Conversion rate optimisation is one of the biggest keys to optimising your business’s website for success. But how exactly do you perform a CRO audit to find out where your business is sitting from a conversion rate perspective?

In this blog post, we’ll be looking at how you can perform your own CRO audit. Before we get into this though, let’s start by looking at what conversion rate optimisation actually is.

Essentially, conversion rate optimisation involves increasing the number of conversions you receive via your website. By “conversions”, this might mean the number of people who purchase a certain product, add a product to their cart or wish list, click a link, sign up to your mailing list, or fill out a form.

Conversion rate is calculated as the total number of conversions divided by the number of visitors multiplied by 100. On average, most websites tend to have a conversion rate of between 2.63 – 4.31%. If your website’s conversion rate is lower than this, it is likely that your website is poorly optimised for conversion.

Fortunately, there are a number of ways in which you can optimise your conversion rate. For example, you might:

• Implement high-converting pop-ups that command attention
• Add calls to action as a heading, line of text, or partway through blog posts rather than as banner ads (as banner ads are often ignored by visitors)
• Configure your advertising so that visitors see ads for your business on other webpages after leaving your site (known as “retargeting”)
• Send an abandoned cart email when a visitor navigates away from your site after adding products to their cart
• Create email workflows targeted to each stage of the consumer’s purchasing journey
• Add a live chat function
• Use A/B or split testing to inform design decisions (e.g. by showing two versions of a particular page to visitors at the same time, so you can see which performs better in terms of conversions)

Before you get started with any of this though, it is important that you first understand where your business is currently sitting from a conversion rate perspective. The main way in which you can determine this is by performing a conversion rate optimisation (or CRO) audit.

Conversion rate optimisation audits are just one of the services we offer at Tomedia. However, if you’d like to perform your own CRO audit, here’s how:

1.   Identify what your goals are. For example, are you wanting to increase overall sales? The number of people who purchase a certain product? The amount of visitors who click on a particular link? Whatever your goal, having a clear goal in mind will help you to develop a conversion rate optimisation strategy that is aligned with what you are wanting to achieve.

For example, if you own an e-commerce website, you might be wanting to sell more of an underselling product. In this situation, you might focus on interlinking, on-page calls to action, and website advertising (e.g. placing a major banner on the homepage directing visitors to the underperforming page).

All of these strategies will help to increase your conversion rate by driving website traffic to the underperforming product, which in turn will turn more leads into sales.

2.   Remember your customer. In addition to your goals, you will also want to think about who your current and future customers are. This will help you to determine what demographic or niche you will be targeting through your conversion rate optimisation strategy.

 It may also be helpful to consider customers as three main types:

• The instant purchasers (who come to your website with a clear goal: to buy a product)
• The customers who don’t buy straight away (who are researching, but aren’t looking to make a purchase immediately)
• The “needy” customers (who are ready to buy, but want all the information first before making a purchase)

Each of these customer types will also necessitate different conversion rate optimisation strategies. For example, calls to action work well if you are targeting instant purchasers, as these can help drive them to the key touchpoints of the purchasing journey. By comparison, retargeting would be a better option for customers who aren’t looking to buy straight away, as this will ensure your business sticks in their mind so they are more likely to come back to you when they are ready to buy. Finally, things like chatbots or live chat popups, FAQ pages, and questionnaires work best for “needy” customers.

3.   Remember where your main pull comes from. For example, do most of your customers find you organically or through paid advertising? Are most of your new visitors coming from other websites, search engines, social media, or links in email marketing campaigns?

All of these things will influence your conversion rate optimisation strategy, as you will of course want to gear this towards the channels that you are receiving the most pull from.

4.   Look at what your competitors are doing. This will provide you with a better idea of what works best for your product and industry.

For example, if your business is in fashion e-commerce, you will find that a lot of your competitors offer a live chat function, which is a great way to boost your conversion rate. This can be particularly helpful for those “needy” customers, as they are then able to get instant answers to their questions, meaning they’re less likely to navigate away from your site to find another that has the information they are looking for.

5.   Analyse, analyse, analyse. There are loads of tools out there that can provide you with information about what’s working and what’s not for your audience and target demographic. Google Analytics and Hotjar are two of our favourites.

You can also reach out to your customers directly (such as through feedback forms and questionnaires) to get their feedback. This is another great way to learn more about your customers, what they’re looking for, and what they do and don’t like about your website.

For example, if a lot of your customers are reporting back that they find your website hard to navigate or that they could not find the information they were looking for, this provides a big clue as to why your conversion rates aren’t looking as good as they could be! If you fix these major issues being reported by your customers, you’re likely to notice your conversion rates increase!

That’s everything! Based on the results of your CRO audit, you’ll then be able to start designing a strategy that will get your website optimised for conversions at all the right customer touchpoints.

Need help performing your conversion rate optimisation audit, or just need some ideas for ways to boost your current conversion rate? Get in touch with Tomedia today.