SEO and CRO: How to get them in and turn them into customers
If you haven’t heard of it before, Conversion rate optimisation (CRO) is the method of increasing the percentage of your website visitors who go on to take the desired action you need them to take. This action can range from scrolling through an entire page on your website to filling out an enquiry form. It could also be adding a product to your store’s wish list or purchasing a product there and then. However, at the heart of it is a meaningful action that the website’s owner wants the visitor to take.
Why do Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) work so well together?
To provide the very best possible experience for your site visitors, you should know three facts about your users.
The first step is to determine what they want and need from a website.
Second, focus on meeting those needs, not only to convert but also to keep returning as customers or potential clients.
Third, make sure that everyone is aware of it.
While SEO drives traffic to your website, CRO helps to make the results more meaningful. While SEO may help you rank well for the keywords “buy red shoes,” a good CRO strategy will take that visitor and increase their chance of buying those red shoes. All with the added benefit of decreasing abandoned carts or bounce rates.
You cannot have an SEO strategy whose sole goal is to rank, regardless of the searcher’s intent for the query. So, it is then vital that the right keywords rank for the correct types of web pages. Your web page must respond to your potential customer’s queries and satisfy them.
Here are a few ideas to help you get more out of your SEO and CRO efforts when you work on them together.
1. Improve page loading speed
According to Google itself, if a website loads in between 1 and 3 seconds, the bounce rate drops by 32%. Your website is like a car: people will abandon it and go somewhere else if it doesn’t start right away. That’s what bounce rate is: the percentage of your website visitors who glance at your site and then immediately leave it as what they saw wasn’t what they were looking for.
A variety of factors influence how customers perceive your brand. Page speed is one of them. If your page takes too long to be readable or makes you scroll for too long, your credibility will be questioned. The same happens if a visitor needs to close pop up ads before they can see your content. All these things may give off an unprofessional impression, turning off your potential customers.
2. Use the principles of neuro design to improve the user experience.
Neuro design is the application of psychology and neuroscience to create visually appealing digital products. It accomplishes this by studying people’s reactions in various situations, such as when they land on a website and determining the types of triggers that make them more likely to purchase a product.
More than just new visitors to your website are required for your business to thrive. You need users who are interested in what speaks to them the most. As a result, a clever design can assist you in retaining visitors and enticing them to act.
3. Make use of dynamic content to increase organic reach.
By intelligently tailoring the website to your user’s needs, you can personalise your customers’ experiences and maximise revenue with dynamic content. This is possible because dynamic content responds to signals like in-session behaviour, user data (e.g., location, landing page, dwell time, etc.), and other similar measures. Each time a customer visits one of your pages with these measurable identifiers, the website will provide relevant information about products tailored specifically for them. This is quite advanced, so don’t be discouraged if it seems a little out of reach for you right now.
This allows you to pinpoint a visitor’s search intent every time they visit your site. You display content that is sure to keep your website in the good graces of your audience, from geo-specific recommendations to dynamic product listings.
4. Make use of videos and visual elements to extend the duration of your visit.
Wistia discovered through research that pages with a video had an average time spent of nearly 8 minutes, while those without one were only seen for about 3 minutes.
Google’s search engine rankings are a mystery, but there is evidence that they may include dwell time in their equation. Dwell time is the measurement of how long it takes for someone to return to the original Search Engine Results Page (SERP) on Google after clicking on a link to your site. Google appears to be interested in tracking and utilising this data. It is a way to measure whether the information on your site was helpful or not.
The primary statistic that can tell us about a website’s dwell time is the bounce rate versus the average time spent per user visit. It is beneficial to use videos to increase the time spent on a page.
5. Produce high-quality content that includes long-tail keywords.
According to Statista, approximately 95.88 per cent of Google searches have a query of four words or more. Searches like these are referred to as “long tail keywords.” People who conduct these types of searches have higher levels of purchasing intent, making them ideal for targeting the visitor with quality content.
Long-tail keywords frequently predict when someone is on the verge of converting. Simply having this knowledge will give you an advantage over your competitors.
6. Optimise web pages and blog posts regularly.
The right content on your pages can mean the difference between visitors staying on your website to take the kinds of actions you want them to take. And that is usually an action that leads to a sale or some other type of conversion versus simply browsing. Your carefully chosen words can entice these visitors and keep their attention, resulting in a higher conversion rate of traffic to leads.
As a result, you can always solicit user feedback, monitor your web pages, and improve or realign them in response to user needs. This is an SEO strategy that will significantly impact your CRO.
7. Include compelling and relevant CTAs.
A call to action (CTA) is essential for any website. Its absence may result in a loss of connection with your customers. There may be design guidelines that must be followed for you and your customer to recognise each other. CTAs that are eye-catching and well-written will help optimise CRO while directing more traffic to the products being showcased.
Overall, SEO and CRO are inextricably linked. They are, in some ways, inseparable. The best sales funnel will be the one that brings more traffic to your website while filtering those relevant visitors to take a specific desired action on your website. The more specific and targeted you can be from the start of this funnel, the higher your profits. That is what marketers and small business owners are concerned with.
Dante St James is the founder of Clickstarter, a Facebook Blueprint Certified Lead Trainer, a Community Trainer with Facebook Australia, a digital advisor with Business Station, an accredited ASBAS Digital Solutions advisor and presenter, and the editor at The Small Marketer. You can watch free 1-hour webinars and grow your digital skills at Dante’s YouTube Channel.
