SEO’s Next Step: Why Should You Add Conversion Rate Optimization to Your SEO Campaign?
You’ve done all you can to bring fresh traffic to your website. Your SEO campaign has been running smoothly. All your keywords are ranking and your website traffic is booming. The only problem is, your sales are not. What do you do next?
As you may have already noticed, traffic doesn’t always equate to revenue. In fact, getting people onto your website is just the start of your online sales funnel. Once you have their attention, it’s time to get their business to convert. Your SEO campaign has helped get you this far, but it’s time to turn your website visitors into customers. One of the best ways to do this is through conversion rate optimization. In this article, we will discuss what conversion rate optimization (CRO) is, how it works, its benefits, and how to integrate your SEO and CRO campaigns. Let’s get started!
What is Conversion Rate Optimization?
Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is the process of improving test data to help further create a website design that converts traffic into customers. What does that mean? To put it simply, CRO tells you what your website users need to see on your website to get them to buy your products, fill out a form, or pick up the phone. The goal is simple: Learn what your website needs to look like to turn traffic into revenue.
How Does CRO Work?
CRO uses a method called A/B testing to gather information about your users’ behavior. You may have also heard this form of testing referred to as “split testing”. It’s often called this name due to how this form generates data.
A/B or “Split Test” splits your website traffic between different versions of your website and tracks your customers’ actions. By comparing how users behave on different versions of your website, we can learn what website changes encourage certain behaviors. The data gathered from the test is analyzed to determine which website changes caused desired outcomes, such as:
- Increases in sales
- Form submissions
- Phone calls
- Time on site
- Etc.
A/B testing only records data within the testing parameters. This means all data that’s recorded is objective and verifiable.
Why Should Your Business Try CRO?
1) It’s the Logical Next Step
SEO is important for any business, but traffic does not equate revenue. Getting people to your website is only half the battle. Next, you have to convince customers to actually buy. To do that, you will need more information about what your customers need.
2) CRO Helps You Understand Your Audience
The purpose of A/B testing is to gather information about your audience. The more you know about your users’ preferences and behavior, the more you will be able to tailor your site to meet their needs.
3) CRO is Data-Driven
Unlike traditional marketing, CRO uses objective data to inform decisions. All recommendations made using CRO are backed up by quantifiable data. A/B tests tell you exactly how your audience is behaving, and what they are responding to. This takes all the guesswork out of the equation!
4) CRO Raises Revenue
CRO raises revenue by raising the conversion rate on your website. The testing process tells you what changes your users want to see, and how much of an impact those changes will have. Once implemented, your conversion rate (and therefore) revenue will increase.
5) CRO Helps SEO
If you are worried about website changes ruining your SEO campaign, Don’t be! All current research on the topic indicates that A/B testing does not negatively impact SEO rankings. In fact, many sources indicate that improved conversion rates actually enhance SEO rankings. That’s right, you can get your traffic and convert it too!
How Do You Integrate Your SEO and CRO Campaigns?
You probably already have a SEO campaign running for your website, so now you may be wondering how you can add this new, exciting product to your marketing campaign? The good news is, it’s easy!
Many SEO providers are already adding CRO services to their listings, or have partnered with CRO providers. If they don’t already, don’t worry. Conversion rate optimizers can run solo campaigns, independent of SEO services. However, an integrated service greatly increases the ROI for both marketing strategies. Here are some steps on how to get integrated:
1) SEO Can Help Determine Testing Pages
If you are already focusing on certain pages in your SEO campaign, you might as well focus your CRO efforts on that page as well. Doing this can help you create an integrated marketing strategy that will save you time, effort, and money by tackling both the traffic and design of the page in one go! The recommended changes you make for SEO can be tested through CRO, so you know you are making the right design choices for Google’s bots and your actual users.
2) CRO Can Help You Select SEO Targets
Do you have a hard time choosing which pages or keywords to target for SEO? Are you not sure what areas of your site need a boost, or what sort of audience you should be trying to attract? That’s where CRO can help! Through site testing and analysis, you can learn where customers are dropping off in your sales funnel, who is coming to your site, who is actually making a purchase, and what offerings catch your audience’s eye.
3) SEO Can Help Increase Traffic
Since CRO gathers data by dividing traffic between different versions of your site, the more traffic you can get the better. Why? Because The more traffic we have, the more you can test and the bigger the pool of data is. The more you can test, the more likely you are to find design winners that increase your conversion rate, and the bigger the pool of data is, the more statistically significant (accurate) it is.
To put it simply: more traffic = higher chance of a quicker ROI.
4) CRO Can Help Turn that Traffic Into Users
We’ve said it once, we’ve said it a thousand times- traffic doesn’t equate revenue. You can have all the traffic in the world, but it won’t do you any good if none of them pay for your services. We want traffic and sales: SEO can bring the traffic and CRO will help you learn what you need to do to turn that traffic into sales.
Start Ranking Today
SEO and CRO are a dream team for online marketing. SEO is a great way to bring attention to your website and generate traffic, but that’s only half the job. Once your keywords are ranking, and your traffic grows, it’s time to turn traffic into revenue. Your agency can do this by optimizing your site to fit your customer’s needs.
Looking for a partner that can help your clients optimize their SEO efforts? We’ve got you covered! At Boostability, we aim for your business to succeed. With our white label SEO programs, we can help your clients and your agency grow more with SEO services. If you still have questions that need answering, speak with a Partner Success Team member for more information!
