61 Effective CRO Tips to Increase the Conversion Rate of a Website

If shoppers walked into a store, looked at the products lined up neatly on the shelves, and walked right out without breaking a step, it would be bad for business.

You want the shoppers to stop in front of shelves, look at and pick up different products, put them in their shopping carts and then check out.

Visitors who visit your website and leave without actually engaging with your site don’t help your business. They increase your bounce rate.

But you want to how to increase conversion rate? You want visitors who come to your site to engage with your website and take desired actions.

You want them to engage with your content or purchase your products. You want your visitors to convert.

What Are Conversions?

What do I mean by convert?

In general, when a visitor completes a site goal, it is a conversion. Goals can be micro and macro.

If you sell products, your macro goal will be to ensure that the visitor makes a purchase. But there can be several other micro goals he needs to complete before a visitor reaches to that macro goal.

What is Conversion Rate Optimization?

CRO, conversion rate optimization, helps make sure visitors achieve your micro goals so that they stay on the path to achieve your macro goal.

Let me tell you a bit more about CRO.

To keep the bounce rate down and increase the conversion rate of the website, marketers use analytics and user feedback.

Conversion rate optimization aims to improve any metric on your website which is beneficial for your business. It may include attracting new customers or increasing registrations, downloads, and sales.

CRO turns passive browsers into valuable conversions and increases conversion rate.

Why Should You Care About CRO?

CRO is important for your ROI, (return on investment). You run a business. You offer products or services.

In one way or another, you pay for the traffic that comes to your website. When you convert that traffic, when you optimize those conversions, you have a better chance of increasing your return on the investment.

Getting traffic to a website is the first step. Converting that traffic is the last step. It is more cost effective to convert the visitors who come to your site than to attract more visitors.

Conversion rate helps you figure out the intentions of your visitors. It helps you find out what visitors are looking for when they come to your site so that you can provide them with better solutions and that will increase conversion rate too.

61 Tips to Increase Conversion Rates

It takes a lot of data and time to craft and implement strategies to increase conversions.

We've made the job easier for you. We conducted research, read case studies, contacted CRO experts, and sifted through a mountain of data to find the best CRO tips to increase conversion rates.

Read on to explore our labor of love, 61 tips to increase conversion rates. It is not going to be easy, but it will be worth it.

Please note: This roundup has been structured in ascending order, and not according to expertise.

#1. Adam Gray – Social Experts

As always, we should remember that the customer is king. It’s all very well thinking about “personas” and “journeys” but I believe that we really need to think about how we can 3. increase conversion rates.

1. Is the content appropriate for the customer – I mean REALLY appropriate…or have we got the customer to our page through false pretences?

2. Don’t think you know…know. Test everything. Suspend your disbelief about what may or may not work and prove one way or the other if you are right.

3. Less is more. I am busy, you are busy, your customers are busy. Do not assume that they want to read pages and pages of your product or company story (because they probably don’t)! Keep it short and simple.

4. People jump to conclusions, usually the wrong ones. So the sooner you can get the customer talking to someone the sooner you can make sure that they really understand that YOU are the right company to be dealing with.

Whilst I am a marketer by profession I have sort of lost confidence in what marketing can do because too often the campaigns, processes and procedures that marketing creates are simply too bloated and complicated.

Less, is usually, more.

#2. Aljaz Fajmut – NightWatch

While there are many changes that one can do to increase conversion rate on your website, our experience showed that the most significant changes usually come from improving the part above the fold — especially, headline, subheadline, and call to action buttons.

After we improve these to a certain point, we can move on to optimizing the second part of the funnel, which in our SaaS business comes down to optimizing the registration form.

This includes simplifying the form and improving the user experience so that minimum commitment is necessary to complete the step. If a form requires sensitive data from the user (such as personal information, a credit card), it should be communicated clearly what this information is going to be used for and that it's being stored in a secure and encrypted manner.

When we are done with the fundamental conversion improvements doing the A/B tests, we will move on with so-called “conversion boosters.”

These are messages and popups that trigger and encourage users to make a step further (using scarcity principles and fear of missing out) that also help to increase conversion rate. Imagine, for example, a message on an eCommerce store “The last pair of shoes” or “The offer is expiring in 20 minutes.”

#3. Allen Burt – BlueStout

I love talking about how we can increase conversion rate and how we can optimize it, because most sites, especially ecommerce merchants, get this wrong.

They think it's all about a/b testing and trying different button colours, etc.

In reality, for 90% of small to medium-sized businesses, the #1 change you can make to your site to increase conversion rate is your MESSAGING.

Deeply understanding your target customer (and I mean as deep as you can get) and aligning your value proposition to what they care about. AND, saying it in their language.

#4. Andy Crestodina – OrbitMedia

A high converting service page is a combination of three things which help to increase the conversion rate:

1. Answers to visitors' top questions (what they want)

2.Evidence to support those answers (what you want them to have)

3. Clear, specific calls-to-action

Mix these ingredients together on a single page, taking as much space as needed to build your case. Answer every question, address every objection and fill the page with supportive evidence (testimonials, statistics, etc.) in the best formats you can (images, videos, etc.)

Don't forget to make the calls to action specific and relevant to the visitors' goals (contact us is not a compelling CTA) and you've got everything in place to increase conversion rates for your website.

Here's a breakdown showing how all the pieces fit together:

#5. Angi Bowman – LuckyOrange

Conversion Rate optimization is about more than just using a green call-to-action instead of a blue one or making your landing page shorter simply because a blogger on the Internet said so.

Sure, you can use this advice to consider changes to your website, but you have to do more than just blindly make these updates.

My tip to increase conversion rate: Test not guess.

Stop using traditional analytics alone to understand what visitors think about your website. Monitoring your conversion rate or other metrics won’t be enough to evaluate success.

Instead, combine conversion tools such as dynamic heatmaps and visitor recordings with A/B testing and traditional analytics to really measure if visitors were more engaged with the update, where they are clicking, or if anything confused them along the way.

