Conversion Rate Optimization 101: Essential Terms Part 1

These days most businesses are utilizing the one tool almost everyone is using to gain profit: the internet. Around 40% of the world’s population are  online these days.  In fact, one of the top questions any customer would ask upon entering a store is if that business or product has a Facebook page, Instagram account, or a website?  It’s why people nowadays are willing to spend money to improve their websites and social media accounts. One of these services is conversion rate optimization. Time and time again, it is proven to be a practically fool-proof method to increase your site’s visitors and customers. You might be wondering, what exactly is CRO? Let’s find out!

What is CRO?

Conversion rate optimization is really simple. You know those websites you have? First off, what is your goal there? To gain more customers and visitors, right? Remember, customers and visitors are two different entities. You may have a site visitor but he or she may not be a customer; they won’t be until they avail of your product or service.

With conversion rate optimization (CRO) you will be using different algorithms, software and methods to correct and develop your website. You will be using your user’s insights as well as their feedback. Now, not all websites use CRO but if you want to improve and to increase your sales, it’s THE best system to do just that. If you think your site is perfect, just remember this saying: there is always room for improvement.

Call-to-Action

Call to action is an instruction that requires the urgent response of the website’s visitors or customer. These instructions can come in the form of an image, video or text line. You might be thinking you’ve never encountered one on other websites but you have—numerous times, in fact. You might even be seeing these call to action prompts on a daily basis. What are they? These are the pop ups you see when you open a site or a link, encouraging you to subscribe, sign up or download. It’s simple but effective especially if there’s a freebie involved for the user.

A/B Testing

You have two pages: A and B. These two pages must be different from one another not only in content but in design and layout as well. In essence, you are trying to figure out which one is more appealing to your customers and site visitors. For example, the first page you created may have green colored text with a Verdana font, while the other has pink colored text with a Times New Roman font. The goal here is to know which one can perform better by measuring the number of visitors clicking through CTA using metrics.

Do note that you must have strong site traffic in order to perform this test on your site, numbering around a thousand visitors. If you do not, you may skip this test and go back to it once your site has garnered enough visitors to fully optimize A/B testing.

Bounce Rate

Did you know there are some site visitors who will leave your website if they are not pleased with what they see upon clicking or entering your site? This percentage is what you call bounce rate, and these are the people who leave your website after just viewing a single page. This is what you want to avoid and what you want to lessen. This is why you are doing CRO. Making that bounce rate zero would be the greatest thing your CRO can do for you—aside, of course, from increasing the number of site visitors and customers.

Primary Conversion/Primary Goal

What your primary conversion is all depends on the industry. It’s basically the best action your visitor can do on your website. For example, an e-book page’s best action  would be the ”Purchase” or “Add to Cart” button; while a subscription website would be a ”Sign up Now!” button.

Secondary Conversion/Secondary Goal

It’s the second best action your visitor can do on your website. It can be viewing the details of a product or clicking read reviews. Hopefully this can eventually lead to the user clicking on the primary conversion’s call-to-action.

These are just some of the essential CRO terms a beginner must know. See you next time as we discover essential conversion rate optimization terms and tips you must know.