How important is Conversion Rate Optimisation?

[activitysuper]

Silly question I know but just wanted to talk about it, more of a discussion then anything.

How important is CRO to you? Anyone have any stats before and after?

Cheers

[IanTheScot]

Well, if you're in business and trying to make a profit it is actually a more important stat than traffic. I'd rather have 15% conversion on 2000 visitors than 2% on 15,000. Even though they are the same, you have much more room to grow profitably.

[gcdtechnologies]

Hi there, CRO is something that I've been gradually devoting more and more time to, because the ROIs have been excellent. On one page we received a 35% increase in click-throughs by changing the button colour. I run A/B tests on as many pages in the funnel as possible now and have seen consistent improvements in conversions.

[Matt-Williamson]

CRO is one of the most important things that I do in relation to digital marketing in my opinion because as we all know even the smallest change on a landing page can influence the success or conversion of visitors. It's all well and good having a site that has thousands of visits a day, but if none of those convert then you are potentially loosing out significantly.

Just changing the focus of a page using heat maps and a & b testing has lead to a significant increase in revenue generated.

When I read this article a couple of years ago I changed my focus to include an even more intensive push on CRO so I thought I would link to it for those that never saw it - http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-definitive-howto-for-conversion-rate-optimization

[gcdtechnologies]

Haha I like the section "Don't split-test the colour of your buttons (unless you really want to)" But it just goes to show the importance of testing as much as possible and basing all decisions on metrics

[activitysuper]

Yeah its amazing actually what the change of a colour can do.

I've noticed that actually decreasing the level of content on a page so the message is more clear actually has had great impact.

[EGOL]

It is much easier to double your money from existing customers than double your customers.  (at least on the first pass).

[roadrider75]

Improving conversions is massively important, the great thing too is that no matter who you're working for nothing is ever perfect so there is always room for improvement. Dig deep you'll always find something.

[MattAntonino]

CRO is by far the most important part of the job when you get to do it (and not the web designer.)  I would rather bring someone 100 visitors, 50 of whom bought my company's product than send them 1000, 25 of whom bought the product.  Companies exist to make money and sell things (and sometimes help people out.)  If we're contributing to the bottom line dollar, we'll have much longer careers.

[inizio]

They may be the same, but getting those 15.000 visitors costs you much more.

[Matt-Williamson]

Haha I wondered if you would read the article and notice that - I think your evidence above my prove that button colours really can make a difference. I have found the same to be honest. I also found changing the colour of a call to action resulted in a significant increase in click-throughs from my landing pages.

Some times I think things are just common sense and in a lot of cases I have found that the more you can spell something out for visitors the more they complete your desired actions. You can't argue with metrics and split testing in my opinion.