You should know all about the value of SEO by now – after all, we have nagged and persuaded enough of you about the value of Search Engine Optimization. So it’s time to lift the lid on a couple of other vital online tools. Here we will show you how Conversion Rate Optimization (increasing website leads and sales without spending money on attracting more visitors) and Landing Page Optimization (rationalising every page on your site to lead inexorably to a conversion) can work together with SEO to boost organic search engine listing. In the race to reach the top of Google ranking, these three tools can whip your website along from an also ran seaside donkey, to a first past the post Red Rum.
Lets start with a few definitions:
SEO – Search Engine Optimization
CRO – Conversion Rate Optimization
LPO – Landing Page Optimization
Assuming that you have taken our excellent advice, then you will have conducted a full SEO survey, removed any blockage to smooth search engine ranking, keyword stuffed every nook and cranny – so your website shines like a beacon for anyone remotely searching for the goods and services you provide. Consequently, Google Ranking and website traffic are up and everyone is happy. That is until you look at the Analytics and discover that the bounce rate is higher than expected – visitors aren’t staying and your ‘Click Through Rate’ is less than impressive. Worse still, there are no conversion goals so you can’t be certain how much business is being generated through your site.
That’s when the next step needs to be taken. You have the visitors you need – there’s no point in putting money into attracting more traffic. It’s much better to concentrate on converting those visitors into real customers. CRO, or Conversion Rate Optimization, is the process of increasing website leads and sales without spending money on attracting more visitors. It is the art and science of persuading site visitors to take actions that benefit you, by making a purchase, or committing to some positive future action.
That is accomplished by looking at, and adjusting, the relevance of your landing pages to the search terms people are using. Basically, whatever they are searching for should be immediately apparent at first glance. If it’s not, then you risk an immediate ‘bounce’ and all the time, effort and money that has gone into attracting them in the first place is lost. Optimization is focused on creating clear paths from relevancy, to the visitor reaching a desired conversion goal and thereby becoming a customer. Whoopee!
CRO uses a wide variety of techniques, including persuasive copywriting and credibility-based web design, to convert prospects into buyers. By planning, designing, and optimizing your website to persuade, you can ensure that it will act as a more efficient sales tool.
To ensure this is working means testing which headlines, images and content help to convert more visitors into customers. Your landing pages need to be spot on, and that’s the job of LPO – more of which later.
The Benefits of CRO
The importance of CRO becomes clear in light of the poor performance of unoptimized e-commerce websites with average conversion rates of between 2.5% and 3.1%. High-quality CRO optimization can increase conversion rates by 50% to 200% or even more. How is it done?
Build the path to the conversion point
All the steps, from a visitor arriving at your landing page, need to work together to bring the visitor toward the ultimate goal. However, with a website the start point isn’t always the home page. Visitors arrive at different points; wherever the search engine dropped them. This could be the home page, product page, testimonial page, informational page, an article, or anywhere else.
This makes building the path to the conversion a bit more challenging, but it can be done. Now here’s the problem. Offers and products will change frequently – so how can you build the flexibility and the careful targeting you need, without costing a fortune in frequent re-programming, to maximise conversions?
LPO, or Landing Page Optimization
Traditional LPO goes back to first principles, rationalising every page on your site to lead inexorably to a conversion. However, this is costly and time consuming. This is where smart thinking comes in. Who said that the landing pages for Adwords or marketing campaigns need to be on your website? What if they were hosted elsewhere, created quickly and easily for any customer group or product offer that comes along?
That’s right, we have a bit of kit that can run out an external set of landing pages designed to channel customers through very simple yet attractive steps to sets of desired conversions. Quick, easy and ready to respond to changing markets, Positive Advertising can turn visitors into customers – and track every online and telephone response generated so you can see the true value of the service. See our article The value of Targeted Landing Pages for the full picture.
So who should you support in the battle of the initialisms – SEO, CRO, LPO? The answer is all of them because, if you’re going into battle for customer acquisitions, then you’ll need all the big battalions working together.
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