Conversion Rate Optimization

Conversion rate optimization is a very important part of good web design. So imagine your site already has a hundred visitors coming to it every month. When you build a new website that isn’t going to automatically make new visitors come to the site. You need SEO for that, you need marketing, you need ways to build your audience. But, if you already have a hundred visitors coming to your site per month and let’s say 10 of them are converting into leads. Conversion rate optimization can help you with your existing traffic and your new incoming traffic convert a higher rate of those people into leads.

For example, if we had 10 people converting to leads that came to the site out of a hundred, what can we do to the design of the site, the user experience, the user interface, the UX UI? What can we do there to convert maybe 12 or 15 of those people into leads with the same traffic instead of just 10.

I’m going to use a technique here that has been really successful for us. We aren’t the originators of this method. That credit goes to our friends over at StoryBrand. Maybe you’ve heard of them. Donald Miller is the founder of StoryBrand. They’ve done a really good job of helping lay out a framework that will convert people at a higher rate.

Typically, when we employ these practices, we find that our client’s conversion rate increases about 30% across the board. Sometimes it’s higher, sometimes a little lower, but often we can see a really good response right in that 30% range of increased conversions. So if we’re using that example of 10 people already converting out of a hundred we’re going to be able to move that number to about 13 maybe 14 just by making a few simple changes.

Here’s the framework. There’s three things that we look for on every website when we are helping redesign a website, whether we’re just doing conversion rate optimization on an existing site or if we’re building a new site, we’re going to build this into our process. 1. What Do You Do? 2. How Does It Make My Life Better? 3. Howe Do I Get it? These three components are extremely important to CRO success.

It comes the research that statisticians have found regarding people making decisions on the internet. People on going to make a decision about your website in about five seconds or less. Some researchers say three seconds, some say five seconds. They’re going to decide quickly whether or not you have what they want and wether your site’s worth staying on.

So the question we ask first is, What do you do? Now, this one seems pretty simple. If you are a plumber or an HVAC company or a lawyer, it’s very important to say, “Hey, I’m a DUI lawyer.” “Hey, we do HVAC in Fayetteville, North Carolina,” whatever the case may be. But a lot of times people miss this simple point. People come to their website and it just has some catchy phrase like “IMPACT” or “BE THE CHANGE” or “QUALITY”. But when people see that they don’t really know what you do.

So it’s important to say, “Hey, we provide high quality plumbing services,” as the first thing people see on your site. That seems basic. It doesn’t seem super sexy, but it works. It really helps people and their subconscious know, “Hey, I found exactly what I’m looking for. I need a plumber, I need a lawyer. This is exactly where I need to be.”

The second thing that we’re going to do is answer the question, How can I make your life better? The person who’s on the site has a pain that they’re trying to solve. They have some problem, or they’re looking for a service, or they’re looking for a product. How is your product or service going to make their life better?

One example I like to use here is in landscaping. In fact, we have one example of a landscaper here locally in our city in Greenville. Their landing page just says “Impact” and it has a picture of a house. So you go to the website, you see a picture of a house and it says “impact.” The site gives no idea how that landscaping service is going to make your life better, but that’s what they chose.

In that situation, something like, “A yard that will make your neighbors jealous,” or, “We keep your yard looking beautiful so you have more time to spend with your family.” Something simple like that. The site visitor will say, “Oh, this is is going to solve my problem. This is going to make my life easier. I’m going to have the best yard in the neighborhood. My neighbors are going to be jealous. I’m going to spend more time with my family on the weekends instead of plugging away in 95 degree heat working in the yard.”

Let’s make their life better. Tell them what you do. “Landscaping services, Charlotte, North Carolina.” “Landscaping services, Greenville, South Carolina.” “We will give you a yard that makes your neighbors jealous.”

The last thing is how do they get it? A lot of times people miss the simple aspect of giving the user an option to opt into your service. These are called “Call To Actions”, whether that is a number on mobile that they can click and it’ll call you immediately, or it’ll take them to a form, or it’ll download some piece of information that is very important to your sales funnelIf you have a a longer sales funnel. What is that next most important action that they’re going to take?

A lot of times we ask our customers, “Is it more important for you to have a form filled out or receive a phone call? What’s the best thing for you?” A lot of times service industries like HVAC or plumbing, they want that phone call because they can instantly start building a relationship with the customer. They can get them on the phone, they can get that call set up quickly and they aren’t going quickly to another person’s service.

So to recap, in 3 – 5 seconds, when somebody lands on your site, they need to know 1. What you do, 2. How it makes their life better, and 3. How do they get it. What you do, how it makes their life better, and how do you get it? If you can communicate those three things in three minutes or less, you’re going to convert a much higher rate of visitors on your site even with the existing traffic you already have.

One little tidbit to add onto that is the old adage or the old cliche, “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is extremely important to understand and is valuable when it comes to modern web design. Modern websites are often image driven and you can communicate a lot of what you’re trying to say with a picture.

A lot of times people get into a trap of saying, “Oh, but I have so much more to communicate. Those three questions where there’s so much more about our business, there’s so much more wedo.” Just slow down with all of that. You can get that to them in time. But one thing that you can do to help with that is have a really good image in your background.

So let’s say you’re a pressure washing service. You do residential or commercial pressure washing. If that background picture is a beautifully cleaned house, or before and after picture of a house that’s been pressure washed and the owners are standing in front of it smiling — that smile, that house, is going to communicate paragraphs of text that no one would ever take time to read.

So if they’d come to your site and say, “Oh, this pressure washing service, it’s going to make my life better in these ways, and here’s how I get it,” and it’s a picture of a satisfied customer standing in front of their beautifully cleaned house, they’re going to trust you instantly. It’s going to build a rapport with that potential customer saying, “Wow, this really works.” They’re going to reach out to you. They’re going to scroll down more. Maybe they’re going to go to your testimonials. They’re going to click your “contact us” button at a much higher rate.