For example, one Lucky Orange user added a banner to his website promoting a flash sale, but conversions were low.

Was it an issue with the banner colour, or did the banner fail in general? Because he looked at a dynamic heat map and visitor recordings, he quickly saw that since the banner was not linked, visitors were rage clicking on the banner, and then leaving the site when nothing happened.

In this case, the fix was as simple as just linking a banner, and increase conversion rate dramatically virtually overnight.

Remember: Your website may look great and include all of the latest best practices that are “proven” to increase conversion rate, but your website may still struggle to actually get those conversions if you don’t understand what visitors are clicking (or aren’t clicking) on your website.

#6. Anna Talerico – Beacon9

I'm going to go with the obvious, but overlooked answer. Calls-to-action, everywhere. It surprises me how many websites still have calls-to-action buried. Every page should have a call to action, leading to a simple, clear conversion page (that outlines the reason to increase conversion rate and offers something of value).

 

 

#7. Brad Geddes – Adalysis

Customize your ads for your customers that increase conversion rate also.

With audience targeting, demographic, income, geographic, and other targeting layers – you can customize your ads to speak to your potential customers in their own language in the first interaction they have with your company – your ads.

This customization can be different adjectives by age ranges, totally different copy by gender, or special offers based upon previous interactions with your site.

By tailoring your ads to the user, you can attract more total users while predisposing them to convert on your website and will also increase conversion rate.

#8. Branden Moskwa –Nadimo

“Keep it simple” is often the most important concept in ecommerce conversion rate optimization also helps to increase conversion rate. My thoughts are simple, instead of focusing on the homepage focus on the product page and the checkout process.

Keep the product pages simply to navigate and extremely simple to see the important components primarily making the buy now and add to cart buttons front and centre.

The product page needs to be clean and easy to navigate but should have as much information about the product as you can pack into it without clutter so that people both need not navigate away from the page to find out anything else but also so that they can make the decision at that moment.

From there simplify the checkout, do this by removing every single barrier between them and a sale.

Have as many available forms of payment, do not surprise them with a shipping cost that may have otherwise been understood as included, and most importantly, do not create a “LINEUP.”

What I mean by this is simple, have you ever went to buy one item at a typical retail outlet only to get stuck in a line. DO NOT let this happen online, and it does if you do not allow them to streamline the checkout process.

Eliminate as many form fields as possible to integrate with social media where applicable so that the details can be auto-populated in the forms when available. So simply put, provide the customer with every bit of detail required to close the deal, then, DO WHATEVER IT TAKES to remove every barrier to purchase do whatever to increase conversion rate.

#9. Brian Massey – Conversci

Let's take a real look at what reduces the conversion rates of a business website, whether Lead Generating or Ecommerce:

1. Helicopter executives who make decisions based on opinion instead of data

2. Agencies who have been trained to design for helicopter executives

3. Stealing bad ideas from other websites

4. Timid ideas are driven by a growing risk aversion

5. Anaemic budgets due to lack of ROI data

No tips about button colour or form length are going to overcome these problems. However, data can increase conversion rate.

Data can be collected cheaply and quickly on design decisions like copy, images, layout and overall effectiveness. When you have this data a safety net, you can stand up to helicopter executives and keep agencies honest.

And you can validate some of those crazy ideas that can fundamentally change your brand and voice, ideas that would be thrown away as too risky.

The most effective CRO tip to increase conversion rate of our website is get good at EXPERIMENTING.

It will also improve your love life and help you lose weight.

#10. Cameron Conaway – Solace

Create a small team of experts who either are your audience or who know your audience best. Too often marketers endlessly iterate, test and tweak before seeking the perspectives of those who may be able to offer the most insight.

 

 

#11. Chris Dayley – Disruptive Advertising

Before you start testing new stuff on your site (i.e. “hey, let's try adding a chat feature!”), you need to identify what is working well on your site to increase conversion rate and if there is anything hindering people from converting.

Often I see people wasting time on a grand new idea or on a huge site redesign when they don't even know what people do or don't respond well to on their current site.

One of the easiest methods for testing what's working/not working is existence testing. This is where you simply remove elements from your site (hero banner, product sections, pricing, other content) and see whether conversion rates increases or decreases. 9 out of 10 sites I have worked with have at LEAST one thing on every page of their site that is currently hurting conversion rates.

Don't waste your time trying a fancy new idea before you truly understand what people do and don't want.

#12. Chris Makara – Bulkly

While there are many things you can do to increase conversion rates, one of the most effective is to increase relevancy among your visitors.

This can be done by:

1. Making sure your page copy aligns with your needs of your target audience. If your messaging doesn't resonate with them, then you'll have a harder time converting them.

2. Targeting the right audience by leveraging quality traffic sources to your website.

When you get these two points working in tandem, you'll increase the relevancy of your website to the users who come to your website. And in the end, this will result to increase conversion rates.

#13. Chris Nolan – BigCommerce

Build mobile-first, take risks when testing, and measure EVERYTHING.

 

 

 

 

#14. Csaba Zajdo – OptiMonk

I believe in the power of personalization and believe it gives you the best possible chance to convert your prospects into customers and chance to increase the conversion rate. Providing customized content helps craft a unique experience for the visitors.

When it comes to promoting any giveaway or special offer, the easiest way to create personalized, “customer-centric” content is communicating different messages to new visitors & existing customers.

But if you really want to take your personalization strategy one step further, you should pay more attention to the details: search terms, cart value, traffic source, location, stage in the buying process, browsing history, etc. – so that you can offer something that is in harmony with your visitors’ unique background, desires, interests and motivations.

Providing “customer-centric” content and redirecting every single visitor to the most relevant landing page can help you deliver the right content (what), to the right users (who), at the right time (when) – as a result, increase conversion rate.

#15. Daniel Burstein – Meclabs

Conversion rate optimization is an incredibly impactful practice to increase the ROI on not just key conversion points like a landing page or shopping cart, but with ROI reverberations upstream to make media buys, branding work and almost every other piece of marketing more effective.

