In our previous article, we determined that the success of your website is determined by its conversion rate. So what if you’ve done the calculations and are less than impressed with the results?
We’ve got three words for you: Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO). By focusing on this process, you can influence your conversion rate in the right direction and encourage people down the funnel.
Now we could write a whole post on Conversion Rate Optimization, but our goal for today is to give you a nice and tidy overview before you dive into the nitty-gritty details. Let’s take a look at the four steps you can take to increase your conversion rate.
What are the steps to Conversion Rate Optimization?
1. Analyze: Analyze your conversion funnels to see how they are performing. What’s working, and what isn’t? Where are the biggest dropoffs?
2. Research: Once you’ve identified an area of drop off, do your research to better understand the problem. Then form a hypothesis on how to best solve it.
3. Experiment: Test your hypothesis by setting up A/B tests or usability tests. Conduct the experiment and report your results.
4. Implement: What did you learn from your experiment? Outline your key findings and then implement them on your website.
Once you get to step four, rinse and repeat. Conversion rate optimization is a continuous process. There are always new hypotheses to be tested and new findings to implement as you work to fund more accounts and loans.
Be sure to check out the list of tools we use to help with each of these steps.
Does it work?
Absolutely. Not convinced? Let’s take a look at a real-life example by examining how we helped Dave, one of our clients at PeopleDrivenCU.org, successfully complete the conversion rate optimization process.
Step 1: Dave analyzed his conversion funnel and found that he wasn’t getting many leads.
Step 2: We researched the problem and found that his lead capture forms were far too long. We formed a hypothesis that if we A/B tested this long form against a simpler version, the simpler form would perform at a higher rate.
Step 3: We set up an A/B test, splitting traffic between the long and short form to see which performed better. Version A was the original form, and only nine out of 394 visitors completed the form (2.3% conversion rate). Version B was the new simpler form, and 36 out of 359 completed the form (10% conversion rate). Version B produced 4x more leads!
Step 4: After determining these impressive results, we implemented the simpler form on his website.
Make sure your website is performing at its highest potential. Focus on these four steps for Conversion Rate Optimization, and focus on performing them again and again to ensure you’re maximizing the leads, and ultimately the revenue, your website generates.