Conversion rate optimisation (CRO) is the process of enhancing your content for conversion. In other words, encouraging users to take a specific, measurable action in-line with your business goals. This may be newsletter sign-ups, online sales or free trial downloads. There are 5 key steps to CRO that are quick and easy to implement.
1. Hooks And Grammar
You sent a tweet about your latest blog post and got somebody to click through to your website – well done! Now like the proverbial first 3 seconds of a job interview, you have about the same amount of time to encourage your visitor to keep reading. An attention grabbing hook is the only thing that is going to spark your visitor’s interest.
However one good hook does not a great article make. You need to make sure each sentence encourages your visitor to keep reading and not fall asleep, or worse, click away!
The other vital component that will immediately turn off your visitor is bad grammar. There’s no excuse. English not your strong suit? Add Grammarly to your Chrome extensions if you really find it tricky. Heck, add it to your Chrome extensions even if you are a true grammar nut.
Read More: 5 Essential Steps To Copywriting Success
2. Aesthetics And Readability
Your words are now top notch and ready to grab attention, but your page has got to look nice and be easily readable too. This means ensuring your sentences and paragraphs are short, your language is easy to understand (not full of jargon – says the content marketer…). Check that there’s ample space between your paragraphs, your page flows well and your text columns are narrow enough to scan comfortably (if you have to move your head to read a line, it’s too wide!).
3. UX And Usability
You have your cracking copy and it looks great too, now you need to make sure your content is easy to engage with from a technical perspective. Be sure that links are working and navigation is simple. To please your visitors (and Google) ensure that your website is mobile responsive and that your web page is clean, simple and not distracting (Google will now penalise websites for using excessive on-page distractions such as lightboxes and ads).
4. Link Building
Our CRO focus up until this point has been primarily about the ‘housekeeping’ of good content. The nitty gritty tricks that should directly impact your conversion rate are links and calls-to-action (CTAs). Internally, you should link to any products or other web pages that are relevant to your content. Externally, you should try to build reciprocal link relationships with any suppliers/partners/third parties that you mention and are relevant to your content. Building links helps to improve your website’s domain authority and thus its organic visibility.
5. Calls-To-Action
Finally, the key ingredient to any recipe for CRO success is the use of clear CTAs. These are the (subtle) flashing neon signs telling your visitors exactly what you want them to do. Think about these carefully. Not enough CTAs – your user is likely to bounce (giving your content a disproportionately high bounce rate). Too many different CTAs – your user will be completely perplexed and probably bounce too.
What are your specific goals and how can your CTAs aid these? Are you trying to drive sales? Direct your user to a specific product. Are you trying to boost data capture? Incentivise your user for newsletter sign up. Are you trying to increase downloads of your free trial? Include an obvious CTA that directly states this. From a design perspective, a CTA should be a clear button in an obvious colour that stands out from the rest of the page and screams, “Shop Now,” “Browse Collection,” or “Buy Today.”
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