Top 8 Reasons Your Conversion Rate Isn't Optimized

Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is critical to increasing sales and online revenue. It is estimated that 97 percent of website visitors are never ready to make a purchase. So, to achieve your online marketing goals, you must optimize your visitors’ online experience in order to turn these users into business leads or paying customers. But how do you do it?

There are plenty of resources online that provide solid conversion rate optimization tips, but only a few of them address the mistakes many businesses and marketers often make. Here, we look at eight of the common blunders that online business owners make that hurt their conversion rates. By reviewing these mistakes, you'll be able to identify areas where you can continuously implement improvements to get maximum ROI from your CRO efforts.

1. Lack of SEO
Search engine optimization and CRO are typically interlinked. In fact, CRO is often seen as an offshoot of LPO (landing page optimization) and is sometimes regarded as just another way of referring to LPO.
But SEO is a long-term, slow-moving process that is often based on rules and methodologies that are constantly changing. It consists of two main parts: code optimization and internal structure. The internal structure of your website must be optimized for major search engines. The search engines love websites with a simple structure that visitors will respond to (read: which makes them convert). They are becoming increasingly about the user experience (which influences conversion on your site) and therefore so should you.

Although it doesn’t produce immediate results, SEO should remain your number one priority because it’s the foundation of your site. Without effective SEO, you won’t get traffic or you’ll be forced to constantly pay for traffic through paid online sources or offline marketing. You can’t convert from a website that no one can find!

2. Poor Call-To-Action (CTA)
No matter how exciting the information on your site, no matter how important, if you don’t direct visitors to make the next step, your product won’t perform to the fullest potential. So include a clear and specific Call To Action, which is emphasized with bold compelling fonts, graphics and colors, to entice people.

3. Too Broad Of a Target Audience
If you have a website that attracts huge volumes of traffic but still record relatively low conversion rates, you’re probably not generating the right kind of traffic to your landing pages. Targeted or quality traffic offers greater chances for conversion and increased revenue as majority of targeted site visitors are seeking information that your website may supply. To achieve this, your website and overall digital marketing efforts should be tailored to hasten the process of having your site noticed by users who are in need of the information, services or products that you provide.

4. Lack of Follow-Up
Inconsistent and poor quality follow-up on leads often results in poor conversion of leads into opportunities. It’s probably one of the reasons your CRO still remains dismal. To change this, you need to vigorously follow up with those who already purchased, almost purchased, opted in for further benefits and special offers, or provided feedback to you. Remember, the whole point of content marketing is to build trust with potential customers to sell something to them later.

5. Failure to Highlight Your Value Proposition
Another reason you may be experiencing low conversion rates is because you’ve not highlighted what you’re really offering to your customers. Visitors want to see what you’re offering, as well as why it’s special, or why they really need to purchase it to satisfy a need they might have. So tell them about the special traits and/or value of your product to them – which is why they should check it out. To do this effectively, you’ll need an impressively designed site, a relevant logo and motto, a clear and concise value proposition, and a compelling call-to-action.

6. Having Sign-Up Forms That Are Not Easy-To-Use
Sign-up forms can be a great way to engage targeted audience, capture valuable information and gain a clear insight of them as potential customers. But for impatient web users, a long sign form can be a big turn-off. So keep your sign-up form simple, short and easy-to-accomplish to keep your targeted traffic focused on your goals.

7. Failure to Make Trust Symbols Prominent On the Website
The ever increasing online fraud and identity theft cases mean that web users don’t just purchase from any site. You need to emphasize that your website is secure to make visitors feel comfortable when buying and boost conversion rates. This means making trust symbols, including privacy statements, accreditations from trust agencies, testimonials from previous customers and credit card acceptance icons, prominent throughout your site.

8. Failure to Make It Easy For Website Visitors to Access Resources
As mention earlier, web users can be extremely impatient. They want instant gratification. So you must make it easy and stress-free for your visitors to find those free resources, such as blog articles, ebooks, videos and whitepapers. This will allow you to obtain important customer information that you can leverage for follow-ups – and possible sales opportunities.

Contact Website Optimization to learn more.  

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