But sometimes I worry the term is misleading. Because you’re not optimizing the conversion rate itself, you’re optimizing for an increased conversion rate. Hear me out as to why that distinction is so important.

I sometimes wish CRO stood for customer response optimization.

What you really want to optimize is the value to the customer. And you need the right mindset to do that. A customer-first mindset. Not focused on merely tweaking buttons or forms to get better conversion rate numbers.

But by looking at a process through the customers’ eyes and determining how that process can be improved to better serve the customer, that’s how you really achieve success (that increase conversion rate you’re shooting for).

We’ve created a methodology to help marketers do this, the MECLABS Institute Conversion Sequence Heuristic  – based on our 20 years of research. Research like this CRO test from back in 2005 that produced an overall 41.8% increase conversion rate by improving the copy on a three-page order process.

A key word there is “test.”

To really engage in conversion rate optimization with a customer-first methodology you have to test the changes you make to discover the effect on the customer. A test is a way for your customer to give you feedback.

And it’s also a way to discover that sometimes what you thought would improve conversion…actually doesn’t. With a test, you get new data to learn from, a new hypothesis to build off that data, and further tests to discover what really works.

A challenge with testing – real testing that will teach you about the customer – is that it seems deceivingly simple but is much more complex.

It seems simple because technology has made it much easier to run a split test these days. Drop in A. Drop in B. And boom. You have your winner.

But there are factors that could create misleading results and skew your test. To help you overcome them, we’ve created the MarketingSherpa Quick Guide to Increase Conversion Rate Optimization, which features nine tactics to ensure you are running valid tests:

Keep the focus on the customer, and you CRO efforts are sure to make a positive impact to your ROI.

#16. David Waring – Fit Small Business

Target a specific audience that also helps to increase conversion rate.

As the co-founder of a digital publication for small business owners, FitSmallBusiness.com, I need to ensure that our readers find our articles engaging, informative, and specific to their needs. While buttons, text color, position of ads on a page, and other factors all matter, they are not our core CRO strategy.

The key to increase conversion rates is making sure any content on our site directly answers specific small business questions. When we advertise companies in our articles with this strategy, readers are more likely to click through to the company's site and convert to paying customers.

#17. Dennis Yu – BlitzMetrics

– Speed up your site! Most sites load at 8-9 seconds– even longer when coming through a redirect from Facebook ads. We typically see 70% of clicks from Facebook ads not turn into landing page visit– and that's not even counting the bounce rate. Consider Google AMP, Facebook Instant Articles and Facebook Canvas.

– Get in 3-4 warm touches. In other words, warm them up via one-minute videos from your public figure page and company page, so by the time they come to your site, they know, like, and trust you. Don't force your website to carry the entire load, any more than you expect a pick-up line at a bar to get you a wife when you encourage a random lady.

– Use social signals to remove doubt. Tools use Proof show who has bought recently, and Mobile Monkey places a Facebook-connected chatbot on your website.

#18. Erik Huberman – Hawke Media

It is super simple, but gets a bad wrap for some reason. Collecting email addresses the moment someone hits your site and then setting up a drip campaign to help sell them, to this day, still drives an increase in conversion rate from 50-300%

 

 

#19. Frederick Vallaeys – Optmyzr

The best way to boost your landing page conversion rate is by improving targeting on ad platforms like AdWords. In addition to the old-school tactic of buying more relevant keywords, a newer technique is to segment your users with audience targeting options.

For example, use life event targeting to introduce your brand on the display network to people who just graduated, are about to have a baby, or just moved into a new home.

Use in-market audiences in combination with keywords to target users who are in the final consideration phases to buy something in a variety of industries.

Or use custom intent audiences to target users on the display network after they visited certain types of sites (like those of your competitors), and searched keywords related to your product or service.

By getting more specific about who you show your ads to, you’ll get better-qualified users to your landing pages, and that should help increase conversion rates.

#20. Gareth O'Sullivan – Orbis Explorer

There is a wide range of effective CRO tips that'll help with increasing your conversion rate on your website.

I believe one of the most important things is to make sure your website is mobile-friendly and loads fast. All widgets/forms and other conversion tools need to function well when using a mobile device.

Whenever I make changes to the websites to improve them, I'll always make use of GTMextrix for checking page speed and other optimizations recommended.

Other CRO tips that I'd recommend that have worked for myself and the website I manage have been the yellow box method, optimizing the CTA buttons making them bigger and more instructional so that it'll help to increase conversion rate and improve the website.

#21. Giles Thomas – Acquire Convert

Collect and analyze qualitative data to inform testing ideas. Nothing beats learning from your customer. Polling, surveys, the list goes on.

The most important source of qual data we've found in our experience over 7-8 years are customer development interviews. Popularized by Steve Blank and the lean startup movement.

 

#22. Graham Charlton – SaleCycle

Identify the problems people are having using your site and fix them. Reducing friction during purchase makes for happier customers who are more likely to buy and increase the conversion rate on our website.

Use your data. Look at conversion funnels and exit points in your analytics to see what's having a negative effect on your conversion rates. Ask your customers – sending simple surveys to customers who have abandoned purchases can help you identify areas for improvement and often pinpoint key problems which can be fixed.

 

#23. Ian Moyse – Natterbox

1. Don't gate everything. Putting obstacles in the way of your audience can frustrate them quicker than it benefits you. Look outside in, how would you feel as that user! Be prepared to share good content and give value and insight and earn the right of the visitor to gain their details for chosen high-value content, give before taking back.

2. Use video where possible (video that has cues and gives value with the sound off as well as on) and make the video interactive using something such as cloud moves.tv, where users can engage and click on the video for relevant information or routing. Today’s audience is used to video and most have suitable bandwidth these days to it not being a barrier.

3. Think outcomes, not facts and features. Today's audience is seeking gains, what does this do for me, what will I gain. Too many sites are heavily technically and factual led! Have this available and easy to find, but lead with clarity, we do XYZ for customers and they gain these benefits and outcomes by coming to us. Too many sites make it hard to even find out what the provider even does, let alone why they are different and why I would want or use them!

