Time to Rethink Your Conversion Rate Optimization! 5 More Great Tips [Part 2]
Last week, I shared five great ways to breathe life into your Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO). To recap, CRO is the process of increasing user engagement to lead to conversion or any other desired action such as subscribing to an email list.
Today, I’m going to share five more great ways to squeeze a few more percentage points out of your conversion rate:
1. Analyze the Funnel
Google Analytics is full of insightful gems for your online marketing efforts. One such treasure is the funnel visualization report which collects data including how many people are visiting your site, which pages they visit, and at what points they drop out of the funnel.
Review this report regularly as it often tells you where your CRO efforts are most needed. Some questions you can ask yourself when you have identified potential pain points are:
- Is it a slow loading page?
- A broken credit card field?
- Typos that make customers lose trust before giving your their payment information?
- Too much copy that gets confusing?
- Half the fields missing from view on a mobile device?
Figure it out, fix it, and make it easy for your customers to start converting again.
2. Follow the User
Heat map software like Hotjar can help you see where users are engaging on your page. When you pair this with your Google Analytics funnel visualization report, you can diagnose issues even more efficiently.
3. Target then Retarget
You do a lot of work to target the right customers. A little squeeze from retargeting can get you a much higher return for your efforts. Add Facebook and Google Adwords Pixels to your website so you can dynamically retarget customers once they leave your site. Just be sure that your remarketing ads are designed for that specific purpose.
Online mattress retailer Purple’s Facebook retargeting ad would suit a customer who did not make a purchase based on cost. This 0% APR financing ad can encourage the customer to spend on this big-ticket purchase of a new bed:
4. Talk to Your Customer
No, really – talk to them. According to Kissmetrics, if your conversion rate is below 2%, you should implement a chat solution immediately. Live chats and chat bots provide on-demand assistance for your customers and immediate feedback for you on a potential pain point. Do bear in mind that for Live Chat to work, you need to respond immediately and be available 24/7. Otherwise, it’s not really live and as a result you are not meeting expectations (see tip #2).
Utilizing while also promoting their own product, live chat software company SnapEngage pops up a helpful Live Chat immediately upon arrival to address any possible questions.
5. Use Tricks
No matter your industry, there are certain tricks that just plain work. Review the following and see if you’ve forgotten any of these best practices:
- Create urgency. Add a countdown timer for an exclusive promo code. Include “Only 2 left!” in red or generate a popup that says someone just bought it, as in this example from Handcrafted Honeybee:
- Highlight your CTA. Draw eyes towards the button with a bright color. Using images of people with their eyes looking at the button also encourages users to click.
- Get rid of distractions. Remove the main navigation from your landing page.
- Simplify the form. Your landing page is not the place to gather detailed demographic information so don’t get greedy with your form field. Only ask for the essential information you need – you can always ask for more later.
- Use power words. Crazy Egg’s got a list of 62 for you to choose from. Words like “Last Chance!” and “Now” create urgency, “Backed by” and “Certified” instill trust and “Members Only” and “Become an insider” promote exclusivity.
- Stay above-the-fold. Your most important information and especially the CTA button should all be visible – the user shouldn’t have to scroll down to see them.
- Don’t let them leave without a final offer. If a person scrolls to leave, throw up an exit pop-up with an extra 20% off coupon. It may seem desperate, but it works. You can also reemphasize a pain point and how you can solve it- “It only takes 80 seconds to sign up!”
Conclusion
Whether you want more site visits, leads, sales, or subscribers, CRO should inform all aspects of your marketing strategy. Try out some of the tips above and start enjoying a higher conversion rate!
