How do you optimize conversion rate?

There are numerous ways to optimize a website's conversion rate. 

But before diving into that, it's critical to determine what kind of optimization methodology is the right one for you. 

Determine your current conversion rate

The first thing you're going to want to do is to check the number of conversions that you're currently getting on a monthly basis on your website. 

You must first determine what you consider to be a conversion. Whether that be a lead, purchase, phone call, contact form, or another user action. 

Find the bottlenecks in the user journey

Use the data that you have from your Google Analytics account and your heatmap tool (if you have one set up), and analyze it to discover where your primary conversion bottlenecks are. 

Once you know where the bottlenecks occur, you can analyze them more in-depth by using your heatmapping tool. If you don't have one set up, it’s a really great idea to get one. We recommend LuckyOrange or HotJar. 

Use a heat map tool to review a scroll map and click map of how far people are scrolling down on the problematic pages of your funnel and also where people are clicking most/least. 

These will provide further insight into the potential problems on each page.

Once you have this information and additional context, you can now perform a heuristics analysis of the pages causing drop-off. 

Perform a heuristics analysis

A heuristics analysis is simply a review of your website from the "conversion" perspective. It’s when you put yourself into the shoes of the potential visitor and their experience to find the areas of the website which may cause confusion, friction, objection, and anything else that would prevent the user from converting.

Ask the following questions:

- What are my conversion bottlenecks? 

- Why are those considered bottlenecks in the first place?

- What should I do to fix those bottlenecks? 

Once you finish a heuristics analysis, prioritize the recommendations from highest to lowest priority. Now you have a basic roadmap of improvements to make on your website. 

Start by implementing the top 5-10 highest priority items first to see the initial impact, and if you're confident with the other changes, you can proceed with them afterward.

Here are a few ideas you may want to consider.

8 ideas to optimize your conversion rate

Here are some of the best strategies to improve your conversion rate and get more conversions.

1. Test your CTAs
2. Make your CTAs more visible
3. Use sticky menus (especially for mobile) 
4. Simplify your checkout process by removing unnecessary questions
5. Remove distractions
6. Add live chat to your website
7. Add social proof to your site (UGC and product reviews)
8. Optimize the above the fold area of your pages 

How much data do you need to A/B test? 

You have to check how many conversions you're getting each month. If you’re getting more than 400 conversions then it may make sense to A/B test.

To be sure A/B testing makes sense (because it is an ongoing investment), you'd want to calculate the exact value that each additional percentage uplift in conversion rate would bring to the business. 

If your business has a low average order value (AOV) then you may want to wait until you have 600-700 conversions before considering A/B testing. A low average order value would be somewhere around $30 per less per checkout on your website.

How much money should you spend on A/B testing?

If you can determine the value of the uplift, then you can estimate what's required to invest in a solid A/B testing program. Look at the impact on revenue if you were to achieve a semi-substantial or very substantial increase in conversion rate, and then calculate the expected ROI of the investment. 

When you shouldn’t do A/B testing

Sometimes it doesn’t make sense to do A/B testing. For example, when there's either not enough data to properly do A/B testing OR the required investment to do A/B testing won't yield a sustainable ROI.