How To Optimize Website For Conversion In 23 Best Ways

Imagine this: You’ve spent countless hours designing a stunning website, but visitors just aren’t sticking around long enough to make a purchase or sign up. Sound familiar? You're not alone. Many website owners face the same struggle. This is where understanding the SEO Conversion Funnel becomes crucial. The funnel helps you visualize and optimize the journey visitors take from being curious browsers to satisfied customers. In this blog, we’ll explore the strategies you need to turn your website into a conversion powerhouse. Ready to learn how to optimize your website for conversion? Let’s get started.

BlogCTAs offers a programmatic CRO tool to help you achieve those conversion goals faster. It’s all about making your website work smarter, not harder.

What is Website Conversion Optimization?

woman on a laptop - Optimize Website for Conversion

Website conversion optimization, or conversion rate optimization (CRO), is about enhancing your website to urge visitors to take desired actions. These actions—conversions—can be anything from purchasing to signing up for your:

Newsletter
Downloading a whitepaper
Filling out a form

It's not just about boosting sales; it's about any measurable action that brings value to your business and moves the visitor further down your sales funnel.

Understanding Conversion Rates

Your conversion rate is the percentage of people who visit your site and then complete a desired action. For example, if 100 people visit your site and 25 subscribe to your newsletter, your conversion rate is 25%.

Across industries, the average landing page conversion rate hovers around 2.35%. The top 25% of companies see rates above 5.31%, and the top 10% exceed 11.45%. You’ll need to put in some strategic CRO work to hit those high numbers, which can help double or triple your results over time.

The Core of Effective CRO

CRO is about making your site work smarter, not harder. You can turn more visitors into loyal customers or engaged leads—propelling your business toward its goals by focusing on:

User behavior
Refining your messaging
Continuously optimizing performance

How To Optimize Website For Conversion In 23 Best Ways

employees on a laptop - Optimize Website for Conversion

Let’s go through the steps to optimize your website for conversion.

1. Go In-Depth With Your Data

Optimizing any business strategy and achieving sustainable growth starts with data. Guessing what your customers want and which product pages and conversion tools will work won’t get you the best results. Instead, you need to commit to constantly collecting valuable insights.

Start with the quantitative data you can get from solutions like Google Analytics. This could include:

Data on traffic and traffic sources
Details of user behavior on landing pages
Click-through rates for adverts and marketing campaigns

Leveraging Qualitative Data for Deeper Customer Insights and Competitive Advantage

Remember, your quantitative data isn’t the only valuable resource you have. Qualitative data can help to give depth and context to the information you’re collecting.

For instance, on-site surveys or asking questions about how they found the purchasing experience on a post-purchase landing page can be handy. You can even use social monitoring and listening tools to discover what customers say about your brand.

Comparing these insights to your competitors’ results can help you find new ways to differentiate your company or earn additional conversions.

2. Examine Your Conversion Funnel

Improving your conversion funnel is a great way to increase your conversion rate. Examining your conversion funnel means analyzing customers’ journeys to purchase your products or services. Valuable tools, like Google Analytics 4, can give you a behind-the-scenes look at what customers are doing on your e-commerce website.

You can use these tools to determine which pages your customers visit most often, how long they spend on each page, and which pages force them to hit the “back button” or leave your site. There are even heatmap tools available that offer insight into the most viewed sections of your pages.

Reducing Cart Abandonment and Optimizing the Full Conversion Funnel

The on-site analytics you collect will help you define where you frequently lose conversions. For instance, around 69.23% of shoppers abandon their carts before purchasing. If you’re suffering from high cart abandonment levels, you could implement:

One-click checkout tools
More payment methods
Cart abandonment email strategies

Remember, your conversion funnel can exist off your website, too. It might include your social media platforms to advertise products to customers and your email marketing campaigns. Collecting insights from these platforms will give you a clearer view of the entire customer journey and how each stage influences your audience.

3. Optimize Your Website Copy

The copy on every page of your website should help drive customers through the purchasing funnel. From the moment they arrive on your home page, your visitors should see a clear headline, drawing attention to your unique value proposition.

Your unique value proposition shouldn’t just appear on your home page either. It should be consistently highlighted across all your website pages, from your product pages to the “About” page and even your blog.

