The goal of conversion rate optimization is to increase the percentage of website visitors who take a desired action. In most cases, the desired action is an actual sale, but it can also be something like signing up for a newsletter or completing a form.
If something helps you grow your business, it can be optimized. This includes things such as people signing up for demos, downloading assets from your website, or trying out new tools.
The following are some marketing strategies that can be implemented at your company to increase conversion rates.
1. Create text-based CTAs within blog posts
Banner blindness is a real phenomenon in which people become accustomed to ignoring banner-like information on websites.
This lack of attention to detail from site visitors means that a different approach is required.
A text-based CTA is a line of text that’s linked to a landing page, and it can help you convert traffic into leads.
In HubSpot’s test of 10 blog posts, they found that anchor-text CTAs generated up to 93% of leads, while regular end-of-post banner CTAs only accounted for 6%.
2. Add lead flows on your blog
Lead flows are designed to get a website visitor’s attention and offer something of value in exchange for their contact information. These high-converting pop-ups can help increase your website’s conversion rate.
There are three options for the type of box you can use for your offer: a slide-in box, a drop-down banner, or a pop-up box.
A slide-in box on the HubSpot Blog was tested in 2016 and it got 192% more clicks and 27% more submissions than a regular CTA at the bottom of a blog post.
3. Run tests on your landing pages
As mentioned before, landing pages are a key part of a marketer’s arsenal, and crucial to conversion rate optimization.
A landing page is where a website visitor becomes a lead or an existing lead engages more deeply with your brand. You can optimize a landing page by running A/B tests to identify your best design and content features for audience members.
A/B testing allows you to test different versions of your website content, offers, images, form questions, and web pages to determine what your target audience and leads respond to best.
A/B testing resulted in a 79% increase in lead conversion rate for China Expat Health.
One of the most impactful changes was replacing the headline “Health Insurance in China” with “Save Up to 32% on Your Health Insurance in China,” which immediately conveyed a value proposition to visitors. This proposition was then supported by customer testimonials.
4. Help leads to immediately become a marketing-qualified lead
If a visitor to your site wants to speak to a sales rep immediately, it may be because they want to get down to business and skip parts of the typical buyer’s journey.
The goal is to encourage high-intent visitors to take specific actions so they can easily become marketing qualified leads (MQLs). This can be achieved through a combination of well-designed web pages, clear and persuasive copy, and smart call-to-action buttons.
Often, visitors who sign up for product demos convert at higher rates than those who sign up for free product trials.
Optimize your website and conversion paths so that people who want to book a demo or meeting with a sales rep can do so easily.
The best way to find out what works best for generating customers is to run a series of tests.
Find ways to make your sales process more efficient by removing any aspects that cause difficulty or frustration.
5. Build workflows to enable your team
Marketing automation software can help your team by creating a number of automated workflows.
For example, marketing automation allows you to send emails automatically based on workflows.
This allows sales representatives to be contacted by leads as soon as they take an important step, such as viewing the pricing page on your website.
If you work in ecommerce, you can remind people who abandon their shopping cart by sending an email.
High open rates and successful email campaigns make abandoned cart emails an effective way to boost sales.
6. Add messages to high-converting web pages
The use of live chat software will allow you to chat with your website visitors in real-time, offering support and guidance as needed.
To increase conversions on your high-performing web pages, add messaging features that provide leads with the information they want in real-time.
If you want your messaging and chat bots to be action-based, you can do so by making them respond to certain actions taken by users. For example, if someone has spent more than a minute on the page, you may want to automatically offer to help and answer any questions they may have.
7. Optimize high-performing blog posts
Publishing blog articles provides opportunities for conversions.
If you have existing blog content on your site, it is even more likely that people will view your posts and become leads from those posts. At HubSpot, most of the monthly blog views and leads come from posts that were published more than a month ago.
The first step to optimizing your blog’s content is to find the posts that get the most web traffic but have low conversion rates. There are several possible reasons for this issue, such as problems with SEO, the content offer, or the call-to-action.
If you’re looking to increase conversions on your blog posts, one thing you can try is adding an inbound offer template related to the topic of the post. For example, on a post about press releases, a conversion increase of 240% has been seen.
Additionally, look at your blog posts with high conversion rates and take steps to increase traffic to those posts. This can be done by optimizing the content for the search engine results page (SERP) or updating it as needed to ensure it’s fresh and relevant.
8. Leverage retargeting to re-engage website visitors
Most people will not take the desired action when they visit a website, no matter what the key conversion metric is. However, by using retargeting on Facebook and other platforms, it is possible to re-engage people who have already left the site.
Retargeting is a type of online advertising that keeps track of visitors to your website and serves them ads as they visit other websites around the web.
This is especially effective when you target people who visited your most successful web pages.
Even though you are targeting people who have already been to your site, the same rules for inbound marketing still apply. This means that you need to have well-written copy, engaging visuals, and a compelling offer.
An example of a retargeting campaign would be United’s campaign. United focused on reaching people who had viewed their ads and were already considering booking a vacation, using insights from previous ad campaigns.
They showed a 15-second video to a select group of people and asked them to take action.
If viewers liked the ad, they could click on it to be taken to the United website. This was successful, with 52% of conversions coming from the ad in one month.
