Conversion optimization cro practices

Best Practices &
Actionable Items

Conversion Optimization Practices
by Harekrishna Patel 12/12/2012 1

 Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is the art and science of
persuading your site visitors to take actions that benefit
you, by making a purchase, offering a donation, or
committing to some positive future action.
Art Science
Graphics Consumer psychology

Visual appeal Experiments & testing


 With the conversion optimization practice, you can increase
your orders, leads or signups within the same advertising
spends.
Pay-per-click monthly spend: Same Pay-per-click monthly spend:
$1,000 $1,000

Number of visitors (i.e., click- Same Number of visitors (i.e., click-
through): 350 through): 350

Conversion rate: 2% Conversion rate: 10%

Number of leads obtained (350 * Number of leads obtained (350 *
2%): 7 leads 10%): 35 leads

Average cost per lead ($1,000/7): Average cost per lead ($1,000/35):
$142.85 per lead $28.57 per lead


 An increase in sales, revenues, and profits

 The generation of more leads for your sales team

 Boosting “opt-ins” to build your email list

 Reduction of customer acquisition costs

 More page views for advertising

 Engagement of more users

 A permanent improvement to conversion rates


A. Applying persuasive techniques
B. Applying principles of usability, design and testing


1. Show your customers if they don’t buy today, they will lose.
 Only 10 tickets remain.

 Offer valid upto 31th Dec.

2. Decide what is correct by observing what other people think
is correct.
 1,500+ customers are using our product already.

 500+ satisfied clients across the world.

 People who shopped this product also looked at…


3. Offer a small gift and ask a favor to do something.
 Ask for a name, company name, title, email and phone
number against download a free whitepaper.

4. If a free gift provided, make sure they know the value of the
gift.
 “Download a Free EBook Worth of $49.00” instead of
“Download a Free EBook” only.

5. Personalized - make them feel special.
 Request for a custom quote or custom plan.


6. Ask for a very small step. This will start things for bigger
steps later.
 Enter your Name & Email. Later ask for company name, title
or problems.

7. Similarities make for better likes and better persuasion.
 Similar products you may like.

8. Perceptual contrasts – make this thing seem like something
else.
 Showing an image of money when you are offering money
saving related services.


9. Ask a question to take the action.
 Is your computer safe from hackers? Take a Free Trial Now.

10. Because. Give reasons for action.
 Subscribe for a newsletter to increase the sales.


1. Understand the visitors
 Understanding the visitors you are targeting on a landing
page.

 Selection of keywords: e.g. drive traffic from organic
results, Pay per Click.

 Publisher networks: e.g. banner or text advertising on news
sites, magazines, blogs, forums.


 Value proposition is single most important element in
increase the conversions. Value proposition associates with
your brand and target customers.

 Focus on specific customer segment, consider who are not
going to serve & tradeoff your services and products.


Answers to questions to create value proposition

 If I am your prospect, why I should buy from you rather than any
one of your competitors?

 Who is the potential customer you want to attract to your site?

 Why would your customers choose your product or service?

 Why would your customers choose your company over your
competitors?

 What are the top five objections that stop customers from buying
the type of product or service you offer?


Few techniques for getting value proposition

 Focus on your “Only” factor

 Provide clear evidential

 Differentiate you in the competition

 Offer top 5 reasons to buy your services/products or
company over your competitors


 Make sure that customers arrive at the exact information they
expect. Your promotions lead visitors to relevant landing
pages, and not the home page of your website.

For example,
 If customer is looking for “car insurance policy”, land them on
this particular page and discuss the information around “car
insurance policy”.


 Communicate and engage the customers with same message
throughout the buying process.

For example,
 If a user clicks on a PPC ad: “10% off for 6 months
signup”, they expect to see the same headline on the landing
page.


 Keep the page simple. The focus of your page needs to be
completely on getting visitors to perform the desired action.
Using too much technology will distract them, and your
message may be lost.

 Lot of images, multiple color usage, and multiple banners is
the some examples of creating distractions.


 The less time users must spend on your conversion activity,
the less time they have to change their mind.

If goal is fill the online forms,
 Fewer the fields.

 Have the input curser jump to the next filed

 Only request the information that is necessary for purposes.


 It is always risky to enter into an online transaction with
someone you do not know.

 People may fear giving you money or their personal
information because they do not know you.

 Trust is established through credibility.


For example,
 Accurate information on the site e.g. supports the industry and
what customer is knowing, latest information on the site.

 Professional design e.g. clean design, distraction free, fast page
download time.

 Show real life business things e.g. trade activities, people photos
& profiles, events.

 Clients, testimonials, case studies.

 Highlight expertise.

 Positive media coverage, industry
certifications, awards, memberships and standards compliances.


 Do not make the mistake of offering several products on a
single landing page to take advantage of multiple products or
services. Focus only one thing at a time on landing page.

