Conversion Rate Optimisation or CRO is widely regarded as the next big thing in website performance.

Companies are no longer content with just having a website and driving traffic to that website, now they want to improve the number of sales generated by their website. Hardly surprising really when you consider that if you were to take a website that converted at 2% and increased that conversion rate to 3% (relatively small gains) you would be increasing the revenue of that site by 50%

Although hiring a conversion rate optimisation expert may be costly in itself, when we look at the larger picture it is a very wise investment indeed. The slightest changes can lead to massive improvements in revenue.

The benefits from implementing CRO will also give very quick, if not immediate results. To help you on your way, I have put together these 3 simple tips of things you can implement quite easily yourself to improve your websites conversions.

1. Be more targeted with traffic acquisition – This may seem obvious, but you would be amazed at the amount of people who are obsessed purely with traffic volumes. Focusing more on targeted traffic will give far higher conversion rates. Think about targeting keywords, both for PPC & SEO, that are buying keywords. I don’t necessarily mean phrases that contain “buy” but more subtle examples – geographical keywords and plural key words can often be regarded as buying keywords.

 2. Reasons to buy – Offer visitors need a reason to buy. They will be asking themselves “why am I buying from this site and not a competitor site”; so answer this question for them. USP’s, free delivery, price match… these are all reasons why you would buy from a site, so tell people why you are the best.

 3. Reassure people – The most common reason people do not buy from a website is lack of confidence. With credit card fraud so rife people are asking themselves “Do I feel comfortable leaving my credit card details on this site?” if they answer NO to that question, they will not buy. The use of reassuring buzzwords like “secure checkout” and the use of images like padlocks will take a small step to installing confidence. People also feel reassured if they can see credit card or payment gateway logos throughout the site, and in particular on all key pages along the buying cycle.

There is an awful lot more to Conversion Rate Optimisation than this but these tips should help you on the way to improving conversion rates. I think the most important thing is to make sure you test everything you do. Only when we measure can we decide if something is an improvement. In the words of Bryan Eisenberg; always be (A/B) Testing.

Author: Amy Fowler on behalf of Boom Online Marketing; conversion rate experts also specialising in PPC, SEO, email marketing and social media.