Do you spend a lot of money on advertising, but get little profit? The reason is the low conversion rate, but not only of the site. We tell you what it is, and how to increase the coefficient on which the life of your business depends.
What is conversion?
Conversion is often associated with sales, but in fact it is a much broader concept, and today it is more relevant than ever for any of the areas of Internet marketing.
This concept does not apply directly to SEO, and this is one of the frequent reasons why such work is ignored by specialists.
But if we talk about the results, then here the conversion rate can decide the fate of the campaign. You can be sure that if the site does not bring income in the end, then the client will not care how much traffic to the site you spent and how well you did your job.
If the conversion rate is able to increase the return on promotion, then it can be a good argument in favor of increasing the budget, and therefore your earnings. A good reason to think about it, isn’t it? So let’s take a closer look at this topic.
The conversion rate (CR) shows in percentage terms how many people have performed a useful action out of the total number of participants. There are three types of conversion.
Click conversion. The coefficient shows the percentage of users who clicked on the ad to the total number of people who viewed the ad. This coefficient is also called CTR (Click Through Rate).
How it is calculated. If 3,000 people visited a website selling pet products during the reporting period, and only 36 of them made a purchase, then CR = (36/3000) x 100% = 1.2%.
Conversion of the sales department (and each manager individually). Relevant for services and complex products that cannot be purchased on the site. All efforts to attract customers will go to waste if the sales department does not work efficiently. The conversion rate in this case will show what percentage of requests from the site or contextual advertising the manager really brought to the conclusion of the contract or sale.
How it is calculated. If 30 people answered the manager’s call, and only 6 of them signed a contract for the installation of plastic windows, then CR = (6/30) x 100% = 20%. The sales funnel consists of several stages, so you need to count the conversion at each of them to identify growth points.
Why study conversion?
The calculation of the conversion rate and its dynamics will show whether your investments in the site, advertising and sales department bring results. In addition, the conversion also reflects the general interest of the market in the product.
This is primarily an economic indicator, the optimization of which provides business with such advantages as:
- increase profits while saving the budget;
- the ability to compare the effectiveness of individual channels;
- accelerating the return on investment.
For promotion specialists, the main advantages are the improvement of behavioral factors, as well as the possibility of increasing the budget and the growth of loyalty on the part of the client as a whole.
What does the conversion rate depend on?
All factors can be divided into four large groups.
Circumstances. These are the so-called external factors, which include, for example, the hype demand for notebooks before September 1 or for medical masks and antiseptics in 2020-2021.
The product or service itself. Yes, something depends on that too. It will not be possible to enjoy a high level of sales if the product is no different from competitors’ offers, prices are inflated, and delivery conditions are inconvenient for people. The quality of the product affects both the conversion to sale and the conversion of the site itself.
Website. The main task of the site is to create conditions for performing a targeted action. To do this, the site must have an attractive design, reflect the essence of the project, and be convenient to use.
People. Call center or sales department managers, measurers, diagnosticians, all those who meet on the way to purchase your product. They may have poor qualifications, an inappropriate look, or simply lack motivation.
How to combine conversion rate increase with SEO improvements
By influencing some site parameters in order to ensure its better optimization for search engines, you can simultaneously increase the conversion rate. And it’s not that hard to combine.
One page – one topic
By focusing on one group of search queries when developing a landing page, you can achieve a higher ranking in the search due to greater coverage and additional value creation.
It works similarly in terms of influencing the target audience. Search traffic becomes more relevant and users are more likely to get what they expected to see on the page.
Using a single query and its semantic variations will be a more correct strategy than trying to walk through the “tops” of several topics at once. It is easier for a person to make a decision when it comes to one product than to get lost from diversity.
A successful landing page guides the user through the entire sales funnel, converting him into a customer with a call to action (CTA) at the end of the path.
Structuring content
A clear hierarchy of sections and pages, competent text structuring and formatting – all this also affects the conversion rate. The user can find the information he needs faster, he is not lost, and the introduction of 1-2 CTA elements additionally pushes him to action.
The return from the same landing with a well-developed structure and just a solid canvas of text may differ at times.