4. Focus on driving the right traffic to your site – The volume of traffic is vanity, the right traffic is sanity. If your offerings ideal buyer persona is female age 28-43, then focus outside of your website on driving the right traffic to reach you (via PPC, social, etc) and increase conversion rate. Driving the wrong traffic to your site will give you volume, but lower conversation rates.

#24. James Scherer – Wishpond

Despite the general disdain for them, we've found popups to be an extremely beneficial website add-on to increase conversion rate both on our blog and our website.

A couple examples: Within blog articles, we replaced landing pages for our email-gated content with click popups (a link or image which, when clicked, triggers a lightbox to appear within the article itself).

Across 12 landing pages, the A/B test improved conversion rates by about 40% on average – with 100% significance.

We also added a timed exit-intent popup to our pricing page.

The behaviour here means that, upon exit-intent, a popup would appear, but only if the visitor has been on the page for more than 10 seconds.

The logic being that someone who views a pricing page for less than 10 seconds either did so accidentally or is so shocked by the prices they leave immediately.

The exit-intent popup simply reads “Need help deciding if Wishpond is right for you? Learn more from a Wishpond representative!” with a button below which sends them to our demo landing page. This popup is one of our top 3 demo sources.

#25. Jeff Gibbard – From The Future

There are three elements of measuring the conversion rate: traffic generation, landing page movement to conversion, moving from action to completion of conversion.

Each of these areas can make or break your ability to convert your product or service can decrease or increase the conversion rate. In traffic generation, it could be your audience targeting, it could be your creative, or copy, each of these needs to be well thought out and tested.

On the landing page, there are numerous elements, but some of the basics are C2A placement, social proof, consistency with the promise made by the traffic generation…everything down to the button color and size.

Finally, the conversion itself needs to be easy. If you create too much friction, uncertainty, or confusion, you could lose a sale and lower the conversion rate. There's no one area that is more important than the other…all three are essential to increase the conversion rate.

#26. Jeff Sauer – Jeffalytics

The best way to increase conversion rate is to survey your audience to understand what they need, and then only send your best email list subscribers to your offer. The conversion rate can be easily manipulated by your traffic source, so increasing your conversion rate can be as simple as sending only qualified traffic.

If you want to succeed beyond your own house list or remarketing audiences, then the key is to understand your prospective customers' needs and cater to them in your marketing.

Understanding your customer and their motivations, and addressing these in your copywriting will increase conversion rates over generic messaging and one-size-fits-all marketing strategies.

#27. Joel Klettke – Business Casual Copywriting

Most people think CRO is like standing at a giant wall of levers, pulling them at random until something great pops out. At least, that's how they treat it.

The most effective conversion rate tip I can possibly offer is to invest time in learning how to conduct meaningful quantitative and qualitative research.

Set up your goals, ecommerce transactions, events, and UTM tags properly. Invest in building custom dashboards. Regularly check in on the analytics to see who's arriving, what they're doing, and how they interact.

Then, conduct qualitative research to find out why. Survey customers. Interview them. Review your chat logs. Talk to your sales team.

Without research to inform your tactics and tips, they're all utterly meaningless wastes of money.

#28. John Boitnott – John Boitnott

In my consulting work I help create content that is directed to busy people.

I think the important thing for site owners to realize is that even if you have a lot of visitors and they like your content, they ultimately don’t have enough time to really read all of it closely.

So you must modify the content to be optimal for those readers. Use attention-grabbing images, tell fascinating stories, format your content so it is easier to skim (bulleted lists work well), and don’t beat around the bush when you’re making your point.

#29. John Chow – John Chow

Offer a free gift. I find the most effective way to get people to opt into my email list was by offering a free item of perceived value in exchange for their email. I used to get 10 to 20 opt ins per day, but when I started to offer a free eBook on blogging, the sign-ups went to 100 per day that increases the conversion rate also.

 

 

#30. John Lincoln – Ignite Visibility

The biggest thing is to make sure you have the right call-to-action coming in at the right time on every single page on your website.

If it's a piece of content for a blog, that might be a pop-up which shows in the bottom right-hand corner when the user Scrolls down 20% of a page.

The conversion might be an email capture which then triggers a series of 10 emails which eventually get somebody to convert in a macro conversion. If it's a service page on your website, that might be a little bit different.

Your conversion strategy there might be to have a clear called action so somebody can sign up. But in addition to that, you might have an exit pop up that shows up trying to capture the person's email if they leave and don't convert.

You also cookie that person and send them a series of remarketing messages.

When it comes to conversion rate optimization it's really important you have to write conversion, as well as all the different types of longer-term conversion processes, mapped out on every single page of the website. If you can do this will be in great shape and increase your conversion rate.

#31. Jonathan Anderstrom – Creed Interactive

Our best conversion rate tip to increase conversion rate has been to create content segments that are conversational and approachable.

By having photos and quotes of various team members, potential clients have felt much more free to return the conversation back to us and feel that they already have an established relationship with us during our first interactions.

This has increased our inbound leads by 68% over the past year.

#32. Jordan Kasteler – Jordan Kasteler

Most people just focus on A/B or MVT testing but try focusing on usability.

Using a tool like LuckyOrange you can see how people are engaging with your site with heatmapping. You can see where people click, hover their mouse, and scroll.

By this info, you can determine what to move above the fold, how to order your messaging, what to keep or nix, etc.

#33. Josh Coffy – Flight Media

CRO is a great first step before diving head-first into a complete website redesign. The biggest MISTAKE most businesses make – when it comes to their website – is that they design based on assumptions and not actual behaviour.

Meaning, they THINK changing a button or copy or layout will increase conversion rate, but they truly don't know what their visitors are doing.

The #1 thing you should do before even considering CRO is installing a heatmap. (You can do this with hotjar.com or crazyegg.com for free.)

