Conversion optimisation

That depends on your website. A conversion is any action a user can complete on your website from which you extract some value. This may be in the form of a sale. It may be a white paper download or an enquiry form submission. Conversion Rate Optimisation or CRO is the process of maximising the proportion of website visitors who complete one or more of these actions. By making relatively small gains in multiple areas we aim to make substantial improvements to the profitabilty of your online business.

This is typically not necessary, it can be in extreme cases but mostly we are able to make measurable impact through incremental improvements to the site. Typically gains come from :

• Improved site content (language, calls to action, USP promotion etc.)
• Better site navigation & structure
• Cosmetic improvements
• Improvements to key processes such as checkout and forms
• Fixing fundamental usability issues

This all has to happen within the context of the multiple user types and personas that make up your customer base. We have developed a holistic approach to analysing the performance of your site and marketing efforts from nose to tail.  Our framework looks something like this:

We start where the user starts: the landing page. If your landing pages aren't enticing/enabling users to pass to continue on their journey, the rest of your website won't get a chance to shine. By analysing the user's route to any given landing page we are able to understand their motives and objectives. Ensuring that the correct content is visible and that landing pages have clear communication of your USPs and a clear call to action is half the battle.

If you have an ecommerce website then chances are you have identified a conversion or checkout funnel. Ensuring there are no roadblocks on the route to purchase is absolutely fundamental to any ecommerce CRO project. Funnel data analysis, usability testing and user surveys attack this problem from 3 angles.
 

This is not a problem - B2B or non-transactional websites can of course be optimised. The thing to remember is that even the best websites may only get a conversion rate of 5%.

That means that unless you are using proxies for performance measurement you are losing 95% of all of the insight you can gain on your user base. Proxies may be as simple as time on site or pageview targets, however it is worth thinking about micro conversions such as white paper downloads, video plays, or social media interactions. The macro conversions should be more obvious as they are what pays the bills.

In addition to tracking lead forms or emails, did you know that there are relatively inexpensive tools to help you measure the calls you receive down to keyword and traffic source level?