, and in advertising by the number of people who interacted with the campaign.
For example, if 25 out of 500 people who reacted to the ad perform the desired action, the conversion rate is 5%, because 25 : 500 = 2%.
Similarly, a 3% conversion means that out of 100 page visitors, 3 convert, i.e., make a purchase or perform another targeted action.
A good conversion rate is between 2-5 percent
A conversion rate of at least 2-5 percent is considered good.
If the conversion rate of your online store or website does not reach this level or otherwise serve your company's goals, it can fortunately be increased through well-executed conversion optimization.
In addition to just measuring the conversion rate, every entrepreneur should really understand all the factors that affect the conversion rate of the online store or website because without this knowledge, the site will never generate the desired results.
Conversion optimization includes various actions aimed at improving the website depending on the starting situation, and by performing them, the entrepreneur can increase the sales of the online store or, for example, increase contacts.
To achieve the set goals faster, it would be ideal to refine all areas of the website at once, but of course, this is not always possible due to resources.
However, when it comes to conversion optimization, it is better to do a little sooner than nothing at all, as sometimes even the smallest changes can result in the biggest results.
We hope that with these tips you can now identify the worst purchasing pitfalls in your online store or website and improve its productivity!
If you need professional help with conversion optimization, contact us. Let's map out your growth goals together and how to achieve them in line with your budget.
What is conversion optimization, or CRO?
What are conversions? How to get more conversions for an online store? How are conversions measured? What do all entrepreneurs need to know about conversion optimization?
A modern online store, which has invested in both search engine optimization and advertising campaigns, but the cash register is not ringing. Or the newly refurbished company website, which does not collect any more contacts than before.
If the above sounds familiar, you should look into conversion optimization.
Indeed, every entrepreneur and online retailer should understand at least something about conversion optimization, as it helps to increase website conversions, i.e., sales and contacts.
In this article, we explain what conversion optimization (CRO) really entails and how an entrepreneur can improve the productivity of an online store or website through conversion optimization.
Conversions are sought-after actions on websites
Let's start by briefly explaining what conversions are.
Conversions are any actions that the entrepreneur wants the website visitors to take.
Making a purchase in an online store, filling out a contact form, or joining a mailing list are some common examples of conversions.
Conversions also include things like registering on the site, clicking an affiliate link, and following a company's social media account. There are many different forms of conversions, and therefore the conversions sought on a website often depend on the goals of the company.
What is conversion optimization?
In simple terms, conversion optimization means increasing the productivity of a website or online store and thereby increasing a company's sales either directly (e.g., purchases from an online store) or indirectly (filling out a contact form).
In conversion optimization, you start by figuring out what produces conversions on your own website and what prevents them from happening. Based on the findings, you begin improving the conversion rate of the online store or website.
A higher conversion rate = more conversions. We will talk more about measuring the conversion rate at the end of this article.
In practice, raising the conversion rate happens by improving the site's quality and performance through various actions, which vary from site to site. Since every website is different, the conversion optimization of one site may include entirely different areas than another.
As professionals in conversion optimization, however, we continue to encounter recurring problems that almost every website's sales.
To help you identify the problems with your website and fix them as quickly as possible, we will next discuss the most common pitfalls that are probably present in your own online store as well.
The most common mistakes that hinder the creation of conversions
The communication on the online store or website is confusing
Too often, services and products are marketed on websites and social media in a way that even after a long story, no one other than the entrepreneur understands what is really being sold. Yet the power of clear communication is constantly underestimated.
The entrepreneur may not always be able to express their message in exactly the words that increase interest and trust in the company and convince the target audience to buy this product or service.
The most common mistake is to write dry, difficult-to-read text or text full of industry-specific terms that do not speak to the target audience on a personal level. Artificiality and contrived text also hinder sales because this way the company probably seems inauthentic and disreputable in the eyes of customers.