Allow the heatmap to track your visitors behaviors and then after a month of tracking your visitor's behaviors, you can make educated design changes to improve conversion.

When you make the changes, use Google Experiments to split-test the original versus the new changes to see if it actually DID improve conversions and increase conversion rate.

#34. Kath Pay – Holistic Email Marketing

My number one tip is to use email to test your initial hypotheses and then continue to refine/improve/test it on your website.

Your email database is made up of your target market – prospects, trial users, first time, repeat, loyal and lost customers.

Obviously, email can’t be used to test everything i.e. specific journeys such as checkout journey and some specific layouts. But it can be used to determine motivations of your audiences i.e. benefit-driven vs loss aversion; images i.e. which layout performs better – Person wearing t-shirt or t-shirts laid out? …and much more.

By being very strategic with your testing plan, identifying what can be tested via email and testing your hypothesis (multiple times), you have saved loads of time and can begin at a better place to optimise factors on your website – thus achieving better results and increase conversion rates quicker than just doing it via the website alone.

#35. Keegan Brown – Megethos

There are plenty of case studies showing all the different page layouts, emotional copy, sense of urgency, page speed, etc that you can do to increase conversion rate. So I don't want to regurgitate the same ideas you see on every blog post (including some of my previous tips).

At Megethos, we found that significantly increased our clients' conversion rate was having a CRO strategy in place based on prioritization.

Any agency or marketer without a strategy may get lucky once or twice with a good idea, but can you really scale that growth?

No.

So, here is the best advice I can give when looking at starting CRO for your site:

1. Analyze the data
2. Analyze the data, again
3. Create a list of ideas to test (try for at least 10)
4. PRIORITIZE
5. Test
6. Measure
7. Repeat

Have this process down already?

Below is another tip that may apply. With most of our clients at Megethos being SaaS companies, we continually run into the same issue. All too often we see a well-designed site that has already tried CRO, but then after the user signs up for the free trial experience they discover – to put it nicely – it sucks.

TIP TO  INCREASE CONVERSION: Align your marketing and product teams to give a consistent experience from the initial visit on your site to signing up for a free trial to actually becoming a customer. Isn't that what it's all about anyway??

#36. Kerry O'Shea Gorgone – MarketingProfs

Provide high-quality assets for lead gen, like-gated videos (gated about 20% of the way in), buying guides, etc.

Unless there's a compelling reason for people to become a lead in your system, they won't, so you have to balance that equation in favour of providing their info.

I'm talking about juicy content here, not salesy content: valuable tips and insights, industry knowledge, information people need to make an informed choice (whether or not they ultimately choose you)…give them the goods and they'll give you the info!

Those leads that do continue to progress through the funnel will then be better qualified (because they're better informed), leading to a better result and increase conversion rate.

#37. Laura Pence Atencio – Social Savvy Geek

I plan ahead, create stellar content that speaks directly to the burning desires of my ideal clients, follow up consistently, and track everything.

If that seems like an oversimplification, perhaps, however, these steps are seldom followed and together they create a powerful, repeatable system. Often, when I am called in to consult, one or more of these steps is being neglected or overlooked entirely.

Strategic planning and proper use of marketing automation built around your ideal client is key.

Going back to the basics and taking a deep dive into exactly what your avatar needs from you is a critical step. It’s much easier to get increased conversion rates when you offer a solution to a problem instead of spouting off the benefits of your service.

No one cares about services; they want results. There’s no use in getting fancy if you haven’t got your basics handled properly. Once a baseline is established it becomes much easier to implement solid A/B testing and tweak to maximize the right conversions.

#38. Lori Taylor – Trudog

Improve your images with the most professional product shots you can afford.

Have your brand story visible and complete with videos and avatar attracting voice (your vibe attracts your tribe!) Always over-communicate your money back guarantee.

Yotpo is everything because reviews and testimonials are everything and it also helps in increasing he conversion rate. Focus on getting amazing video testimonials from your customers – like you’re trying to get Oprah’s attention.

Work hard to build assets like this.

Go bigger font than you want on mobile. And remember – over 80% of your traffic maybe be on mobile so everything you create should be viewed on mobile knowing you MUST create a different mobile experience.

This means more bullets, better images, sizzling headlines and subheadlines to wow them on your amazing solution. Always present your products as the best solution to the problems they solve.

#39. Mandy McEwen – Mod Girl Marketing

In order to increase conversion rate, one MUST speak to their target customer on the landing page.

Address their specific pain points, use their language, and describe the benefits of your offer as it relays to THEIR specific needs.

One mistake I see businesses make all the time is their landing pages are too general and targeting everyone. If you want to ensure the highest conversion rate possible, speak to your specific end user and tell them what action you want them to take.

To conclude:

1. Craft your content and media around your specific target market.
2. Include very specific and enticing call to action phrases throughout the entire page, telling them exactly what you want them to do next.

#40. Marcus Miller – Bowler Hat

Focus on the big things.

1. Make sure you have a great offer.

2. Ensure the offer is clearly communicated.

3. Clearly, illustrate your credibility and how you have provided this service before with testimonials and reviews.

4. Make it easy for a visitor to take action.

5. Ensure your site works on all manner of devices – mobile, tablet, desktop.

6. Make sure your site is lightening fast.

The big things.

Likewise, don't focus on the tiny details. I think it was “Larry Kim who phrased this as don't keep moving deckchairs around on the titanic.” Get the big stuff right and don't waste your time on the rest.

#41. Matt Janaway – Matt Janaway

MAKE YOUR DELIVERY OPTIONS VERY CLEAR.

Every time a visitor lands on a product page, the first question they almost all ask is – how much is delivery and how many days does it take?

With Amazon pioneering the way for free delivery on almost any product, consumers brains have rewired to see ‘delivery' as an extra expense.

If you offer free delivery over a certain order value or group of products the conversion rate would increase…shout about it!

On the flip side, if you charge for delivery, tell your customers early on the page and save them the hassle of having to a jump to a ‘delivery page' to find out how much delivery costs.

