By A10 Digital. Published .
Conversion rate optimisation, or CRO, is the practice of increasing the share of website visitors who take the action you want, such as making an enquiry, calling or buying. It gets more from the visitors you already have, without paying for more of them.
How is a conversion rate worked out?
Divide the number of people who took the action by the number who visited, then multiply by 100. If 1,000 people visit and 20 enquire, the conversion rate is 2%.
Why does it matter?
Because it changes the value of everything else you spend. If the same 1,000 visitors produced 30 enquiries, you would have half as many again without spending another pound on advertising or SEO. Improving the page is often cheaper than buying more traffic.
What affects a conversion rate?
- Clarity. Can a visitor tell within a few seconds what you do and whether it is for them?
- Trust. Reviews, real photographs, named people and clear contact details.
- Effort. How many steps stand between the visitor and an enquiry? Is the form short? Does the phone number work with one tap?
- Speed. People leave slow pages, especially on a phone.
- Relevance. Does the page match what the person searched for or clicked on? That is the job of a landing page.
Where should you start?
With measurement. You cannot improve a rate you are not tracking, and many websites do not record calls or form enquiries properly. Once you can see where enquiries come from, look at the pages that get the most visits and ask what a stranger would need to see before getting in touch.
Is CRO a one-off job?
No. It is a habit of testing one change at a time and keeping what works. Small, steady improvements can achieve more than a dramatic redesign, although a site that is badly out of date may need the redesign first, starting with a wireframe of each key page.
Related service: website redesign from A10 Digital.