For example,
 You are selling utility software for small businesses like anti-
virus, online billing, project management etc. Focus one
software at a time on landing page like online billing and
discuss the problems and how your product solves it.


 Even minor changes and updates on the site, sometimes
make the mistakes in code and functionalities not working
properly.

 Check forms, buttons, shipping calculator, taxes etc if
working properly.

 Website gets traffic from different sources, browsers and
operating systems. Check your traffic sources and see what
devices and operating systems deliver results that cannot
ignore.

 Check your website with all common browsers and all
operating systems for compatibility issues.


 You need to promise your clients that their privacy will be
guarded. Make sure your privacy policy is clear and easy to
understand, and be sure to direct your customers to this
policy.

 Place a link to your privacy policy, an icon that shows
precautions have been taken or a simple statement such as
“Your privacy is important to us”, in close proximity to calls to
action.


 Give your customers a warranty for products, or trial period
for services. Encourage readers to convert because you will
have minimized their risks.

For example,
 Give 30 days to try your product risk‐free, and if not
satisfied, they can get a full refund.
 Suggest free consultations for new clients to get a feel for
your services without spending any money.


 The fold is the point on a web page below which scrolling is
required to view additional content. Especially when your
“Call-to-Action” is in first fold, it may lose the attention of
customer while scrolling the page.

 If your page is in 2 folds, highlight “Call-to-Action” for every
fold. Because you don’t know where the fold will fall and
appeal the customers.

 However, different browsers and screen resolutions place the
fold at different point on your page.


 Using a quick tag line above your call to action, briefly
indicating what action is expected, will help it stand out.
Examples include “Buy Now”; “Email to a Friend”; or “Register
Here” instead of “Submit”.

 CTA should have for every screen, every fold.

 About every 400 to 500 lines of vertical resolution.

 CTA for the desired goal should be easily differentiated from
other elements of a page.


 User scans the page not read the content. Users tend to look
at a page starting from the top left and moving to the bottom
right.

 Do not allow items on the sidebars to take attention away
from the focus. Don’t place the graphics or any action that
doesn’t relate to the main goal of a page.

 A quick glance at your landing page should be enough for
someone to know what you offer. Use bold, colorful, and
large text and images for the most important parts of your
page.


 Content should be easy to read.

 Avoid jargons.

 Customers should understand how you can help them quickly
to solve their problems. E.g. showing them list of benefits in
bullet format.

 The page should be well organized, easy to scan and spread
out.


 Visitors should know what to do and the order in which to do
it.

 Page should be easy to navigate with clear links and buttons
to keep users on conversion path.

 Call-to-Action and links should be clearly visible and
meaningful with quick glance around the page.

For example,
 From the landing page of “car insurance”, a text links says
“learn more about our car insurance packages”. Instead it
should be like “Compare our car insurance plans that suitable
your budget”.


 Visitors may change their mind even they are ready to buy.
Visitors want smoothly, quickly and secured anticipations.

 Include as many options to contact you like phone number,
email address, chat IDs or quick contact forms.


 Website get traffic from different sources like organic results, PPC
ads, emails campaigning, banner advertising. The headline of the
landing page should match as much as possible from the sources of
the traffic.

 Visitors attract and understand quickly about the page by reading
the headlines.

 Visitors make interest visit your page by looking at the ads. Headline
should match the creative as much as possible. They need to know
they have arrived at the correct page.

For example,
 You offer “save 20% now” of “purchasing online invoicing software
who signup for 6 months”. The headline of landing page should like
“Save 20% now on 6 Months Signup”.


 Picture is worth of thousand words. Right image is the most
important element of the landing page. When scanning a web
page, visitors will most often look at the image first and
along with the headline and overall design.

 Image should relevant to the product or service.

 Image should clear and easily pay the attention of visitor.

 For ecommerce stores; offers larger image option, different
view of the product.


 Short copy is usually better for giveaways or free
offers, instant download, or free trial offer.

 Long copy works better if you are selling something
particularly big-ticket items. Visitors want to know as much
as they can above something before they want to spend
money buying your product or services.


There are many elements you can test on any page. Following
elements provides the highest impact on conversion rates:

 Page layout (1 column versus 2 columns, right navigation
page versus left navigation page)
 Headlines
 Images
 List of the benefits
 Call to Action
 Testimonials
 Security icons
 Awards, membership & accreditations


There are 5 primarily 5 design elements:
1. Size
2. Shape
3. Color
4. Position
5. Motion


 Unbounce.com: Landing page creation and testing.
 Visual Website Optimizer: AB / Multivariate testing.
 Crazyegg.com: Heatmap / click tracking analysis
 Clicktale: Real-time users recording how they browse your
site.
 Google Analytics: Traffic analysis


Harekrishna Patel
Founder & Principal Consultant
Xtreme UX: Conversion Optimization Company
Mail: info@xtremeux.com


Conversion optimization cro practices

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