Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) is a popular topic around board meeting tables, just like the buzzwords synergy, core competency, and swim lane, but it often has little meaning to the people that are throwing the acronym about. In reality, professional conversion rate optimisation is the sweet science that takes your online presence and makes it elite. The thing is, most people have no idea how it works – so here are five misconceptions of Conversion Rate Optimisation that you need to avoid at all costs.
Is Your Product Any Good?
Sorry – hard question. But before you start laying blame at the feet of the web development team, make sure that the product you’re offering is of quality, properly priced, and meeting market demands. Your product and your offer have, by far, the greatest impact on your sales, so before you start changing button colors on your website make sure that you’ve really nailed down the product, messaging, and market.
A good conversion rate for website sales is between 2-5% of all visitors. If you’re in or near that target, then Conversion Rate Optimisation is something to explore. If not, you need to look at your offerings before you worry about A/B testing. Remember, you only have 5-8 seconds to convince someone to make a purchase, so product and messaging will always rule.
Science Rules!
Your company is at the right stage to begin CRO – congrats! Make sure you do it right! Conversion Rate Optimisation is a science. You are trying to PROVE that a certain strategy works for your product in particular. Of course you need to do your research to see what the competition is using, but the big thing when performing any CRO is proving that the changes you’ve made work. For that to happen, you need to come up with a question and hypothesis to prove.
So take yourself back to high school science and remember how testing works. You need a problem to solve and a solution to prove. Where do you think you’re failing at conversion and how do you fix it? If you start changing things without some thought into the who, what, when, and why then you might as well be throwing darts blindfolded.
Have a question and a hypothesis.
Check One, Check One…
Check one! Only check on thing at a time! If you make three, ten, twenty changes and you get results, you’ll have no idea what change made the difference! Make sure you document exactly what you’re changing, why you’re changing it, and what the results are. Also, make sure that you give that change enough time to offer measurable results. If something increases your sales substantially in a short period of time that may be due to outside factors. Make sure that your take at least one week to measure any CRO changes to exclude variables outside you control.
Go Big!
Alright – you have your one CRO question and hypothesis – you’re ready to go. Wait! There is one more thing to consider – is your change radical? Do you honestly think that changing the color of your “Buy Now” button from red to green is going to increase sales enough to warrant the CRO testing? Not likely.
If you’re going to go through the CRO process it is important to think big. As your CRO data rolls in you can whittle down your testing but getting started needs to be a bold and drastic move. Especially if you are trying to balloon past the 2-5%, you need something that is going to make you stand out as the go-to product in the marketplace. Changing a header, background color, or a button will not be that element that pushes you into the sales stratosphere.
If you’re going to start CRO – it’s go big or go home.
Go Pro!
Since you know you have a quality product, proven messaging, product, and sales, and are ready to double down on becoming elite, it’s time to explore professional conversion rate optimisation. Since this is your business and livelihood at stake, it’s time to call in the professionals. A good business owner knows what they are good at, and a select few are good at conversion rate optimisation. Professional CRO companies excel at what makes things tick on the web, so make sure you have a trusted one in your corner.
All in all, Conversion Rate Optimisation can make the difference in tens of thousands of dollars in sales, if done right. Make sure you avoid some common misconceptions and pitfalls of CRO and you could be on the way to doubling or tripling your online business with Conversion Rate Optimisation.
