Conversion Rate Optimization - What Is It?

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by: James Copper
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Word Count: 339
Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2010 Time: 6:19 AM
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What is conversion rate optimization? Conversion rate optimization, also referred to as CRO, is the process of "converting" a visitor to your website into a customer. Okay, that's simple enough, so how do you go about doing it?

You can have hundreds of visitors to your site daily, but if none of them ever perform the desired "call to action," for instance purchasing a product or opting into a mailing list, then you aren't meeting your business goals.

The idea behind CRO is to increase website traffic and sales by reducing the "bounce rate" of your site. The bounce rate of your site can be viewed in Google Analytics if you track it there. It is the percentage of visitors who visit your site and bounce off to a different site as opposed to remaining on yours and navigating to your site pages.

It is also not as simple as applying conversion rate optimization to your home page alone. There are many different areas of your business that require attention, including:

- landing pages
- pay per click ads
- shopping cart processing
- product pages
- other onsite content
- email messages

A lot of testing has gone into the methodology behind CRO, and there are SEO experts with the skills and knowledge that can make a major difference in not only how much traffic you get on your content pages, but what happens to it after it gets there.

You'd be surprised how many website owners, when asked, aren't even sure what their "call to action" is, and that is okay, because there are a lot of things to learn about businesses online and it takes time.

That is why utilizing a service provider who can start you off right with conversion rate optimization is an excellent step in the right direction. Visitors are only visitors until they become customers, and that is what CRO is all about.

About the Author

James Copper writes articles for The BIG Agency where you can find out about conversion rate optimization techniques