When optimizing your website copy, remember to:

Consider SEO: Using keywords customers are actively searching for in your website copy makes it easier for visitors to find you. The more visitors you get to your website, the more chances you have of converting them.
Keep it simple: Don’t overwhelm your visitors with too much information on the core pages of your website. Get straight to the point, and make it easy for your customers to understand what they need to do next on your website to access your solutions. One tip to make your copy simple and concise is to use a text summarizer to shorten your paragraphs or bullet multiple pointers in a wordy text.
Be Benefit-oriented: While listing your features on your product pages or even your home page is tempting, the best copy answers one question: “What’s in it for me?” Focus on the benefits your products or services will have for your customers.

4. Invest in a Better Website User Experience

UX and UI aren’t just popular terms in the web development landscape; they’re crucial concepts every business owner should know. Some studies show that for every $1 you spend on UX, you can expect a return of up to $100.

Essential UX Enhancements to Boost Conversions: Navigation, Mobile Optimization, and Speed

While the steps you take to improve user experience on your site may vary depending on your business, there are a few things every company can do:

Improve navigation: Make it easy for customers to find the information they want. Create a straightforward menu for your website, and stick it to the top of the page so it’s easy to access when users scroll. You can even add a search bar to your site to help your customers search for specific things.
Optimize for mobile: By 2026, mobile commerce will account for 8.7% of all retail sales. The easiest way to lose a sale is to make it difficult for consumers to access your pages on a mobile device. Ensure your website theme or design works well on any platform and that buttons and forms are easily accessible.
Speed up your site: Website conversion rates drop by around 4.42% with every additional second a page takes to load. If your site loads slowly, you can speed it up with browser caching and image compression. Consider using a Content Delivery Network.

Most importantly, pay attention to any reviews or feedback your customers leave about website design issues. By listening to feedback, you can learn a lot about what to focus on in your conversion rate optimization strategies.

5. Optimize Landing Pages and CTAs

Landing page optimization can increase conversion rates significantly by removing the distractions that cause customers to click away or abandon a purchase. If you’re trying to convince your leads to do something like signing up for a webinar or subscribing to an email newsletter, a landing page is a great idea. Campaign-specific landing pages can sometimes rank higher in the search results.

When you launch a new product, service, or promotion, consider using a landing page with a lead magnet or specific offer. For instance, encourage people to convert by offering them a discount if they sign up quickly.

Crafting High-Converting CTAs for Landing Pages: Tips and Best Practices

When you create your landing pages, follow the guidelines above to improve your website copy. Highlight the benefits of your solution “above the fold” (before customers need to scroll), and include a clear CTA.

Your landing page CTAs and CTAs anywhere else on your website should always feature the following:

Compelling action verbs like “activate” or “explore”
Urgency, with words such as “Now” or “Today”
Contrast – to ensure buttons stand out from the page

6. Make your website easy to navigate.

Always imagine that your website visitors are walk-in customers. You wouldn’t want a customer to get lost or confused in your store, so apply the same principle to your website.

Organize your products and pages logically so customers can find what they need quickly. By “logical manner,” I mean having transparent and representative:

Page titles/headers
Sidebar navigation
Footer links

Enhancing Website Navigation with Search Bars and Breadcrumbs

Other features that can make your website easy to navigate include a search bar and breadcrumbs. In digital marketing, breadcrumbs are navigational elements displayed on websites that show users their:

Current location within the site’s structure
Helping them easily navigate back
Move to higher-level categories

They improve the user experience, reduce bounce rates, and enhance website navigation.

7. Create high-quality content.

According to a Semrush study, 97% of the businesses surveyed said they have generated positive results from content marketing. This stat shows that content marketing is among the most effective tactics for increasing website conversion rates. Content can be anything from long-form blog posts and videos to infographics and podcasts. Creating high-quality content that educates, entertains, or informs your audience will help build trust with them. This way, customers are more likely to make a purchase.

8. Optimize your website for mobile devices.

Mobile phones are the most popular devices for online shopping, so ensuring your website is optimized for mobile devices makes sense. Some ways to do this include using a mobile-friendly theme, ensuring the website loads quickly, and hiding intrusive pop-ups on mobile. Consider adding click-to-call options and optimizing content for voice search.

