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CRO: 3 simple website changes to boost online revenue

Feb 26th, 2014

Looking to improve your website’s conversion rates and boost your online revenue? There’s one very effective, simple way of going about this: Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO)

To get started, you will need to analyse your web traffic data. In-depth analysis of the quantitative data available can lead you to find where your potential improvements lie. Additionally, conducting an in-depth analysis of your website may help you to achieve your business goals.

When performing CRO for eCommerce websites, the checkout process is often the first port of call for testing, because all visitors making an eCommerce transaction will have to go through this process.

Here are three simple tests you can carry out on your website’s checkout page:

1. A/B testing: calls-to-action (CTAs)

Strong CTAs on your checkout page should entice your customers to do what you want them to do. The best way to pin-point which CTAs are most effective, is to send 50% of your traffic to a page which contains – for example – “Buy Now” buttons and the other 50% to the same page which contains – for example – “Add to Basket” buttons. After a few weeks, you can then analyse which page drives the highest conversion rate. You may be surprised with the results.

2. Visual appearance

Following on from the previous example, your shopping basket buttons should be a prominent feature on your shopping page. After all, getting users to add items to their baskets is the first step to making a sale. You can test if/how the aesthetics of your shopping basket buttons influence your customers by simply changing the colour. Carry out further A/B tests to identify which colours work best. The impact of a simple change of colour has the potential to increase your conversion rates.

3. Payment process

Provide your customers with a better user experience by creating a user-friendly payment process on your checkout page. You can investigate your goal funnel web traffic data and look into areas in which you can improve your conversion rates.

Some questions you may want to ask when looking at this data is, “are you asking for too much personal information at such an early stage of the buying cycle?” “Are there too many steps within the payment process?” and “Can my potential new customers purchase easily via guest checkout?”.

Carrying out an in-depth website analysis, identifying and using the best CTAs, the right visual appearance and a user-friendly payment process on your website are just three of the many changes you can make which can have an overall positive effect on your online revenue. More importantly, though, by conducting an in-depth website analysis and A/B tests, you are making informed business decisions backed with data.

You can then use this data to create more tests and test again…