In this day and age, where selling online is a must-have feature. CRO, also known as Conversion Rate Optimization, is one of the vital spending E-commerce organizations must consider. A conversion in e-commerce is defined as an activity where the customers procure something online.
The conversion rate is the ratio of the total customers to the total visitors to the site. Any organization must plan to achieve a conversion rate of a bare minimum of 3%. Depending on the type of organization, a “conversion activity” could be any of the following:
- Actual Sales
- Add to cart
- Signups for newsletters.
- Followers on social media.
For conversions to happen, some indicators/metrics can help define a structural way to achieve the target. These metrics could be used to better the user interface (UI) and user experience (UX).
Bounce rate
The bounce rate refers to the number of visitors who quit after visiting the first page. The more this number, the more the organization must improve the UI/UX and build more trust.
Exit rate
Exit rate is the number of visitors who quit after scrolling through the entire pages of the website without any conversions. The more this number, the organization must work on the content on the site to reduce it.
Click-through rate
The Click-through rate is the number of clicks to the number of visitors. This is the result of the entire campaign, the content, the brand image, etc. The entire marketing leads to improving this.
Average Session Duration
This is the average time a visitor spends on the site. Organizations must work on improving this. Generally, the more people spend on the site, the more they purchase.
Average page depth
This helps the analyst know the number of pages visited before the user quits the site. Organizations must dig deep here to understand the root cause of this. This helps in improving the conversion rate.
There are many ways to do CRO; some of the don’ts are listed here to help you ensure you don’t miss on a few essentials.
- Low-quality images.
- Complicated pricing. If possible, make shipping free.
- Not check on competitor pricing or their product experience.
- Not analyzing with metrics regularly. Do A/B testing regularly to improve engagement. Not testing enough will lead to saturation and thus affect the organization’s progress.
- Not offering customer care services. Customers must always be an option to get in touch with the company and interact with the company.
- Not improving on the user experience. Building an E-commerce company is purely dependent on continuous improvement. Only this attitude can help win the company.
- Not having the product description. This is a big no. The organization must always explain the product as much as possible.
- Not having customer testimonials or reviews.
- Not having a clear return policy.
- Not optimizing for mobile devices. Today purchases made on mobile phones are rapidly increasing. Thus, any organization must focus on optimizing websites to suit mobile phones/tablets.
- Not having a clear, Unique Selling Proposition.
- Not re-reading the copy and checking on spellings.
- Not having a progress tab for checkout.
Conversion rate optimization is essential for any organization to excel in online sales. Online sales usually have higher margins as there is no middle man. It could also be tricky because it could fall apart without proper planning on customer experience. Organizations must do exceedingly well to sell and also keep customers happy.
The whole digital marketing piece of the organization and the optimization of conversion rate must go hand-in-hand. Both are no separate things. The organization must do a swimlane engagement to better the organization and its online sales.