If you're feeling experimental, why not incorporate delivery into your price and change your proposition to free delivery! Remember, every time you make visitors click away from your ‘money' pages, this is an opportunity for your potential customers to leave your website.

Every website would love to convert more visitors however to do this, digital teams need to start understanding the ‘pain points' customer feel and the possible questions customers ask themselves when browsing your site.

#42. Matt Thorpe – Webshop Mechanic

1. Capture your audience with their pain, draw them in and then deliver your solution. Don't waffle. Make every word have a purpose.

2. Use an impactful image that provokes thought.

3. Include your address and phone number. This might not be used but it instills trust.

4. Give your audience value first. Build trust before you push them to convert.

#43. Matthew Pompa – BigCommerce

Work to improve your user's journey by removing as much friction as possible.

Review your behaviour flow analysis in Google Analytics and use heat maps to see what products or brands visitors tend to go to next after viewing a particular product or brand.

Where do most visitors go after visiting various key pages on your website? How does that differ between various visitors segments?

Use this data to create custom paths in your website to make it easier for people to find what they want.

For example, on a customer's ‘X' brand category pages, I included a “You May Also Like” section that included ‘Y' brand products.

I did this for the top 5 brand category pages and each pointed to different brands. I did this because visitors to specific brands often went to another brand and bought from them so I wanted to make the journey easier and we saw a nice bump in revenue and in conversion rate.

#44. Mike Lieberman – Square 2 Marketing

Content in context. You have to deploy educational content in context to your prospect's buyer journey across your website.

Yes, landing pages and forms are important but this strategic approach to conversion and content is more important.

You have a CIO visiting your site and you have a page dedicated to her role and dedicated to her stage in her buyer journey. If she' s in the Awareness Stage you have to know what questions she has and you have to provide answers to her questions on that page, in and engaging way and with the right educational content.

Do that across all your personas, and all the stages of their buyer journey and you'll quickly notice a huge increase in conversion rates across your entire site. Strategy before tactics works every time!

#45. Mike McManus – Marketing Labs

YOU NEED TO TELL VISITORS HOW TO BEHAVE ON YOUR WEBSITE.

Web visitors easily get lost.

In fact, if you have an offline shop, I'm going to say your web traffic gets more lost on your website than in your physical store!

This is because, in store, customers can see what everyone else is doing and simply copy others, whereas online they are left to wander around on their own accord and without the correct guidance and clear instructions easily end up on the wrong page or section of your website.

To help increase the conversion rate of your website, you need to first uncover areas where your visitors may get confused.

Areas to look at and improve:

1. Button text – is it clear and does it describe the action?
2. Form text – does the box text describe what customers should write about?
3. Download process – are your instructions clear, could you offer a demo?
4. Ordering process – can customers clearly see where they are i.e step 1 and 2
5. Contact details – are they prominent and easy to see/access?

As most business owners sit too close to their website, it's very difficult to uncover possible areas for improvement.

#46. Nicholas Scalice – Landing Page School

In general, I usually start by optimizing the offer.

At the core of every great landing page is a great offer to increase conversion rate. It’s not to be overlooked. You can have a well-designed page with a terrible offer, and it won’t convert.

However, even an ugly page with a killer offer will convert. And you won’t know which offer is best for your audience until you test different ones.

That’s the beauty of A/B testing. I recommend testing a few different offers early on to see which one gets the best response from your unique set of visitors. Then, roll with that one and build everything else around it!

#47. Nichole Elizabeth Demere – Nichole Elizabeth Demere

Conversion rate optimization, for me, begins with a deep understanding of who your ideal customer is, what they want, and what they want to feel.

Most decisions aren’t made logically; they’re made emotionally. So it’s not about having a green CTA button versus a red CTA button or reducing your fields in opt-in forms.

CRO is about how you make the person feel through your ads, your brand, your copy, your images, the colours on your website – the entire brand experience.

The million-dollar question is: What emotion drives your clients’ decisions?

#48. Nicole Leinbach Reyhle – Retail Minded

Clear yet concise communication is key when it comes to captivating customer attention online and increasing  conversion rates.

To help, make sure the headlines you incorporate into your e-commerce design and layouts are bold enough to capture attention while also helping to drive action from the online user. Essentially, your headlines – or the copy you use – should present a sales pitch in the form of the copy.

Your choice of words should pique the curiosity of your visitors, potentially answer questions before they are even asked and even problems or deliver informative insight. The right choice of words can create action from your visitors, ultimately driving action to increased CRO along the way.

#49. Rachel Pedersen – Rachel Pedersen

The single best CRO tip I've implemented is adding social proof to my funnels and website in multiple forms. I rely on 3 main ways to build trust with social proof.

1. Proof – the software that displays your purchasers/conversions in real time (and post dated) to show that you're a legitimate, in-demand product. This tip alone doubled my conversion rate on several funnels!

2. Screenshots of Facebook testimonials from clients/customers. There's something about Facebook screenshots that feels more legitimate to customers – vs. a static graphics and text (which can be easily faked).

3. Videos of testimonials from customers – sharing the actual results they got with your product or service also increase the conversion rate.

#50. Robbie Richards – Robbie Richards

This is a big topic. But, if I was to pinpoint a few specific CRO areas they'd be as follows:

1. Optimize for mobile.

This is a no-brainer.

With over half of searches taking place on a mobile device, you're killing the bottom line if you aren't optimizing across all mobile devices.

Specific focus should be on a responsive layout, site speed and overall UX.  An Aberdeen Group study found a one-second delay in page load speed equals a 7% drop in conversion rate. Start with the lowest hanging fruit. It doesn't matter how great your copy and CTAs are if the site is slow and hard to navigate you're shooting yourself in the foot right out of the blocks.

2. Prioritize social proof.

This is another big area we focus on with clients. In fact, we built an internal tool to help automate the collection of customer feedback for our clients.

I recently read a study by VWO that showed just by adding a personalized customer testimonial, they saw a whopping 22%  increase conversion rates.