Confusion also arises when a company's communication is contradictory across different channels and, for example, social media communication does not correspond in any way to the company's website.
For these reasons, it would be advisable to work with a marketing professional to refine brand communication once and for all, but if desired, the entrepreneur can also clarify the communication themselves.
If you suspect the quality of your communication, a good trick is to ask for honest feedback on your company's website from someone who belongs to your target audience but is not familiar with the industry. You know you need to change communication if this person does not understand what your company does or is not particularly convinced by your offering.
The online store does not provide enough information to customers
In addition to clear communication, your online store or website should address the obstacles to buying that your target audience may have and most certainly does have.
Therefore, find out all the potential barriers to why your product or service could not be bought and the concerns related to making a purchase. Then remove the psychological obstacles to online shopping from the minds of customers by addressing the issue on the company's website and, for example, in a Frequently Asked Questions section.
Furthermore, it's advisable in the online store to emphasize free return rights, good customer service availability, and many payment options, if available (and hopefully they are).
It is also highly desirable to showcase positive customer experiences, as people trust and like to read reviews given by others. So remember to ask your customers for reviews!
The online store is not technically implemented correctly
Just a great product or service alone does not guarantee sales in an online world that is already teeming with great products and services. Even a single poorly executed aspect of an online store gives the visitor a reason to interrupt the purchase process or never start it in the first place.
A complicated structure, incorrect placement, mixed categories, lack of contact information, mandatory registration at checkout, and poor payment options are common mistakes that make a potential customer abandon the shopping cart.
An optimized online store structure, on the other hand, helps the customer find the desired product or service and encourages completing the purchase process.
To turn as many visitors as possible into paying customers, the purchasing threshold should be as low as possible. This means making it as effortless as possible for the customer to make a purchase, join a mailing list, or perform any other desired action in the online store.
The required clicks and key presses should be kept to a minimum, because the more hassle for the customer, the less sales for the company. And the opposite is true as well.
The entrepreneur should also ensure that the company's online store is user-friendly and that technical choices do not lead to stumbling blocks in the purchasing process at any stage.
Websites do not load properly or take too long to load
The recommended loading time for an online store or webpage is under two seconds. If your site's loading takes longer, it negatively affects the creation of conversions.
Since a potential customer can end up on any page on their first visit, in addition to the homepage, every other page must load quickly and work flawlessly. If the visitor has to wait too long for the website to load, they simply leave (likely moving on to the competitor's less frustrating, faster-functioning site).
Google also analyzes website load times. Fast sites have a better chance of appearing higher in organic search results and better results in paid advertising.
You can improve the loading time of your website easily by switching to a faster web host, utilizing server caching, optimizing website images, reducing the number of pop-ups and ads, removing unnecessary plugins, and switching to a simpler website theme.
Sometimes improving load time also requires modifying and/or cleaning up the site's code, so you may need a professional in the field to help with conversion optimization.
The online store does not use automation at all or enough
If you have a modern online store, you're probably already using different forms of automation.
But if for some reason you're still typing customer order confirmations and postal package codes manually, it's time to stop. Handling the order process manually is inefficient and time-consuming, and as an entrepreneur, you could surely spend that time on something else, such as growing sales.
Today, customers also expect an automatic order confirmation. If they do not receive it immediately after the transaction, the quality of the online store or the validity of the order may begin to be questioned. In the worst case, the customer cancels the order causing you lost income and additional hassle.
In a "better" case, the deals stay, but the positive customer experience suffers and you can't get the customer to return to your online store.
The entrepreneur should first and foremost automate at least the updating of product and price information in the online store, the updating of orders for the company or supplier, and the transfer of order information to the company's accounting. You can also automate the sending of various messages, campaigns, and customer feedback surveys.
Thanks to many integrations, online store automation can now be done very inexpensively.
The website does not have bots lowering the threshold for contact
When it comes to automation, websites should also take advantage of interactive bots that lower the customer's threshold for contacting the company.
