If you’re running a business, you’ve probably heard of the importance of conversion rates. But what is a conversion rate, and why do they matter so much?
This article will explain how a conversion rate can impact your business. We will also tell you how to calculate your website’s conversion rate and give examples of companies that have increased theirs.
Why Website Conversion Rates Matter
The importance of website conversion rates is two-fold. First, they’re a crucial measure of your website’s success and effectiveness. They allow you to see how well it’s performing and what areas need improvement to generate more leads, sales, or signups. For the unversed, the average conversion rate across industries is 1.82%.
Second, they provide insight into how much money each visitor is worth on average (ROI). If someone visits your site but doesn’t convert into a lead or sale after visiting multiple pages on the site, then their visit isn’t worth much since he/she didn’t provide any revenue for the business.
Websites drive businesses globally, and conversion rates are the most critical factor in determining how well your website generates profits. In fact, a CNBC article states that online sales accounted for around 23% of the $4.583 trillion U.S. retail sales in 2021. So, economically, it matters a lot.
How to Measure Website Conversion Rates
The first step to improving your website’s conversion rate is to know what it is. The conversion rate is the percentage of visitors who take action on your site, such as making a purchase or signing up for an email list. The higher your conversion rate, the more likely you’ll profit from each visitor visiting your site.
To calculate website conversion rates:
- Count how many visitors visit your site’s page and then leave without taking action. This number is called the “bounce rate.”
- Divide the bounce rate by the total number of visitors. This gives you an idea of how many people are leaving before doing anything else on the site.
The number of visitors you get on your website may also differ from industry to industry. For instance, businesses like plumbing and home services might have fewer visitors than eCommerce stores. A Similarweb report shows that the average number of unique visitors in the eCommerce industry was 122.5 million in August 2022.
Factors Affecting Website Conversion Rates
Many factors can affect your website conversion rates, including the following:
- The type of product or service you offer. For example, if you run a car wash, people will likely come to your site looking for information about car washes and then move on to the next thing. If you sell kitchen appliances, however, they might be more interested in reading up on how to use them before making a purchase decision.
- The industry you’re in. Some industries have higher conversion rates than others. For example, eCommerce has higher conversion rates than real estate sites because people looking at houses don’t want as much information as those shopping online. This also means that certain industries have different types of customers with different needs.
Strategies for Improving Website Conversion Rates
You can use multiple strategies to improve your website’s conversion rates. Here are some of those strategies you can implement.
Optimize Landing Pages
Landing pages are the first point of contact with a potential customer and should be designed to convert visitors into customers.
Landing pages should be designed to meet your customer’s needs, not yours. To know what people want from your product or service, survey them. Or better yet, talk to them directly by setting up a live chat on your website.
Another crucial thing you can do for optimization is use SEO. Avita Digital, a digital marketing firm, notes that by using the right keywords, updating content on your website, and making your website user-friendly, you can improve your website’s conversion rates.
However, this will not be an easy task, as it requires a lot of expertise. Hence, it is best to seek professional help. You can hire conversion optimization experts to find keywords and create content using them. This will improve your website’s rankings and help make more conversions.
A/B Testing
A/B testing is a great way to improve your website conversion rates. It’s when you compare two versions of a website to see which performs better, and it can be done with landing pages, ad copy, or even entire websites themselves.
A/B testing can help you determine whether or not visitors are interested in what your business has to offer based on different elements of the design and messaging of the site itself. This can be especially useful for eCommerce sites. Recent industry insights show that eCommerce sites that run A/B tests manage to increase their average revenue per visitor by 50%.
Use Strong Call-to-Actions (CTAs)
You may have heard the saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words,” but it’s not the image that matters in this case. The CTA (call-to-action) drives users to take action and click on your website. It needs to be clear so that visitors know exactly what they’re supposed to do when they land on your page.
What is the best way to ensure that CTAs are effective? Make sure they’re easy to find. If someone has trouble finding information or instructions on your site, they’ll never be able to convert into leads or sales, even if those instructions are right in front of them.
Improve Website Speed
A faster website is a better website. Users want to be able to find what they need quickly, and if your site takes too long to load, you might lose them forever.
Several tools out there measure how fast your site loads. You can also get an estimate of how long it takes for someone in different countries or regions to load your page by using the SpeedCurve tool from the Moz blog.
Use Social Proof
Social proof is the concept that people are likelier to do something if they see others doing it. This can improve conversion rates by showing customers that others have already done what they consider doing.
You may have seen social proof in action on sites like Etsy, where you’ll see the number of sales a particular seller has made and how many followers they have on Twitter or Pinterest. If you’re thinking about buying something from this person, seeing how many other people have bought their products will encourage you to buy as well because you don’t want to miss out on an opportunity with such high demand.
Social proof can also work for your business by providing testimonials from happy customers who’ve used your product or service recently, especially if those testimonials include before-and-after shots of any changes made thanks to using whatever product or service it might be.
Conclusion
The bottom line is that you need to track your website conversion rate and ensure it’s as high as possible. If it isn’t, then there are ways for you to improve it. The key takeaway is that many factors can affect your website conversion rate, from how fast or slow it loads to whether or not people see what they want when they arrive at your site. But don’t worry. By following these tips, anyone can increase their site’s conversion rate and start seeing results quickly.
