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You have a sleek website design, are utilizing a variety of digital marketing tactics to drive traffic to your website, and are even impressed with the number of visitors you see each month – so why aren’t you seeing an improvement in conversion rate? That’s why we’re here. In this post we’ll uncover the 6 things you need to do every month to boost your conversation rates.

What is a Conversion Rate?

Defined as the ratio of the number of visitors who took the desired action on your website (made a purchase, for example) to the total number of website visitors, a conversion rate is a measure of your site’s ability to transform visitors into paying customers. Achieving a higher conversion rate often translates to an increase revenue, which is why so many businesses focus on this metric for their website.

How do You Calculate a Conversion Rate?

Conversion rate = (# of visitors who took a specific action/total # of site visitors)*100.

Let’s say that you receive 100 total site visitors. Of those, 10 decide to make a purchase. Your conversion rate would then be calculated like this: (10/100)*100 = 10%. This means that with the above numbers, the conversion rate is 10%.

Of course, the main factor in determining the conversion rate has to do with the desired business outcome. Example business outcomes can include the purchasing of an item, downloading of a conversion driver, subscribing to an eNewsletter, filling submitting a form, and many more. Since businesses have different goals, each will measure conversion rate differently.

Why should businesses focus on improving conversion rates? It’s simple. Increased conversion rates can lead to:

• Increase in revenue
• Increase in advertising money to drive more visitors
• Visibility to a wider audience
• Business growth

What is a Good Conversion Rate?

Honestly, the answer to this depends upon the industry and country. Typically, the average conversion rate is seen between 2% and 5%, with the majority being around 3%. The higher the better, of course.

We know what your next question will be: how hard is it to improve conversion rates? Of course, that answer also varies as it depends upon your audience and where they are in the buying process. But there is hope! Below are a variety of different tactics to use to help improve your conversion rate.

What are Pop-ups? Why are they Important to Improve Conversions?

A website pop-up is an opt-in form that pops out of the normal design of your website to entice a visitor to take some sort of action (signing up for an email list, creating an account, etc.). Usually, pop-ups cover up a certain part of a page to draw the viewer’s attention. We’re guessing that if you’ve spent any time online, you’ve seen them before.

Good pop-ups will get viewers to read them, fill them out, or click on a button to take a certain action, which helps to increase conversion rate.

In terms of pop-up types, these are a few of the more effective ones:

1. Exit pop-ups appear right before a viewer exits your site, when his or her mouse gravitates towards the url box at the top of the page. The most effective way to incorporate this pop-up is to include an offer about the product or service on the page they were viewing in a last ditch attempt to reel them back in, or at least collect their email address so that you can follow up with them later. These pop-ups are great for eCommerce sites and help minimize cart abandonment drastically.

We love this exit pop-up that Little Family Adventure incorporates.

Alt text: Little Family Adventure uses their exit pop-up to entice viewers to download their ebook before leaving their site.

2. Scroll pop-ups occur when a viewer has scrolled down the page by a certain percentage. Incorporating this more than 50% down on the page will help you to capture viewers who are more interested in your product, rather than those who are less likely to convert. These leads will be much more qualified, meaning that when you follow up via email, they’ll have a better chance of converting into paying customers.

As the largest online social media magazine, Social Media Examiner, utilizes this pop-up about 30% of the way down on any article someone reads.

Alt text: Social Media Examiner Scroll Pop-up.

Another way to draw attention is through lightbox pop-ups. This type appears at the top of the page while the rest of the page content is inactivated and dimmed out. These pop-ups work well to focus attention to the pop-up, without alienating visitors from your site. Just be sure to set these so that they don’t appear right away – no one like a pop-up in their face right when they get to a website! For best results, wait 5 to 10 seconds at least before having a lightbox pop-up appear.

Alt text: Turntable Lab Lightbox pop-up

Pop-ups, when used correctly, are an excellent conversion tool. How so? Pop-ups grab visitors’ attention, and when executed well, entice them to click on the offer, headline, and call-to-action so that they interact with your site and ultimately, sign up to be a part of your community.

But pop-ups aren’t just a set-up and walk away type of tool. They require a little maintenance and a good amount of forethought to be sure that they are optimized correctly.

We recommend that people log in to update their pop-ups once a month to ensure that they’re converting as well as possible.

6 Things You Need to do Every Month to Improve Your Conversion Rates

1.) Perform A/B Test to Increase Conversions

A/B testing is a common marketing experiment to find out what’s resonating with your audience and what’s not. This type of test is done with one variant at a time, which can include headline text, font size and style, or color and web page design, to name just a few.

In the below example, you can see that this company is testing different font sizes and messaging on their main header. Creating a captivating header that appeals to your audience’s problem or offers them a desired solution can result in two things: they will continue to scroll down or they will click on the CTA – both outcomes are great for your business.

Alt text: split test example

By testing two different versions of this web page, marketers can see what performs better for their specific audience. This strategy can then be implemented throughout their site as they’ve “figured out” what their audience likes best.