5 conversion rate optimization best practices to increase your results — CXL Institute Review
An actionable guide inspired by the Conversion Optimization Minidegree — CXL Institute.
Since the beginning of September, I have received the amazing opportunity to access the Conversion Rate Optimization Minidegree and committed to producing 12 articles sharing my main learnings. Here’s the first one!
If you sell anything online, you probably already know: optimizing your conversion rate is one of the best ways to put more money in your wallet.
But how to do this in practice?
Although the term “conversion rate optimization” is quite popular, it’s very common to find people who still don’t understand how to apply it in their own business, whether it’s to generate more leads, increase sales or simply reduce the acquisition costs.
But calm down. That’s precisely why the main goal of this article is to get out of the theory and present some truly actionable success (and unsuccess!) stories to help you revisit your website from a new perspective and, sure, increase your numbers.
I hope you like it and get good insights like I did!
What Conversion Rate Optimization is
Before we move on to the list, we have to ensure that everyone is on the same page.
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is a process in which you collect and analyze data from your website to understand what you can change to maximize the value you get from each visitor.
Questions like “What if I change the headline to make it more concise?” or “Should I take a field off the webform?” can be the first step to create hypotheses and start your conversion rate optimization process.
To turn your ideas more specific and convert them into hypotheses, use the template “If I [what you want to do], I expect [the result you think is going to happen] to happen, as measured by [how you are going to prove your point]”. Much more assertive, right?
After that, prioritize the hypotheses and put the winning ones on proof. A/B tests, online focus groups, and intelligence tools like heat maps and screen recordings will help you to find the ideas that put money in your wallet.
Conversion Rate Optimization best practices
Now that everybody is on the same page, let’s make the concepts even clearer with 5 Conversion Rate Optimization best practices and lots of examples.
Alert: before blindly copying any item of this list, remember that best practices are just guidelines. They work amazingly as starting points, but your decisions always have to be driven by data.
1. Identify the most wanted action to get people off your home page
In addition to communicating the value proposition of your brand, a good home page guides your visitors down the sales funnel.
For this to happen, you need to identify which is the most desired action of the page and work it correctly in the content and the call to action.
See the screenshot below. It shows the before and after of Pipedrive’s home page. The change resulted in a 300% increase in signups.
If you just want people to sign up for free, don’t confuse them with a bunch of unnecessary information and another series of distracting buttons. Prioritize what you want and move part of your text to other pages, make the most desired action as easy as possible.
2. Take the “above the fold” concept seriously and beyond the home page:
According to research conducted by Nielsen Norman Group, “users do scroll, but only if what is above the fold is promising enough”. This means that “what is visible on the page without requiring any action is what encourages visitors to scroll”.
For that reason, if you want to maximize your conversions, take the concept seriously and prioritize the information that appears in the first fold of your home page and all relevant pages on your website.On the checkout page, allow your customers to checkout without scrolling. Additionally, display relevant information that can break objections.
On the signup page, display the complete form and the CTA button without scrolling. If it is necessary, use multi-step forms or cut unnecessary fields.
The same happens with the pricing page, where your visitor should be able to understand and choose the plan above the fold.
Extra tip: visual cues like arrows and triangles can help you to guide your visitor down, encouraging them to scroll.
3. Help people find (and see) what they want on your e-commerce category pages:
Choosing is difficult and humans are lazy. For this reason, reduce the number of distractions and make it easier for your potential customers to make decisions on your category pages.
Especially if your e-commerce has many products, the use of filters is essential. Identify the criteria most used at the time of purchase and use them as a basis for categorization.
Although filter categories vary widely from market to market, categories such as “best sellers” or “most popular” are frequently good choices
Another way to make some products stand out is using the “badges” like “On sale”, “New” or “Our choice”, as long as you don’t make such tags more of a rule than an exception.
Finally, a best practice you can try is using larger product images or showing different product variation photos by clicking.
4. Make your checkout page look safe (and easy!)
The checkout page is extremely important. Conversion rate increases on this page have a big impact on your business profit.
Therefore, ensure that your checkout page looks secure and reinforces your potential customer’s commitment throughout the purchase. A nice way to do this is leaving the payment information for last and using microcopy and badges to make it look secure.
In some industries, more technical terms such as “SSL” are not as popular, so they can be replaced by simpler terms such as “virus-free”, “safe purchase” and the like
5. Intentionally choose each field of your webforms
Usually, webforms are directly related to the final conversion. This is why increasing the volume of people who make it to the end can have a big impact on your business profit.
But, after all, which is better: forms with many fields or with few? Like almost anything when it comes to conversion rate optimization, the answer depends on the context.
To minimize risks and maximize conversions, make sure you know the reason behind choosing each form field and that your intent is equally clear to users.
Sounds obvious, but ignoring it costs Expedia 12 million dollars. Pretty much, isn’t it?
The company used to have an optional “Company” field just above the address field in their checkout form. Unfortunately, some of their potential customers understood that the first field was reserved for the bank’s name.
Because of that misunderstanding, they wrote down the bank’s address in the space where they should write their home address. Due to the error in filling out, the credit card verification simply failed.
After removing the optional field, they noticed a conversion boost and an increase of 12 million dollars/year.
To avoid the risk of losing money like Expedia, reduce distractions and eliminate unnecessary fields in your forms.
Even the password confirmation field can be eliminated with the help of good design. Mailchimp, for example, added a “show password” option:
But be clever. In some cases, increasing the number of fields and friction can be a great way to get more qualified leads. The CXL Institute itself did this to avoid contacts from those who had no real possibility of hiring them.
Here, the main lesson is to understand that tiny changes can generate big results and that there must be an intention behind the choice of each field. Ever.
Extra tips:
- Front-load your labels to make sure your information is crystal clear. Microcopy foundations can help;
- Consider multi-step forms if you need lots of information (and include a progress indicator on it!);
- Leave the toughest questions (such as payment information) for last;
- Whenever possible, automatically fill in the fields. You can request the zip code and fill in the address, for example;
- Write good (and specific) feedback messages in case of errors. Real-time feedback is even better;
- Use trust marks (like “anti-virus”, “no hidden fees” and “privacy protected”) to address fear.
The field of study is vast and there are many more aspects to be covered.
I hope the above best practices will help you visualize the power of conversion rate optimization and, of course, provide applicable insights.
Remember: any good practice is just a starting point based on the other person’s experience. Now, it’s up to you to apply them to the reality of your business and start testing.
This article was originally posted on fefy.com. It is part of a series of 12 posts sharing my main learnings during the Conversion Optimization Minidegree, provided by CXL Institute.
You can read the previous articles on the links below
- Week 01: 5 conversion rate optimization best practices to increase your results
- Week 02: The (almost) mathematical formula behind millionaire salespages
- Week 03: Neuromarketing, emotional content strategy and influence design
- Week 04: Google Analytics for Beginners: an almost illustrated guide
- Week 05: Landing Page Optimization and Conversion Research
- Week 06: Google Analytics 4 and Google Tag Manager
- Week 07: User Research and Fast and Rigorous User Personas
- Week 08: Heuristic Analysis, Google Analytics Audit and Voice of Customer Data
- Week 09: A/B Testing Foundations, How to Run Tests, and Testing Strategies