9. Add site search to your website
If a search box is offered, up to 30 percent of visitors will use it. However, only 16 percent of companies optimize their on-site search to meet user expectations.
You should add a site search to your website if it does not have one already.
This data can help you improve everything from navigation and site structure to the content itself. One of the main benefits of site search is that it can improve user experience. Additionally, data from search results can give you valuable insights into what users are searching for, which can help you improve things like navigation, site structure, and content.
The following information can help you add new pages to your site or tailor content to meet any needs that you may have.
The search terms that users input can help you to understand what part of the customer journey they are in, and what their needs are. This allows you to better cater the website experience to them.
If you have a WordPress site, you can add a search feature by using a widget. If you’re using Webflow, you can customize the search feature to your liking. Wix and Squarespace also make it easy to add a search feature to your site.
10. Ensure forms are easy to fill out
Most people will not finish filling out your form, with an average abandonment rate of 68 percent.
There are many different types of website forms, each serving a different purpose. Some forms are used to sign up for newsletters, while others are used to get more information about a product or service.
Think about how easy it is to fill out the forms on your website. The easier they are, the more likely people are to convert.
The average form has 5 fields, while forms that go through A/B testing see a 10% increase in conversion rates.
A few ways to ensure your forms are easy to fill out:
- Make form names clear
- Use proper HTML formatting
- Use relevant sample placeholder text (for example, “Your website URL”)
- Have a distinct and easy-to-local submission button
11. Run user testing
If your website is difficult to use, it could ruin your business. According to a study, 70 percent of online businesses fail because of bad usability.
If you make changes to the design and flow of your e-commerce website’s checkout process, you could see a 35% increase in conversion rates.
In order to get more conversions on your website, user testing is essential in order to gain valuable data. Therefore, it is important to start this process as quickly as possible.
A heat map is a type of visual representation that shows how users navigate a website and what interactive elements they click on. Heat maps are a common way to do UX testing.
There are a few different heat mapping tools you can choose from, but I prefer Crazy Egg and Hotjar. If you go with Hotjar, the process for setting it up is quick and easy.
12. Add more (better) social proof
77 percent of users say they read online reviews before buying, which is more than ever before.
Leveraging customer loyalty can be a powerful marketing tool – it can help create word-of-mouth marketing and brand exposure, while also potentially driving revenue through reviews.
Businesses that have more positive reviews than average earn 54% more annually than those who have fewer positive reviews according to Womply.
It is also easy to create.
Client testimonials are a great way of using social proof to show your potential customers that you’re a credible and trustworthy business. By showcasing your happy customers, you can increase your chances of converting leads into paying customers.
This can include creating positive reviews and ratings, sharing creative social media posts about your brand by customers and influencers, submitting user-generated content like photography, and more.
If you want to increase the number of conversions on your website, adding more social proof is a good idea. This will show other users that other people trust you, which is a key factor in establishing trust and credibility.
To add more social proof, try:
- Send a follow-up email asking for reviews.
- Host a contest with a branded hashtag on social media.
- Include a card with a branded hashtag when shipping physical products.
If you want to increase your online presence, you may want to consider using automated tools such as HotFomo and OptinMonster.
13. Add chatbots or live chat
People hate waiting on the phone. Wouldn’t you rather get an answer to your question quickly? That’s the idea behind chatbots. Even if your customer service is great, sometimes call queues can get long. And people don’t like waiting on the phone.
The average satisfaction rate of chatbots is 87.58 percent, which is good news. They can also reduce customer service costs, with one study predicting chatbots will save businesses $8 billion in customer service costs by 2022.
Chatbots can help your brand connect with customers instantly, which makes them more likely to purchase your product or service. Here are a few ways to use chatbots to your advantage;
- answer FAQ
- qualify leads
- suggest related products
- troubleshoot common issues
- share information about new products
- increase your email list
There are many chatbot options available, which can make it difficult to choose the right one. I suggest focusing on chatbots that integrate natively with channels, in order to reduce the number of options.
Landbot is a good choice for an app if you want it to be integrated with a lot of different platforms. Landbot has chat features that can be used on the web, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and through an API.
If you want to integrate with Facebook Messenger, Chatfuel is a good, cheap option.
The chatbot you choose should help you achieve your business goals.
14. Review customer persona and adjust your messaging
A persona is a snapshot of your ideal customer that is used to help you understand your target market.
Personas are fictitious characters that marketing agencies and businesses create to humanize their target audience. They can help drive leads, increase conversions, and shorten the sales cycle.
You may think you know who your ideal customer is, but you may be wrong. The difference between who you think your ideal customer is and your actual customers may be bigger than you think.
Here are six steps you can take to make sure you are targeting the right customer personas:
- Make a list of your highest value customers.
- Use a customer persona template to create a new persona.
- Start adding details from your highest value customers. Start with demographics like location, age, budget, education, etc.
- What channels do your highest value customers use to find you? Add that to your persona as “methods of communication.”
- Look at the content they consume—what does that tell you about their motivations? Add those to your template.
- Repeat the process for every product or service you offer.
It’s important to keep your customer personas and your messaging aligned, which may mean updating your approach every two or three months. This could involve entirely changing how you present your brand to connect with new target audiences.