Increasing the number of seats
There are two main pillars on which SEO is built: creating landing pages and increasing the average position for queries related to these landing pages. This does not mean that you need to generate content for the sake of content. But if it is justified, you can simultaneously increase the number of seats for the target demand, and work on the principle of “one page – one topic”, as we have already written about.
For example, under one general page with a list of services, you can create several additional ones with details on individual components of the general complex.
Let us remember what stages the path of a potential client consists of:
- search query set;
- viewing the output results;
- choosing an ad;
- exploring the landing page;
- performing a target action (call, request, purchase);
- consultation with the manager, purchase.
This is how the client moves, provided that nothing hinders him at any stage. The end-to-end analytics system will allow you to understand at what stage the coveted leads and sales are eliminated. What it is, and what kind of systems there are, you can find out here.
What should I do if users don’t click on your ad?
Change the target audience
It seems that the selected target audience is not interested in your product or service.
Improve the download speed
Each additional second of page loading reduces the percentage of sales. Studies on this topic have been conducted more than once and clearly confirm this. Most of the users who leave the site due to slow loading will not only not become business customers, but will never return at all.
Adaptation to mobile devices
As well as page loading speed, the quality of website optimization for mobile devices is an important ranking factor in modern realities. And it’s not just about SEO. Do you think a user who can’t even switch to the desired menu item normally will buy something? This is a rhetorical question, however.
Go to the site analytics and see how many users visit it from mobile devices. Most likely there will be 20% or more. In some niches, even more than half. And you essentially lose all this audience if the site is not adapted for mobile.
You can check how it is displayed on the screens of smartphones and tablets using the free service Iloveadaptive.com .
Good page “404”
When a user for some reason (erroneous link, address deleted, etc.) goes to a page with a 404 error, this is not a very pleasant experience for him. By default, he has no choice but to simply close the tab and leave the site.
To prevent this from happening, take care to make the design of the page with the error “404” really interesting with the help of images, text, links and CTA. Try to push the person to further interact with the site, instead of leaving it.
Creating additional value
Even when creating content on topics that seem to be already painted everywhere, you can stand out due to a non-standard approach. We are talking about the formation of additional value due to:
- advanced page layout;
- adding interactive elements such as cost calculators;
- introduction of statistical and tabular information;
- posting user reviews, examples of works;
- inclusion of multimedia elements (videos, photos, infographics).
By intelligently diversifying landing pages in this way, you increase their value for the target audience, which allows you to get better results in terms of conversion.
Improving snippet quality
The term “snippet” is understood as a small fragment of text that is shown as a description of the link in the search results.
By making snippets more attractive and informative, you can attract the attention of a more “warmed up” audience that is set up to perform a targeted action.
Why SEO and Conversion optimization complement each other well
SEO helps to attract more traffic to the site, and the work to improve the conversion is to convert these visitors into customers. In the first case, it is necessary to focus on understanding search engine algorithms, in the second – on understanding user behavior. The key to creating the perfect website for business lies at the junction of these goals.
A high-quality website with a well-designed structure, without technical errors and filled with interesting content effectively solves both of these tasks. The SEO optimizer gets a good foundation for further promotion, and potential customers who, thanks to his efforts, go to the site are more willing to perform conversion actions.
Any Internet marketing specialist is working to bring more visitors to the customer’s website. But his ultimate goal is always to help his client earn more money.
What should I do if users don’t buy from the sales department?
Listen to managers’ conversations and watch their correspondence. To study the most common reasons for objections and refusal of customers to purchase, to develop hypotheses for handling objections.
Eliminate chaos in the sales department, implement a sales funnel, implement a CRM system and sales scripts. Conduct training of people involved in the sales process.
Work out the KPI and the system of payment for sales managers, set plans and monitor their implementation. To part with ineffective managers without pity.
Conclusion
Conversion is an important indicator that allows you to find out whether investments in the site, advertising and sales department bring results, and also indicates the growth points of the project.
Calculate, analyze and optimize conversion at each stage of the sales funnel. Regular work to increase conversion is directly proportional to the size of the company’s bank account.