9. Use social proof

Social proof, or customer testimonials, is one of the most powerful persuasion techniques in digital marketing. It helps build trust and credibility with customers. Highlighting customer reviews and ratings can give potential customers a better idea of your product quality.

Harnessing Social Proof and Authentic UGC for Enhanced Brand Trust

You can also include information about how many users have already purchased the item or subscribed to your newsletter. This type of social proof has been proven to increase conversions significantly.

‍User-generated content (UGC) creators are also vital resources for gathering social proof for your brand. They produce authentic content using your products without advertising or influencing cringe.

10. Provide clear contact information.

Website visitors may have inquiries about your product or service during their visit. It helps provide direct communication on your website, such as a contact page, social media links, and phone numbers.

You can also add live chat support so customers can ask questions in real-time while browsing products or services. This will help customers find what they're looking for quickly and reduce the rate of abandoned carts, as they'll be able to sort out any issues as they arise.

11. Offer a seamless checkout process.

Nothing can be more frustrating for customers than a long and complicated checkout process. Ensure your checkout process is seamless and requires minimal steps, such as filling out forms or providing shipping information.

Consider adding features like autofill, guest checkout, and payment gateways to make the process easier for customers. An easy checkout process can increase website conversions by reducing customer frustration with buying.

Increasing your website's conversion rate is essential for building a successful online business. Implementing the seven tips discussed in this article can increase website conversions and improve the overall customer experience.

12. Captivate With The Hero Section

The hero section, the lead section at the top of your site, has enormous potential to capture initial attention because it is the first thing a visitor sees. Its mission is to attract interest and encourage users to learn more about a valuable offer.

Optimizing Your Website's Hero Section: Headlines and Visuals That Convert

Consider refining these key components when updating your website's hero section for conversion rate improvement:

Headline: Write a clear, concise message. UX Planet recommends five to seven words (up to 60 characters). Add details in a 20-word subheading. Avoid using negative words at the beginning. Use active verbs and include targeted keywords for SEO.
Visuals: According to Nielsen Norman Group research, images are the first thing that attracts users' attention. People look more at informative images explaining the text than purely decorative pictures.

13. Consider Accessibility

Accessibility is often overlooked during the web optimization process. It can make all the difference. You can engage visitors with different abilities and thrive in search. According to a study conducted by Accessibility Checker, 66% of sites that improved accessibility witnessed up to 50% organic growth in traffic.

But what is an accessible website? Accessible websites include visitors with different physical disabilities. They can access the site through various input devices, such as a screen reader.

14. Implement a CRO strategy

Use a conversion rate optimization (CRO) organizer. Developing a CRO strategy is the best way to assess and plan to improve your conversion rate.

Start with an audit of your site, learn more about your site’s visitors, perform A/B tests and other forms of experimentation, and then identify what improvements you need to make to strengthen your conversion funnel. A CRO strategy’s value is that it walks you through every step of the website conversion process.

15. Conduct competitor research and analysis

Knowing your competitors’ strengths and shortcomings gives you an advantage in the marketplace. You can use this information to highlight your company’s edge over your rivals.

Understanding how your competitors operate and perform can help you make better-informed decisions about:

Pricing
Marketing
Product development

The Role of Competitor Analysis in Shaping Buyer Decisions

Remember that before making any transaction, individuals will investigate their possibilities. They will investigate your rivals to determine how you compare to them.

‍Competitor analysis allows you to put yourself in the position of your target audience and evaluate your offerings in the context of the choices they would make if they were making a purchase. You can direct your efforts to make yours the most attractive option they find.

16. Optimize the layouts of the most-visited pages on your site

Discovering that your page’s conversion rate has yet to budge despite your best efforts indicates it’s time for a significant redesign. See whether conversion rates improve if you adjust the design and layout based on what you learn about your visitors’ behavior and industry standards.

The guidelines for converting pages will draw on research and examples showing how people interact with websites. Website analytics tools may provide helpful information about how visitors interact with your site. You may use them to make a page users want to interact with.

17. Use buyer personas to understand your customers

To improve your customers’ experience on your website and encourage them to convert, it’s critical that you know who they are and understand what motivates them and what they want your product to do. You can build buyer personas to help you uncover and apply this information to your:

Content
Site layout
CTAs

Creating Accurate Buyer Personas: Strategies for Understanding Your Ideal Customer

A buyer persona is a profile of your ideal customer. To develop a buyer persona:

Read customer reviews.
Ask customers questions via polls or surveys.
Look at your customer data.
Engage customers and prospects in conversations.

