Getting tons of traffic to your website is always a good thing. But there is really no point of this, if it doesn’t turn out into a sale. If you are looking for an easy and low risk way to increase traffic and convert it, then use the conversion rate optimization strategies mentioned later in this article.

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is the continual process of making your website generate better results from the visited traffic. It is the fastest and easiest strategy to increase your sales with investing less money on increasing traffic.

The CRO strategies are as follows:

Headline

• Headline is the first thing that a customer reads on your website. It offers the biggest opportunity for improvements in conversion rate.
• About 80% of the improvement in conversion rate comes from headline.
• Always use the headline which states the biggest benefits of your product.

Offer

• The second biggest opportunity for improvement in conversion rate is the offer that you make for your customers.
• Your offer is the call to action aka CTA that makes your visitors act (purchase, sign up etc).

Lead

• Lead or the starting paragraph of your website is what compels your visitors to read more.
• Use attractive and catchy lines along throughout so as to get visitor’s attention.
• This acts as the third main opportunity to increase conversion rate.

Benefits

• This acts as the fourth biggest factor to improve conversion rate.
• Always mention the benefits in “bullet point format”, in the order of your product’s “value hierarchy” i.e. strong points of your products first and its weakest point last.

Images

• The images have a big impact on conversion rate. It’s always best to use clear images that display the biggest benefit of your product.
• Placing of images equally matter. Always place images on the left of product description as it is easy to read text from left to right.
• Also people like to read “captions” posted under your images as much as they read headline. So try to make use of strong and attractive captions.

Look & feel

• Look and feel gives the actual value and kind of trust on what you are buying. Online photos can be deceptive. According to a recent study by Stanford University, 46% of web sales are lost due to lack of elements that build trust and value.
• The number one reason for this is the lack of look and feel. Having a “professional look” and trust building tools help in converting new visitors into potential customers.
• Professional looks can be achieved by providing various certifications about the product.

Other important conversion elements and practices

• Buttons – Buttons are very effective CTA. Use customized buttons, of various shapes, sizes and color. Its trial and error game! Like SAP found that orange color gave boost to their conversion rate by 32.5%.
• Pricing tables – Pricing table allow showcasing multiple products and services along with their prices and package.
• Use of navigation links – Navigation links helps to boost conversion rate. Make the navigation links easily reachable as this will make visitors come and stay on your website for longer.
• Time limit – The longer time people take on making a decision, higher is the chance of losing them on a purchase deal. The best way to overcome this situation is by instilling a time limit to your offer. For example: Get 60% off on this product in next 48 hours.
• Limited quantity – Another such example of time limit is limited quantity. It makes a sense of scarcity in the mind of visitors. When something is not available it reduces the purchasing time significantly as there is fear of loss. For example: Quick, only 2 left in stock!
• Testimonials – These are displayed directly after the product description. According to a research done, 92% people tend to buy product after recommendation from peers and 70% people tend to buy after recommendation from the person they don’t know.

Bottom line

When you use “conversion rate optimization” to test and improve your sales through websites, you can double your sales (quadruple if possible) when you add up all the above mentioned points. It definitely takes time to work out but it’s worth a shot.