Conversion Rate Optimization
The purpose of conversion rate optimization work is to make a customer’s journey through a business website as efficient and effective as possible.
We gain conversion rate optimization insights by using:
- Website-level traffic flow maps.
- Website-level traffic analytics.
- Individual web page analytics data.
- Individual web page “heat maps”, and
- On-page analytics.
Insights gained through conversion rate optimization work lead to recommended changes to web pages and navigation. This in turn leads to more website traffic converting into lead inquiries, customers, clients, and transactions.
Website Traffic Flows
To understand the conversion performance of a site, first, we need a “big picture” view of how the site is navigated and used.
We look at:
- Where traffic arrives from.
- Where it first lands on a website.
- How traffic flows through a site.
- Which pages on a site pull the most traffic.
- How much time traffic spends on the pages viewed.
- Whether a conversion action is taken (or not).
- Where traffic exits a website.
This gives us an understanding of how a site is being used by visitors and identifies problem areas.
Congestion and trouble spots that were previously unknown, often become obvious.
Traffic Flow Maps
Traffic flow maps show where traffic to a website originates, where it lands on a site, how it moves through the site, and where it goes when it leaves the site. Patterns and trends in a traffic flow map provide a quick understanding of how a site is used, and where some of the issues might be.
Inbound Traffic Flows
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Internal Traffic Flows
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Outbound Traffic Flows
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Identifying Paths To Conversion
Using traffic flow analysis we can identify the most common paths to conversion points on the website. Often more important is identifying what happens to mid-funnel and high-funnel traffic.
Analytics Data
Web analytics data, at the site and individual page level provide a quantitative understanding of how traffic is moving through a site. Engagement metrics are key – those that show us the degree to which users are interacting with sections and pages of a site.
Pages per Visit
Average pages per visit(or) is an important metric for a website because it shows how engaged visitors are becoming with the content. Good sites pull users in and tend to generate higher pages-per-visit(or) numbers.
Average Time On Page
Like “pages ver visit”, the average time site visitors spend on a page is an important metric for a website. It’s a direct measure of site visitor engagement with the content.
Baseline Landing Page CRO Performance
“Landing Pages”, or web pages within a website that paid search traffic is landing on, should be analyzed for conversion rate performance and efficiency.
This is a high-payback activity because the landing page can throttle, or enhance the performance of the PPC campaign. So if we change a landing page once and double it’s conversion rate, we have in effect doubled the return on ad spend (ROAS) of PPC campaigns driving traffic there.
Conversion Rate
A website "Conversion" occurs when site visitors make the decision to take action in a way that's meaningful as defined by the owner of the website. Usually, this means completing a contact form, a phone call, instant message, or some other form of a request for information.
Conversion rate is simply the percentage of viewers who complete a conversion action. Conversion rate improvement is, of course, a primary objective for our CRO work on a site.
Time On Page
Unlike the average time on page metric for a website, the average time on page for an individual web page tells us how important that page is to visitors as they navigate through a website. Depending upon the content and purpose of a page, this can be an important CRO metric.
Depth of Scroll
Average depth of scroll tells us whether visitors to a web page find it interesting enough to scroll all the way through the content. If they are abandoning the page sooner, this can indicate issues with engagement.
For more in-depth analysis of scroll depth, we use heat maps and screen recordings to better understand what the issues are with a page.
Bounce Rate
Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors that arrive on a website then leave without visiting another page. It can be interpreted as a measure of the level of disinterest in a page.
Bounce rate can be useful in CRO work but it has to be interpreted with caution because of the way that it's measured. A high bounce rate can be deceptive. We examine this issue in other articles on this site.
On-Page Traffic Flow Analysis
On-page traffic flow analysis involves gaining an understanding of how traffic behaves on an individual website page. The most useful tools for doing this are web analytics, and heat mapping.
Above-The-Fold Analysis
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Heatmap Analysis
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Web Analytics On-Page Stats
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