I reached out to 10 digital marketing experts to put together their best tips in improving a website’s conversion rate.
These experts have been through the trenches themselves for years and have a clear understanding of what works and what doesn’t. That being said, the tips that they’ll share are tried and tested.
Related Article: CRO 101: Defining Conversion Rate Optimization & Its Importance
If you’re looking for a place to get a solid and a well-founded advice in improving your website’s conversion rate, then you’re in for a treat. Let’s hop right in.
1. Talia Wolf, CEO of Conversioner.com
“My secret weapon has always been - emotional targeting. While most AB tests focus on optimizing elements such as CTAs or headlines, the emotional targeting approach is about knowledge. The problem with testing elements is that you almost never learn from these tests. So what if a red button increased CTR or even revenues, do you know WHY?
AB testing is not about increasing one KPI, it’s about gaining knowledge. Getting to know your customer better and translating that knowledge into a better customer journey and product.
If you test smart you can change entire processes in the company, such as optimizing the sales team methodology - help them sell better and help the customer service team retain more customers.”
2. Adam Fridman CEO of Mabbly.com
"When marketers think about conversation rates, either technical questions come up or design. Load times, ease of navigation, feel of the page and of course the call-to-action. How strong is the incentive to engage? These are critical elements to explore, I suggest adding credibility. What does it take to project authority and "digital cred" to a first-time user? Being mentioned in the news helps, having a killer video doesn't hurt, but perhaps sharing with the world your "why you do what you do" would be epic."
3. Jordie van Rijn, Owner of Emailmonday.com
“My secret is as simple as ABCD: Always Be Collecting Data.
Think about the last time you bought something online. Once you are going through the checkout, chances are they ask you to consider an add-on, an additional recommended product or ask you to do something else.
My secret: Ask for that “bonus action”, not just because you happen to sell related products, but because it works. This is exactly what you should be doing for non-purchase actions too, registration for an email newsletter or answering a small question regarding your preferences are small steps that are easier taken while in action mode. This form of progressive profiling will do wonders for your Customer Lifetime value and conversion rates. Harness that mental momentum, find out the next most interesting piece of data that will help you target your campaigns like a pro.”
4. Gail Gardner, Small Business Marketing Strategist, Founder of GrowMap.com
“My secret weapon is Adrienne DeVita, CEO of DigitalMediaCube.com. I advise all my clients to order her 70+ page Business Strategy Report, which includes their keywords, SEO architecture, social media and content marketing strategy. We use this report to gain valuable insights into how to build their brand faster.
The data in this advanced report gives anyone an edge over their competition. If they have a realistic marketing budget, her expert WordPress development team implements her wireframes and layout so it ranks well on desktop and mobile devices, too. If a client doesn't need a redesign, her advanced SEO and AdWords skills over the past 11 years yields an insanely high ROI by optimizing for the highest profit products/services by increasing conversions more than anyone else I've known online.”
5. John Rampton, Entrepreneur and Online Marketer JohnRampton.com
“My number one tip for conversion is to test, test, test. I split test everything. I like to start with 2-3 ideas on what I think will convert and test them.
See which one converts better. Then move forward. Then test again.
You’d be surprised what little button colors will do to a better conversion.”
6. David Leonhardt, the Owner of THGM Writing Services
“I make sure that the query form or buy button is linked from anywhere on the page.
On one of my sites, the query form floats so that at any point, an interested visitor can fill it in. On another site, I put a link right near the top: "Looking for a ghost writer? ASK for a FREE quote," and linking it to the form at the bottom of the page. This was added a long time ago, but at the time, I noticed an increase in conversions pretty much immediately."
I occasionally write sales pages for clients, and I almost always use this tactic, linking to the CTA from one or more places in the text (depending on how long the sales page is).
The concept is as follows. The more you tell, the more you sell. This is true because people won't generally buy from your website without a lot of evidence, benefits, testimonials, extras and, or course, all fears and doubts set aside (no-risk guarantee, free no-obligation quote, etc.). But there are still a lot of people who are less "careful" or methodical, and just want to get to the point. So putting the link directly to the CTA (query form, "buy" button, etc.) gives them also an option to easily convert.
This differs slightly from just putting the CTA above the fold, because above the fold won't work for folks who go through all the text and social proof and testimonials and "But wait!"s. They still need the CTA at the end of a long sales page, because it's just as much of a pain to scroll up as it is to scroll down.
By the way, this is the exact same principle as I stand by for social share buttons. I like the floating bar along the side because some people will just read the summary and want to share. Others will read quite a ways in, start getting antsy (especially now that blog posts are no longer 400-600 words long, but usually max out over 1000 words or more), and want to share. And some people will read the whole thing, maybe even comment - and want to share. In the case of a blog post, the share buttons are usually the CTA, so they need to be wherever on the page the reader is when he or she feels like sharing.”
Related Article: Online Marketing Basics for Start-Ups
7. Stephen Esketzis, Sales Funnel Architect and Owner of Stephenesketzis.com
"Here’s a selection of conversion spy tools that I recommend."
8. Justin Matthew, Owner of iboommedia.com
"Both pages have a call to action and you count how many people took the action. The page with more conversions ends up being the page with the best headline. I usually have several A/B tests running at any given time. The only way you learn about what works and doesn’t work is to continuously test.
The headline should be convincing and not overly promotional that has the main offer. The offer is what the customer is purchasing and how well is it explained and laid out will affect the conversions.
The size of your order buttons and the wording of the call to action buttons should be chosen with care. For example, Buy Now and get 50 percent off ABC.
For software products or apps, the call-to-action should be the “demo/trial” button. Make sure the action buttons are large enough to be seen easily this usually helps. Try many types of media or maybe a video to communicate key points. Sometimes I want to compare two totally different approaches and see which one gets all the conversions."
9. Wes Smart, Co-Founder of Product Launch Ignite
"Let’s face it, people want things extremely fast. If your site is not built to move quickly, you are going to lose a lot of customers along the way.
There are some very easy things that you can do to increase the speed of your tortoise slow site and you can start implementing them today:
- Reduce the size of your images using Image Optim
- Use a Content Delivery Network such as CloudFlare
- Fight malware and protect your site with the WordPress plugin WordFence (highly recommend)
Make these few additions and you will be surprised to see how a couple of small tweaks can make your conversions fly through the roof!"
10. Bonus! My conversion rate optimization tip.
As a content developer and marketer, I have collaborated with countless web designers and CRO experts through the years. And if there’s one thing I noticed that these experts almost always use as a hard rule when optimizing a website for conversion, it’d be how their main call to actions should be added above the fold.
A solid example is how Bookcab added their “Search Cabs” box on their homepage. Did you notice how you no longer need to scroll up or down to book a cab since their “Search Cabs” box is located above the fold? This makes it easier for their audience to use their services, making the buying experience for them even more convenient.
Whether you’re selling eBooks, offering free consultancy, or giving your audience a free quote, you need to have the right placement for your CTAs. Otherwise, there’s a good chance that you will end up hurting your conversion rate.
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What’s next?
Sure. Some of the tips that these experts shared might not be a perfect fit for your website. After all, when it comes to optimizing a website, there is no one-size-fits-all solution for that. However, while that may be true. I urge you to give the tips the we've discussed above a try. You can then track your results and tweak it accordingly until you get the numbers that you are looking for.