Whether you are new to the world of online content marketing or just are not that up-to-date with certain fields, you might not have heard of Conversion Rate Optimization.
While it can be an incredibly valuable service and goal to pursue, it is important to understand what it means before you rush into hiring a specialist. But what is CRO, and how does it apply to your website as a whole?
What is Conversion Rate Optimization?
Conversion Rate Optimization is the overall practice of increasing the percentage of users that perform a certain action. This could be something like an app download, a sign-up, or entering their details into an online form.
In simple terms, CRO is focused on making more people do something that benefits your business or site. To do this, you often have to leverage your understanding of your customers and visitors, using that knowledge to nudge them in the right direction.
Think of CRO as a set of processes or tactics that you use to get people to do things that will benefit your business. While the specifics of how, when, and why you do it will be different between each business and project, the goal is always the same basic concept applied in completely different ways.
How Does CRO Benefit a Business?
Traffic is always the first concern of any online business since you need people visiting your platform to actually make sales or other conversions. However, more traffic does not help if none of the visitors are actually engaging with what you’re providing them – 10,000 visitors per year is not that impressive if only 100 actually buy anything.
The general goal of CRO is to make your business more successful by pushing for higher conversion rates. By doing so, you are more likely to hit your ROI targets, meaning that you will ultimately be making more money and seeing greater success among whatever audiences you are targeting.
Remember that conversions do not all have to be immediate money-makers. Getting somebody to register for a regular newsletter will not generate any money directly, but it can help draw them in as a customer and potentially secure repeat business long after their initial purchase on your site.
What Does CRO Involve?
The complex part of CRO is that it needs to be varied for each company. Not all techniques work with all businesses, and sometimes a business needs to use very specific or bespoke tactics to grow its audience and drive further engagement.
This also varies based on your actual goal. For example, getting users to sign up for a newsletter takes very different incentives than trying to make them purchase a product, but both can fall under CRO since they are both potential types of conversion.
Professional companies like Convertica CRO Services are usually a great place to turn for guidance since these companies have had a lot of experience in the field. They understand what works and what does not and can usually tailor a particular strategy to suit each client’s specific goals and needs.