People do business with those they know, like and trust. And, there is nothing more trustworthy than a business with loads of positive reviews and testimonials.

Make it a priority to start actively collecting reviews and testimonials from your customers. Place them everywhere. If you're an ecommerce site, feature them on all product pages and markup the page to generate rich snippets and drive higher CTRs in the SERPs.

If you're a local business, actively gather testimonials and educate customers on how to leave them on the major sites – Google Business, Yelp, Facebook, niche sites like Avvo for lawyers.

3. Retarget.

Most of the people who hit your site want the first time. So, you need to make sure you can get them back. This is a warm audience who is much more likely to purchase if you re-engage them properly. Make sure a good percentage of your budget is allocated there.

You can retarget on most platforms, but I'd recommend starting with AdWords and Facebook. The simplest audience to retarget is anyone visiting a specific product or service page but did NOT purchase.

Hit these folks with more mid-funnel content like a testimonials or case study videos for B2B (build trust), or even something like a discount for ecommerce.

Tip: It can take a while to build a retarget audience, especially on a smaller budget. So, I recommend running some low cost targeted Facebook ad campaigns to drive traffic to your landing pages to quickly build your audience at a low price point and So that will increase conversion rate.

#51. Ron Sela – Ronsela

If you’re trying to increase conversion rates on your website, doing some Conversion Rate Optimization is the way to go. Below, are several ways to improve your client conversions.

A/B testing is absolutely vital to increasing conversions. Remember, it’s conversion rate optimization, so constantly test new ideas against your current page, even if it already appears to be working.

That said, A/B testing won’t do much if you’re not making smart decisions about every element involved.

We know from Hick’s Law that if you provide too many options, you’ll automatically lose interest. People want a clear path. They don’t want to be forced into making multiple decisions. Your design must accommodate that.

For the same reason, you need a dedicated landing page. If you try to put numerous CTAs on the same page, you’ll find that they all lose effectiveness. You can A/B test those CTAs and make slight improvements, but your results will always suffer compared to a single, dedicated landing page.

Now, even a dedicated landing page won’t help if your CTA is unclear or irrelevant. Tell people exactly what it is you want them to do. If someone is on your landing page because they want to lose weight, your CTA should be “Start Losing Weight Now” not “Begin Your Journey” or, worse, “Click Here.”

Of course, no one will make it that far without a clear value proposition. If your CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization) is lacking, that’s almost always the first place to start. People either don’t believe or don’t care about the value your promising.

Fix a reader’s belief in your CRO with a client or customer testimonial. Prove that the value you offer is real by showing someone who has already benefited from what you have to offer. A powerful testimonial (AKA – Social Proof) will always improve conversions and increase conversion rate.

#52. Ryan BeMiller – Shopping Signals

You want to reduce friction wherever possible. Especially in areas where you want the user to complete a specific action. Reducing friction means things like:-

Eliminating confusion: Too many choices is usually a bad thing.

1. Focusing attention: On a landing page where you want the user to click a button, you should eliminate as many other buttons and links on the page as possible. Their only option should be to click that button.

2. Simplifying Navigation: Fewer clicks is generally a good thing. The right clicks are even better. Putting product category navigation in order of popularity instead of alphabetically often yields good results and better conversion rate.

3. Prominent placement: If you want people to call you, or to fill out your contact form, put that front and center. Put a permanent phone number or contact us button in the page header. (make it look like it belongs there of course).

4. Increasing speed: Slow site speed and lengthy navigation paths cause friction. Work to eliminate the issues on your site that slow down your user's ability to complete the desired action.

And don't forget to test. These are all assumptions based on experience. They are only assumptions for your website until you prove their effectiveness by A/B testing.

#53. Sam Hurley – OPTIM-EYEZ

Firstly, it's vital to look at the bigger picture — Are you optimizing solely for conversion, or optimizing the customer experience?

These are two very different approaches to increase conversion rate!

CX is paramount — So keep your visitors / customers at the heart of **everything** you do.

Here are my top 3 CRO tips:

#1: Speed!

Seems an obvious optimization, and it should do. We're in 2018! People won't hang around waiting for your page to load. This is by far, what I consider to be (initially) the most important element of conversion and CX.

[Google will also reward you greater visibility — Speed will soon officially become a ranking factor.]

You can test your website speed and analyze granular details, here.

#2: Psychology!

This tip deserves an entire book, but I'll shorten it by 53,499 words or so; psychology is EVERYTHING in business. The ‘wrong' wording can cost you sales. The ‘right' message could gain you thousands. It's the same with color, graphics, timing, emotions, trust and tons more, including pricing…

i.e. Did you know more sales have been achieved when exactly the same products are priced HIGHER, just because the number ‘9' was used in the price tag? You can read lots more about it, here.

#3: Testing!

Forget what your competitor seems to be doing. Disregard what your best friend suggested may look great. Take all the tips in this roundup onboard, and experiment — **while ensuring you measure, analyze, tweak and repeat!**

No website became a success through second-guessing and opinions. Only validation and repeated actions with specific goals in mind…

Use tools like Hotjar, Visual Website Optimizer, CrazyEgg, Optimizely or ClickTale to record and optimize your CRO programs in all-in-one hubs.

This year, I also gathered rock-solid conversion insights from 5 respected SaaS founders who test different methods each and every day — enough proven advice to rocket your sales into oblivion!

#54. Sean Si – Seo Hacker

When it comes to Conversion Rate Optimization, we have done a variety of strategies that have helped bring in meaningful conversions to our websites, along with the websites of our clients. Here are some handy tips that can help bring in more conversions to your website.

1. Double-check and study your content – Content is still king in the SEO world and creating something that is useful and informative will ensure that you get the attention of your audience and gain more traffic. Landing pages are an important step towards conversion, and creating compelling content provides you with a great platform to create conversions.

