A successful inbound marketing strategy must include conversion rate optimization (CRO). This is the sole purpose behind any marketers efforts – to get more conversions out of the visitors to a website. CRO is defined by Smashing Magazine as: “the process of improving the way a user interacts with a website to increase the chance that they will convert. Many factors affect conversion rates, from layout to color choice.” Here are five killer examples of conversion rate optimization…
Persuasive Rhetoric
Content plays a large role in swaying the actions of your website visitors. Ensure that you’re pushing action-oriented content within the body of your landing pages and homepage. A great rule that Unbounce provides around content is the following: “To increase conversions on your content-driven lead gen landing pages, add a preview of a key part of the content. People love the try-before-you-buy concept, and providing a preview (like Amazon’s “Look Inside”) instills trust that you are not hiding shoddy work behind a form wall.” Don’t forget that CTAs play a large role here as well, so test out multiple CTAs including specific button colors.
Add Any Review, Testimonials and Case Studies
Reviews, testimonials and case studies are the best way to illustrate the experiences other customers have had with your company. Show these off and also fish for them from happy customers. SalesNexus provides a great example of this done by WikiJob as they increased conversions by 34% and further state: “Testimonials are a great way to build trust and credibility. Because they show new visitors that people have already paid for what you’re selling and are happy with their results, they won’t feel like they’re taking a big risk.”
Content Personalization
What are new customers seeing when they come to your site vs. a returning visitor? Understanding buyer and visitor personas are important for conversion optimization. This is the key to giving your customers and prospects what they are looking for. Here’s a great personalization example provided by HubSpot in the case of a returning visitor:
37signals changed the design of their Highrise product page. Shown below, 37signals tested against a few different elements such as the background color, adding a person, shortening the page, and a cleaner design. As such, the background with the person stood out more, which increased conversions by 102.5%.
A/B Testing
Understanding what works best means that you’re making informed decisions via thorough testing to make your landing pages as well as homepage perform better. Here’s a great example done by Veeam Software:
Veeam Software ran a survey asking all visitors to their product pages, “What other information would you like to see on this page?” and a lot of answers said, “Pricing.” The company did not publish pricing information on their pages because they sell through partners and discounts given out by different partners may vary. However, they did have a “Request a quote” link that led to a Sales Inquiry form. The goal of the test was to increase click through rate to the sales inquiry page. So, they changed the link text from “Request a quote” to “Request pricing.” Doing this, increased conversions from .54% to 1.40%, equal to a 161.66% increase in click-through rate.
So what’s the takeaway here? Continual testing. To better understand the journey your customers take, you have to be patient with testing out any gut feelings you may have and then letting the data you collect determine the direction you need to go for the best results.
Psst. Check out 100 more conversion rate optimization case studies on KissMetrics
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