Beginner's Guide to Conversion Rate Optimization: Steps To Follow For eLearning Success
If you want prospects to purchase your eLearning solution or book a call for a consultation, you have to persuade them to take action. But how can a marketer accomplish that in such a niche field? What if you have no idea which strategies you must use when it comes to conversion rate optimization for e-commerce? Everything starts from web page optimization, and Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is a part of this more extensive umbrella.
Essentially, CRO focuses on a page's ability to convert traffic. Meaning, CRO, as its name suggests, is all about conversions. eLearning marketers like yourself have to pay attention to these metrics and constantly optimize pages for conversions. But, what can one consider a customer conversion? Well, any action we deem of high value. It's a core metric for making decisions on what to test and improve.
CRO is very similar to Landing Page Optimization (LPO), so you might be wondering what the difference is. Even though their end goals are to increase a page's ability to convert, there's so much more behind each term. Of course, you can read my recent article on landing page optimization for more details.
But, let's return to our main topic: CRO. By now, you must have several questions that need answers.
For example, why is Conversion Rate Optimization important? Or maybe, how do you optimize conversion rate?
Worry not because, in this beginner's guide, we'll figure everything out. Buckle up as we're going to analyze where you should focus on when choosing a conversion optimization strategy for your eLearning company.
So, what is CRO in marketing? Is CRO a good investment? Let's clear things out and see why it is one of the most important aspects of your digital marketing strategy.
What Is CRO Marketing And Why Is Conversion Rate Optimization Important?
When talking about the most overlooked marketing strategies, CRO marketing possibly gets the first place. Unfortunately, because of this, eLearning companies are missing out on conversion-ready traffic.
But, what are conversions? A website visitor conversion refers to when a customer takes action on your website after following your CTA. The more creative you get, the more ideas you'll have about making prospects enter your sales funnel by optimizing the customer journey.
Some examples of conversions can be purchases on your website, leads from gated assets like eBooks or webinar registrations, newsletter subscriptions, sign-ups for a demo or free trial, etc.
Not everyone manages to sell right from the bat. Maybe, a simple email capture form can, later on, lead to schedule a sales meeting. It may not make someone a customer right away, but it's one step closer to closing the deal.
A conversion is any small step that moves people toward becoming customers. CRO marketers are very interested in percentages. After all, the main goal is to increase conversion rates. But what's a reasonable conversion rate? For example, if you want your website visitors to click the button "subscribe now" and only 10 out of 100 do so, your conversion rate for that particular conversion goal is a 10% conversion rate.
So, what is a "good" conversion rate? Well, it always depends on your industry, niche, and goals. Plus, it's also essential to analyze your traffic channels and audience demographics.
You know it's time to optimize if your conversion rate is lower than you'd like because:
- It's below the average in your industry.
- Maybe it's lower than your competitors.
- You might simply be underperforming against your own goals.
To check some examples, take a look at the recent stats of the conversion rate of online shoppers worldwide.
Which Are The Best CRO Tools And Strategies For eLearning Businesses?
Thankfully, there are plenty of CRO tools and platforms that help eLearning brands reach revenue growth. This list will mention some of the best tools you can use to understand visitor behavior, make observations, and build a testing pipeline. By the end of this read, you'll end up with all the tips you need to execute CRO tests. Plus, you'll be able to use them for statistical results and engage through new-age channels.
CRO Tools
Conversion rate optimization (CRO) tools help you collect data about your website and its visitors. By utilizing these tools, you can understand how people use your site. Then, to increase conversion rates for your campaigns, you can test and identify potential changes! For example, using CRO tools helps you understand why visitors are not converting into customers or leads. By testing and making changes using CRO tools, you're sure to reach the highest conversion rates possible.
