Conversion Rate Optimization Using SEO | A Complete Guide

Article Overview
    Add a header to begin generating the table of contents

    Optimizing your conversion rate is one of the most powerful ways to grow your business, and it’s far more measurable than traditional advertising. In this article, I’ll explain what it is, how you can improve your own conversions, and how conversion rate optimization (CRO) fits into SEO.

     

    What is conversion rate optimization?

    Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is the process of making small changes to a website, landing page, or advertisement in order to increase the number of people who take a desired action. For example, if you want more people to make a purchase on your website, you would make small changes to the website to increase the number of people who complete the checkout process. These small changes would be called a “search Engine Optimization (SEO)” tweak. But if you wanted to increase your conversion rates, you just increase the number of people who take a desired action. Usually, the default per-search scheduling is based on a search volume maximum, but if you want your Google Optimize (G&T) profile to show to higher-quality searchers by matches, you also need to adjust yours: There is also paid search space to be allocated, and you can spend more if you want to reach a higher-bound audience beyond your default volume size.

    This isn’t a tutorial: To find out how to optimize your search results and get the best results, you need to do some research to understand what you need. But generally speaking, you want to optimize your search results by making a few adjustments to the design of your search results page:
    Let’s go through each of these tweaks individually.

    Google generally prefers to show just three search results per SERP.
    This basically has to do with search interest and the number of people who are likely to see results for a keyword search. If your website offers a wide range of products and services, there may be fewer people searching for those products and services rather than just one or two general keywords. As a result, there could be many more potential search results to display on the first page of SERPs.

    To enforce this rule on the go, Google recommends a maximum of three results per SERP. This basically means go ahead and optimize for many things, but emphasize three things in particular: a high quality rating for the product or service, product or service type, and a price or cost.

     

    How does CRO differ from SEO?

    CRO stands for Conversion Rate Optimization, and it’s all about making sure that you can be found by your users so you can help them convert to customers. CRO is about making sure your website is accessible, easy to use, easy to navigate, easy to find, and easy to understand. These 12 questions all cover elements of CRO that anyone can do. The variations won’t help you to run a flawless conversion rate optimization test, but they will help you determine which element can be improved and what change needs to be made.

    Step 1: Define your conversion goals. Once you have a clear idea of the types of goals that your site aims for you need to think about how you can ensure that your site delivers the right goal. The above example is a good place to start. Once you know what you want to achieve, determine the type of customers that are beyond good enough and your buy in needs.
    Depending on what you need to capture, such as B2C or B2B, you will need different types of landing pages to achieve these conversion goals.
    Write down your conversion goals

    Step 2: Choose your conversion goals. Next, make sure you are looking at specific conversion goals. Ideally don’t pick anything at this stage so you can see if any previously chosen playbooks work, or if you are aiming for too much, too soon. Some of your key conversion goals may be email sign ups, lead gen campaigns, sales funnels, or any other kind of conversion.

    Consistency is the key here. Every time you set goals use the same wording for each goal, include the same image, website URL, type of offer (i.e. discount, free shipping, offer, etc.), include the same form, phone number, and email address.

    Which CRO techniques are most effective in raising your conversion rate?

    Visuals and social proof are the most effective CRO techniques in raising your conversion rate. You can boost your conversion rate by using visuals that are relevant to your offering and provide social proof.

    As research has proven, 20% of conversions occur within 3 seconds of clicking on a link. That means 1 out of 4 contacted leads will not have enough information to make a decision on whether or not they want to follow through. And that’s 72.6% of leads.
    “As brands, this is particularly important as you can only cover a fraction of your revenue with each lead. Therefore, you need to know immediately — and on-page — if and when someone has followed through. Otherwise, you risk paying for a lead or having the lead do something that contradicts your brand promise.” — HubSpot
    Added to that: Some studies have shown that 70% of leads went on to fill out the registration form or made a purchase without a social proof page to help convince them to to trust their identity.
    You can help them feel confident by creating a social proof page that is linked to your brand online. Below are few social proof pages from HubSpot that are relevant to their industry.

     

     How can you optimize your website for better conversions and higher sales?

    Your website is one of your most powerful marketing tools, so you want to make sure that it’s helping you to achieve your goals. By making a few simple changes to your website, you’ll be able to optimize your website to help achieve your goals and get better results from your marketing efforts.
    A sales funnel is an ideal sales tool because it helps you determine which customer touches and responds to your offer. According to The HubSpot Blog: Clickstream Mapping reports that 86% of digital marketers utilized a sales funnel this year. While 79% of marketers rely on ERP tools, sales funnels have proven to be an effective tool during uncertain economic times.
    A simple website redesign will help you with your overall website optimization. While a website may seem like an easy place to start, it is incredibly complex to make helpful changes to a website and quickly see the effect they can have in your business.

    Your website is an online space, so it should be optimized for the user experience. Keeping your website design consistent with your logo and branding can help make your brand more easily recognizable. Having a consistent website design also helps with SEO like ranking pages in search results as well as your website’s overall visibility.

    But what if your website is not responsive, and does not meet the latest web standards? Your designer may say that it looks fine on your computer, but what about all the visitors who don’t have a desktop computer? According to Uwe Schimmelbach, Microsoft’s Chief Digital Officer, some outdated websites may slow a website down, affect user experience, and reduce revenue.
    Why would you want to update your website if it isn’t providing the best experience to your users and doesn’t meet current web standards? Unless your website is a food delivery website or you are a company that provides medical advice, you likely want your website to look good and perform better.

    Interested in checking out our SEO solutions and CRO for yourself? Check out our search engine optimization services here.

    Related Articles

    SEO booster indicators

    SEO Boosters: 8 User Experience Signals for Higher Rankings!

    User experience is the key for business owners to generate more traffic, engagement time, ...
    SEO Tracking - Key Metrics for Business Owners to Track

    SEO Tracking: Key Metrics for Business Owners to Track

    If you are a business owner, you must know how important it is to ...
    Footer-Background

    Let Us help you!

    Have a question for our team? Want to learn more about what we offer? Already know what your company needs and just want to have a conversation with us?

    Footer-Background

    Let Us help you!

    Have a question for our team? Want to learn more about what we offer? Already know what your company needs and just want to have a conversation with us?