So, you’ve got your website up and running and you’re waiting for the conversions to come flooding in… but they haven’t. SEO and CRO are the first two things you should look into. Amongst other several reasons, but we will focus on two of the main culprits.
Scenario 1: Your website is live, but it’s getting no traffic. You have only a handful of people visiting your site each day.
Culprit 1: Poor SEO.
Scenario 2: Your website is live, it’s getting loads of traffic, but people bounce off quickly/don’t convert.
Culprit 2: Poor CRO.
Let’s look at these in more detail…
Poor SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a way of making your site more appealing to search engines.
If search engines like your site, they’ll rank you higher on SERPs (search engine result pages).
Higher rankings on SERPs mean more people landing on your site.
Fact: The top result on Google receives 27.6% of all clicks, while only 0.63% of searchers click on the second page (Backlinko).
Translation: If your site is currently ranking on the third page of Google, you probably won’t be getting any traffic.
Improving your site’s SEO
SEO is a mammoth task. It takes consistent and ongoing effort. Just because you finally rank on the first page of Google, it doesn’t mean you’ll stay there. You’ve got to tweak, fine-tune and repeat if you want to keep your ranking.
SEO tips for your site
Publishing regular, relevant and authoritative content
There’s a lot of information on Google, and much of it’s duplicated, so Google is always looking for something unique. Instead of rehashing the same old story, try to find a way to add value. This is great for your site’s authority.
Always make sure your content is relevant too. If you’re an electrician, you’re going to confuse Google if you start posting cookie recipes. So, stay in your lane.
Improving your domain authority
Domain authority is the SEO equivalent of your reputation. When you’re new on the scene, you don’t really have a reputation. So, you need to build this up. One of the best ways to do this is through backlinking. Backlinking gives you ‘link juice’.
‘Link juice’: the authority that one webpage passes on to another, through a hyperlink. The more ‘respected’ the referring page, the more ‘link juice’. For example, Fox News would offer better link juice than a local newspaper’s website.
Ensuring your ‘off-page’ SEO is on point
On-page SEO is everything on your web pages. Mostly, that’s images and content.
Off-page SEO is everything you can’t see. That includes fixing backlinks, ensuring your site is mobile-friendly, posting regularly on socials and setting up a Google My Business ‘store’. SEO is like an iceberg, whilst some of it is visible above the surface (on your site), most of it’s going on under the water.
It’s important to understand as well, that SEO is all directly linked to your competitors. If everything is going fine, and your rankings are great, but then your competitor suddenly ups their game, you’ll be left in the dust. That’s why you’ve got to keep on top of it at all times.
Improving your site’s CRO
Let’s imagine you’ve put all the points above into practice, and your SEO is going from strength to strength. It’s time to think about what happens when people get onto your site. Queue, CRO.
Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is a way of making your site more appealing to those who land on it, to secure the conversions you want. CRO also involves lots of tweaking and fine-tuning. More on that shortly.
CRO tips for your site
Being clear on your message
Confusing messaging is terrible for conversion rates. If someone lands on your site and doesn’t immediately understand what you do/the services you can offer, they’re likely to bounce.
Your words play a huge part in convincing people to convert. So use them carefully. Create a value proposition that accurately conveys the value of your product. For example…
Nike: Where all athletes belong
Grammarly: Great writing, simplified
Uber: Tap the app, get a ride
Building trust and credibility
Lots of people stick to their go-to brand because they trust them. They’ve got experience with this brand and they’re pretty confident they won’t be let down. If you want to make people switch to you, you have to make them understand they can trust your brand too.
The best way to do this is through reviews and social proof. Reviews and testimonials from other customers can give potential customers the push they need to try your services.
Create compelling call to actions
A call-to-action is the next step a marketer wants the audience to take. That could be booking a call, buying a product, signing up for a free trial, or filling in a form etc.. It almost always involves clicking something.
No matter what the CTA is, it needs to be clear and compelling. You don’t want people falling at the last hurdle because they don’t know what to do next.
Make sure your CTAs stand out by using contrasting colors. Use strong action words like ‘claim’, ‘free’ or ‘now’. Create urgency by using limited-time offers. Do everything you can to make sure your user takes the action you want them to.
A/B test
CRO involves a lot of A/B testing. You can’t just stab in the dark. You should be continually tweaking and fine-tuning, to see what works best.
Maybe your CTA buttons get more clicks when they’re in green, not red. Maybe a question headline performs better than a statement. How do you know for sure? A/B testing.
Read more about A/B testing ideas.
SEO and CRO go hand-in-hand
Now that you understand the differences, it’s clear to see how these two digital marketing strategies go hand-in-hand. SEO helps attract users to your site, and CRO helps convert them once they get there.
Once you’ve mastered these two disciplines, your website will be the powerhouse you need it to be.