2. Create a Connection – One of the best ways to retain your audience to create a steady flow of conversions is by establishing a connection with your audience. This can be done through crafty and effective social media marketing, customer surveys, and even through email marketing. Customer relationships are important for any business and establishing good rapport will help you reap more rewards.

3. Optimize user experience – One of the main reasons why some websites are not able to create conversions is that users are having a difficult time navigating through the site itself. Establishing a website for your business is one thing, optimizing it to create conversions is another. When it comes to improving the user experience, smart web design will help users navigate through the site smoothly.

Meanwhile, using caching tools will help improve loading speeds, which is an important ranking factor. Lastly, mobile optimization is also crucial, as more and more internet users browse through their mobile devices. With these in mind, the user experience will greatly be optimized, allowing for more conversions and increase conversion rate.

#55. Sharon Hurley Hall – Sharonhh

Quality content is your friend for keeping those conversions coming. The most effective and high-converting websites speak to their visitors’ needs with their copy. First, they identify what those visitors want to do or find. Then they help them to achieve it.

Take the OptinMonster website for example (disclaimer: I wrote for their blog until very recently). Their home page copy includes three key priorities for visitors. Their blog gives visitors lots of tips to achieve those goals. And their lead magnets provide simple but effective strategies so visitors can help themselves.

It’s also important to remember that your visitors have different needs. With first time visitors, you want to give them a good reason to keep coming back, and even sign up for your email newsletter. Repeat visitors need to see the continued value to maintain that connection with you. Either way, great content will help drive conversions and also help to increase conversion rate.

#56. Shayla Price – Shayla Price

To increase conversion rates, it's important to include detailed descriptions of your products. Consumers shouldn't have to guess how your product will benefit them.

Use vivid language that entices the potential buyer. Some of the best product descriptions offer a short backstory and state the value upfront.

However, you should avoid being too wordy. Consumers aren't interested in reading a vague essay.

When drafting your product description, think about how the words can amplify the product image. You'll also want to ensure it conveys your overall brand personality. (And don't forget to add a link to your shipping and return policy!)

#57. Talia Wolf – GetUplift

Forget best practices, they only work for blog posts. If you want to create a high-converting landing page, build it around *your* audience’s goals and needs.

Go beyond conversions: what happens before the conversion, on the way to it?

1. How much do they scroll?

2. How many pages do they see?

3. What articles do they read?

4. How many times have they been to the site?

5. What form field did they stop at?

6. What did they share?

Focus on the behaviour throughout the customer journey so you can optimize the whole experience.

Prospects who land on your page must be able to understand and *feel* exactly what’s in it for *them* within the first 3 seconds of landing on your page.

People want to buy from people who get them, who understand their pain and what *they* need, your low cost pricing, amazing features or wonderful product aren’t what they’re looking for, not at first.

If you want to get people to stop jumping from one tab to the next (from your site to your competitor’s in a heartbeat) show prospects you get *their* pain, their desired outcome and how you can help them solve it easily.

Understand what challenge people are really trying to solve and why people buy from you and address those emotional-drivers on the page using the right images persuasive copy and even color psychology.

#58. Tom Gorski – Saas Genius

From the perspective of web psychology, there are a number of factors you should take into consideration when designing (or improving) your website.

These include i.e. color and image choices, trust cues, authority figures, formatting, and visual elements to name but a few.

Bear in mind that individual differences, cultural differences, and the nature of your business mean that the examples presented cannot be treated as final, but rather serve as guidelines for introducing improvements which you can test (and yes, test absolutely EVERYTHING! You’d be surprised how small things can make the difference affect your conversion rate).

#59. Trina Moitra – Convert

I certainly have a more emotion and copy driven approach to Conversion Rate Optimization. A few things that I do when I take on a copy tear down or an optimization project are:

I deduce the Buyer's Journey stage of the prospects who will be visiting the page and from there on I try to craft a strong value proposition for the section of the website – even if it is the oft ignored About Us. This value proposition is the WHY of the content/page. The WHY that instantly resonates with the subconscious.

Next, I use the rest of the page to answer the questions of WHAT and HOW. WHAT pertains to logical persuasion (numbers and stats) that complements the WHY and the HOW boils down to a named framework (As an example, Convert's SmartInsight™ technique) which is a memorable secret sauce of the brand differentiator.

Last but not the least I ensure that the CTA for the page is a mini value proposition in and of itself (simply not using SUBMIT doesn't cut it anymore) which inspires user action. It ties in with the story the WHY-WHAT-HOW articulates.

And is a great guide for adding unconventional elements to pages. For example, I see more and more companies using testimonials right next to Contact boxes. The goal (CTA) is investing in the brand by micro committing to it and if you think of it that way, testimonials are the ultimate trust booster.

#60. Tyson Quick – Instapage

Make sure that your landing page addresses the “what, why, how, and who,” so that your messaging resonates well with your audience:

1. What are your visitors looking at? i.e. Does your visitor immediately recognize that the page and its corresponding ad are aligned?

2. Why should your visitors care? i.e. How will your product benefit them?

3. How will you deliver on that promise? i.e. Get specific with your offering.

4. Who do you work with? i.e. Provide some relevant social proof.

Personalize your marketing funnel by tailoring every offer you show them. Use the same data that you use in your ads (demographics, interests, past engagements with a brand, etc.) and continue this personalization through to your landing page to create a consistent experience.

And finally – nothing converts as well as it can without constant testing. Use heat maps to get ultra-specific insights about how visitors are interacting with your page.

Are they not scrolling all of the way to the bottom of the page? Are they trying to click on a particular element?

Then create and test multiple variations of your page to see which version drives the most conversions. Test everything – headline, copy, button color, etc.

#61. William Harris – Elumynt

It's easy to get stuck in the “A/B testing world,” looking at data and numbers, etc. But one of the best sources of learning is still having real conversations with your customers and ideal contacts. It also increases conversion rate.

What do they like, what don't they like – talk to your sales agents, your customer service team – what questions do they find they always have to answer and what answers tend to turn on a lightbulb for those contacts.

There's no replacement for genuine conversations.