To make it easier, let's analyze the three types of CRO tools that usually fall into these categories:
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Web Analytics CRO tools
Such tools can help you understand what's happening on your site. So, this is an essential part of conversion rate optimization. Why? Well, without knowing what is happening or what you're doing wrong, you won't know where to look for improvements. With web analytics tools, you get insights into metrics like bounce rate, sessions (and session duration), typical drop-off or exit pages, etc. For example, visitors might be arriving at your landing page, but they don't convert into customers or leads. You can use the tools to identify blockers they may be experiencing on the page.
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Behavior Analytics CRO Tools
That is a must if you want to know why your visitors behave a certain way on your website. Hence, it's yet another vital part of conversion rate optimization. You must understand what your visitors want, to give them what they need! These tools are what you need to understand website visitor behavior since they help you gather qualitative data about visitors; and how they use your website. For example, can visitors find what they're looking for? Why has a potential customer abandoned his shopping cart? Why is a visitor exiting the landing page without following the CTA? Hence, you can improve user experience, lower bounce rates, and increase conversions with these tools.
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CRO Testing Tools
Measuring changes you make to your site, and continuous testing is one of the most critical parts of conversion rate optimization. After identifying potential improvements, you need testing tools to compare and measure any changes you make. They help you define which version(s) converts better.
For instance, you may have gotten a clue from your web analytics and behavior analytics tools that the bounce rate is high on one of your landing pages. Perhaps this is happening because of a poorly-placed call to action (CTA). As a result, visitors are confused and find it hard to take the next step. Hence, they leave your website entirely. When such a case occurs, you can do A/B testing with different versions of your landing page. You can try to use another call-to-action CTA. Or even move key information above the fold. Any actions you take will help you see which version converts better.
Of course, CRO is not going to make you redesign your whole website. Its primary purpose is to improve the user experience.
Consequently, this is going to have an impact on the customer journey. Finally, if everything goes according to plan, visitors will make it through your sales funnel!
Now that we've covered all the above, here are some of the best CRO tools I've been using for years:
- Google Analytics (and GA 360)
- Hotjar
- Crazy Egg
- Adobe Analytics
- Heap
- FullStory
- Google Optimize
- VWO Testing
- Instapage
SEO Conversion Optimization
Let's face it. SEO optimization is the best way to increase your customer base. Even if your company primarily invests in PPC to reach its target traffic, it's a mistake to ignore organic traffic — don't miss out on an opportunity for new customers at a low cost.
As a store needs a steady flow of customers, so does the website of your eLearning business or SaaS platform. But, after prospects arrive on your landing page, do you have a strategy to make them buy?
So, what you need to do as a first step is bring in relevant visitors to your website. Step two is to have an effective strategy to influence them into converting into a customer. Leveraging conversion optimization and SEO is crucial for a balanced approach to your marketing strategy. Why? Because with this killer combination, you get to address both sides of the equation!
Driving traffic to your website but not having a clear and enticing CTA can mess things up for your conversion rate. You need to offer them something of interest. For example, this could be a proposal they can't resist. That is if you want to increase your sign-ups. Or even a gated asset to get their info and add them to your CRM. Then, you can start the lead nurturing process.
See? It's a win-win!
Wrapping It Up
SEO along with Conversion optimization tools and strategies are complementary forces. Why?
Well, they are designed to help you build an audience and guide user behavior.
Now that you've learned what Conversion Rate Optimization is, are you ready to use it to increase revenue for your eLearning business?
To calculate your conversion rate, you can divide the number of conversions by the number of visitors. Then, multiply the result you found by 100 to get a percentage. How did it go?
Feel free to share any questions you might have in the comments section.
In case you find it hard to do it on your own, there are plenty of sites that offer conversion rate optimization services.
For instance, an SEO analysis by our experts can help you understand your strengths and weakness. Then, you can use the insights to improve your SEO rankings, drive targeted traffic to your website, and finally convert visitors to customers!
I sincerely hope my CRO tool suggestions and tips are the first step to effectively enhance your website and business’s performance.
