Driving traffic to your website is always important, but none of that marketing matters unless those visitors convert into customers. Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) represents a set of practices used to improve a website’s conversion rate percentages. It is one of the key elements behind every successful website today. A website with a higher percentage of users who performed the desired action is a successful website, and CRO is the way to achieve that.
A good conversion rate is the end goal of every website, and there are some quick ways to improve conversion rates that you should implement for your site today.
Improve Site Speed with Smaller Image Files
Your website’s page load speed plays a huge role in conversion optimization. For example, Amazon found out that one second of page load lag would cost them $1.6 billion in sales per year. If your website needs to load a lot of files and codes, it will naturally take longer to do so. However, if your website takes too long to load, users will leave, which is bad news for your conversion rates—the slower the page loads, the lower the website conversion rate. Faster loading pages equals a higher conversion rate.
The first step you should take to decrease website lag is to reduce the overall size of the files loading on your website. The images you use on your website are likely the biggest files, and by decreasing the file size of your images, you should see an increase in site speed.
How to Decrease Image File Size
A simple way to decrease the size of your images is to use a website like TinyJPG.com.
TinyJPG does this by analyzing the contents of the image to apply the best JPEG encoding. The end result is an optimized image with a smaller file size that’s easier and faster to load.
The first step is to download all images from your website to prepare them for compression. Upload the downloaded images to TinyJPG and start the compression process. This process will retain the image quality but decrease its file size substantially. Then download the new images and replace the old images on your website with the newly compressed images.
Lastly, make sure to delete all of the old files to avoid duplicates and further speed problems.
The process of decreasing image file size will boost your overall website load speed, creating a better user experience, which will also improve your conversion rates. It's a simple and easy way to implement conversion rate optimization practices on your site.
CTA Placement
Your customer won’t know what to do on your site unless you tell them.
Call-to-action (CTA) buttons are crucial for every website that wants to maximize and drive conversion rates up. Their goal is simple: get your website visitors to click the button and complete a conversion. There are many elements behind successful CTA buttons, which is why websites need to pay attention to CTA button styles, sizes, placements, and similar factors.
The first step is to ensure you have clear and simple CTA buttons that are easy to follow. A simple “book a call here” button always works well for converting visitors. Have consistent CTA buttons prompting users to follow a direct action leading them to convert.
Another important factor is the placement of your CTAs. The more a potential customer has to scroll to find a CTA, the less likely they are to take action. You should have multiple CTA buttons spread across the page. The conversion usually happens after the site visitor has read all of your copy, but that doesn’t mean you should save the CTA for the end.
Surprisingly, many sites we look at don’t have a clear CTA above the fold. If you don’t have a CTA above the fold on your main pages, add one today.
A well-designed CTA button plays an important role in improving conversion rates. Make sure that your website or landing page visitors can understand and see what you want them to do. Always use multiple CTA placements throughout the customer journey to maximize sales conversion.
Improve Value Propositions
When all is said and done, the final thing that makes users convert are your value propositions.
If you have an awesome offer, your conversion rate will naturally be high. What you say about your business and how you say it are incredibly important for ensuring high conversion rates.
A lot of businesses struggle to communicate their value proposition efficiently. Most websites use lots of content in paragraph format to explain their offers and products. The problem with this approach is that users typically want to skim your site and look for relevant information as quickly as possible, which means you’re standing in their way to conversion.
A great way to fix your value proposition is to provide high-value and easy-to-understand content by using bullet point value propositions.
For example, a paragraph that says:
“We purchase our materials from a group of organic farmers, ensuring that what you buy from us is responsibly sourced. Fabric created in Guatemala is shipped to the US and used by our artisans to make beautiful hand-crafted clothing.”
... could be improved by placing a few value propositions above it:
- “Responsibly Sourced”
- “Organic”
- “Hand-Crafted”
Add these bullet points above your content to make it easy for users to understand your value while providing more context if they resonate with a value proposition they see.
The users look for bullet points like this before deciding to learn more about your offer. If you catch their attention here, they will gladly consume the rest of the content. Improving your value propositions and the way you communicate them will boost your conversion rates.
Pro Tips
Make sure to use value propositions throughout your site. Place the best value propositions of your business in the hero section of your homepage. Value propositions of your products should go on the product pages above the product descriptions. Place value propositions next to the CTA buttons that help get users over the edge of buying, such as “free shipping, free returns.” These conversion rate optimization methods have proven to work time and time again.
If you’re looking to take your CRO strategy to the next level, these are the quick and simple ways to start improving your conversion rates. Start early and get your results quickly.