What is CRO? A brief guide

SEO, CTA, CRMs… What is CRO? If you write, create, or publish online, you’re bombarded with acronyms. Today, we’re focusing on one of them — CRO. Just what does this mean?

It stands for Conversion Rate Optimisation, and this oh-so-popular buzz worthy acronym has been floating the web for some time. CRO is a process by which you create an experience for your site’s visitors. The experience is so compelling that you transform them from “visitor” status into “customer” status.

Conversions have different ways for being measured; and really, it all depends on what you’re trying to achieve with your website. Before we can dive into the nitty gritty and make you a CRO Pro, you first need to understand what CRO is and the basics for it.

What is CRO and what it really means to convert?

Conversion, in its simplest form, means you convinced someone to take action; an action you wanted them to take.

The action could be signing up for a newsletter, clicking around on your site, calling to book an appointment; you understand where we getting at.

Conversions are unique to each website. Your conversion success isn’t the same as the other guy. It is all about what you’re trying to achieve with your site, and if you achieve it. So, if people do what you want them to do, you are going to quantify the quantity of individuals that do it (versus those that ignore your requests) and see where you need to optimise. Note – CRO is not SEO!

Now that you have a slight understanding as too what the definition of CRO means, your next step will be to separate it from SEO. It’s easy to confuse the two terms.

• SEO, search engine optimisation, focuses on optimising for search engines.
• CRO, on the other hand, is where you optimise for conversions.

Now, here’s for the confusing part. CRO, in some ways, can still be used to optimise social media; therefore, it could be slightly related to SEO. Related, however, isn’t code for the same.

How to measure your CRO?

CRO isn’t estimated utilising only one device or one piece of research. Instead, you’re pulling data from multiple sources to compile an optimisation tactic for better conversions.

1. First, you’ll need to identify the troublemakers and get rid of them immediately.
2. Second, you will devise a plan so that those pesky anti-CROs stay off your site for good.
3. Third, you will need to compile numbers again, recheck your CRO health, and adjust when necessary.

The numbers you can improve with better CRO

1. Total Conversions: You can’t exactly improve if you don’t know your total conversions. Total conversions are the number of people that did what you wanted them to do (e.g. signed up for a newsletter).
2. Conversion Rate Calculation: This is where you need to whip out your calculator. Here you will take your total number of conversions and divide it by the total visitor count. Note, this will always be higher. It is virtually impossible for you to have a 100% conversion.

Putting it all together and improving CRO

Now you know what CRO is now, but how do you do it? There isn’t a one-size-fix-all solution with CRO. What works for one website will not necessarily work for your site. Even your competitors will have different conversion rates that they are trying to optimise.

Instead, you need to focus on the best practices for CRO and implement what applies to you.

5 Things to implement now for your CRO strategy

Re-evaluate and have a look at what data you have available to you and see what your statistics are already telling you about your conversion rates. Here are a few ideas that we recommend starting with:

1. Find Out Where Your Traffic Is Going
2. Think Like Your Site’s Visitor
3. Run a Survey
4. Usability Testing
5. Heatmaps

3 Wise tips that can improve your CRO strategy

If you don’t have time for testing, or just don’t have the patience, here’s a few starting ideas:

1. Change Up The Content: Content is the best way to improve your conversion rates. Create content that is engaging, easy-to-read, and flows well on the page. Ease readers into your content, educate them, give them something good to walk away with, then deliver your CTA.
2. Make It Pretty On The Eyes: No one likes a website that is cluttered, or they can’t figure out. You cannot expect people to quickly find your contact page when there’s no clear link or option in the menu. Also, colours can turn people away.
3. Accommodate The Right Type Of Web Users: You aren’t going to have two identical people looking at your site. Even identical twins will have different user experiences. Your focus for your website needs to be on converting those that matter to your business the most; rather than trying to optimize for every person that may accidentally slip a finger and click their way to you.

So, what is CRO? It is your key to web success

Now is the time to take the knowledge you’ve just learned and implement it. Reassess your goals. Define them for your website and only your website. Then, start implementing your optimisation plan. If you want to grow your email list, make sure the reader knows you want them to join; and, give them a good reason to do so.

While SEO optimises your site for search engines, CRO is what helps turn those lookie-loos into real customers. So, when you’re assessing your website and all the acronyms out there, don’t forget CRO is vital too.

Do you need a marketing strategy that incorporates CRO? We can help, contact us today for more information.