For example, a chatbot in an online store helps quickly reach customer service in possible problem situations and thus ensure high customer satisfaction.
Service providers can also benefit from a lead bot, which aims to collect more contact information and assess the needs of potential customers for later contact.
This type of bot can also be used to accelerate recruitment, for example.
The website creation has been left unfinished
One often encounters websites and stores where spelling errors, empty sections, draft versions of texts, and buttons or links that do not work or lead nowhere are found.
Entire pages, such as About Us sections, are published with "Lorem ipsum" filler text and theme images (often unrelated to the company's activities) provided.
This happens especially when an entrepreneur is in a hurry to create websites or their contents themselves and does not have time to check them properly. Rushing is certainly understandable for an entrepreneur, but unfortunately, mistakes on a website look unprofessional and erode a potential customer's trust in the company.
From a customer's point of view, the company's offerings can't be particularly high-quality if the website or store is sloppily done or not properly checked. Details matter and should not be overlooked, especially when your goal is to improve conversions.
If you are making your website or its content yourself, remember to check it several times. Proofread the site's texts, check images, and test all links and buttons at least 3, 5, or even ten times.
The entrepreneur should also leave some time between checking because it is easy to become blind to one's own mistakes. Additionally, it would be good to ask someone else, such as employees or an acquaintance who understands grammar, to proofread the website once more.
If you have ordered a website and/or content production from a professional company, all of this is usually done for you, but you can still confirm with the partner company.
New and old customers do not receive offers from you
Personalization promotes the creation of conversions by facilitating customer shopping and providing them with individualized service online. Therefore, it should be utilized as much as possible in the design of offers for new and old customers.
Once you have embraced automation in your online store, you can also use the customer's name in messages, communicate at just the right time, for example, soon after the shopping cart is abandoned, and remember their birthday.
A personal offer valid for a certain time after the shopping cart price is accepted encourages last-minute purchases and promotes the completion of the purchase.
Then when the customer has bought from you once, you should give them a reason to come back to the online store. You can do this, for example, by offering the customer an exclusive discount code attached to the company's newsletter or invoice.
A limited-time offer usually generates more sales than an offer that is always valid, as the latter is easy to ponder for a longer time and eventually forget.
Conversion rate as an aid to the entrepreneur in measuring website conversions
The entrepreneur can measure conversions of the online store or website with the help of the conversion rate before and after conversion optimization. As previously stated, the conversion rate or conversion rate tells you how many visitors perform the desired action.
The conversion rate on the website is calculated by dividing the number of conversions by the total number of visitors, and in advertising by the number of people who interacted with the campaign.
For example, if 25 out of 500 people who reacted to the ad perform the desired action, the conversion rate is 5%, because 25 : 500 = 2%.
Similarly, a 3% conversion means that out of 100 page visitors, 3 convert, i.e., make a purchase or perform another targeted action.
A good conversion rate is between 2-5 percent
A conversion rate of at least 2-5 percent is considered good.
If the conversion rate of your online store or website does not reach this level or otherwise serve your company's goals, it can fortunately be increased through well-executed conversion optimization.
In addition to just measuring the conversion rate, every entrepreneur should really understand all the factors that affect the conversion rate of the online store or website because without this knowledge, the site will never generate the desired results.
Conversion optimization includes various actions aimed at improving the website depending on the starting situation, and by performing them, the entrepreneur can increase the sales of the online store or, for example, increase contacts.
To achieve the set goals faster, it would be ideal to refine all areas of the website at once, but of course, this is not always possible due to resources.
However, when it comes to conversion optimization, it is better to do a little sooner than nothing at all, as sometimes even the smallest changes can result in the biggest results.
We hope that with these tips you can now identify the worst purchasing pitfalls in your online store or website and improve its productivity!
If you need professional help with conversion optimization, contact us. Let's map out your growth goals together and how to achieve them in line with your budget.