18. Integrate visual and audio content into landing pages

Your site’s credibility will increase with the addition of multimedia features, which are the most popular way to consume media. Using visuals like charts, graphs, and video testimonials is best to increase your site’s conversion rate. Landing pages allow you to showcase your product or service in visual form.

19. Incorporate live chat

When web visitors don’t convert, they might have questions or concerns about your product or service. To avoid losing potential customers, consider adding live chat to your site.

With live chat, your customer service or sales employees can alleviate the concerns of prospects still deciding. It provides a way to connect with visitors in real time and address their issues directly, improving customer satisfaction and potentially increasing conversions.

20. Establish abandoned cart marketing emails

There’s excellent potential revenue from prospective customers who browse your website and add a product to their shopping cart but ultimately abandon it before checkout. Sending out abandoned cart emails can be a powerful tool for recapturing these lost sales.

That’s why you should establish an abandoned cart email campaign that you can tailor to remind the customer why they added the item to their cart first, provide discount codes to encourage them to buy and create a sense of urgency.

21. Experiment with your offers

Determining whether your content offerings to your target audience is beneficial are:

Relevant
Innovative
Captivating
Appealing

By experimenting with offers, you can gain valuable insight into what content resonates most with their customers and tailor it to their needs.

For instance, offering a free trial or consultation is quite general. Instead, you could give away something more valuable, such as a free tool or downloadable booklet. This way, potential customers can see the value of doing business with you, increasing their likelihood of becoming loyal customers.

22. Conduct user research

Your goal with this type of research is to find out exactly how visitors interact with your website. You also want to know how they got to your site. In addition, it’s essential to find out if they encounter any obstacles while using your website, particularly any that prevent them from converting; conversely, which aspects of their visit run smoothly.

During your user research, you’re also going to analyze:

Technical problems with your website, such as broken links
User interface (UI) issues that impact the user experience, such as poor navigation
How users perceive your website generally

23. Get rid of any distracting elements

Website visitors are less likely to purchase from a page that is difficult to navigate or too crowded with irrelevant content. There’s little time to make an impression, and visitors will only linger if your site is easy to use.

When designing your website, it’s crucial to eliminate any elements that can discourage visitors from taking the desired action. Remove distractions like extra links, pop-ups, or menus a user might not need. Instead, use a visual hierarchy to persuade site visitors to follow your call to action. By keeping the page focused and straightforward, you make it easier for customers to learn about your services or products, which can encourage them to make a purchase.

Calculating Your Website Conversion Rate

google search console - Optimize Website for Conversion

Calculating your website's conversion rate is fundamental to optimizing performance. Start by identifying which conversion you’re tracking. Whether it’s newsletter signups or purchases, the formula remains constant:

Conversion Rate (%) = (Number of Conversions / Number of Website Visits) × 100

For instance, if your site gets 30,000 visits monthly and 1,200 of those sign up for your newsletter, divide the signups by the visits, then multiply by 100. That gives you a 4% conversion rate for that period.

Different Rates for Different Goals

Make sure to distinguish the number of conversions from conversion rates. They show different things. Each marketing campaign can have several conversion rates, which are usually easy to calculate.

For example, if the primary conversion goal is a user clicking a link, the conversion rate is the number of clicks divided by the number of people who see the link.

Conversion Rates Across the Funnel

Every step in the funnel can have its conversion rate. For example, the rate for cart additions would be the number of people who add an item to their cart divided by the number of people who visit the product page.

For purchases, it could be the number of people who complete a purchase divided by the number of people who add an item to their cart or the number of purchases divided by the number of product page visits.

Retargeting for Better Results

Use retargeting to improve the conversion rates you’ve calculated. Abandoned cart emails are a great example. Send automated emails to users who add items to their cart but don’t complete checkout. This conversion-based retargeting aims to move users from cart addition to purchase. After calculating conversion rates, take action to improve them.

How Blog CTAs Streamline Conversion Optimization Across Multiple CMS Platforms

Blog CTAs are a programmatic CRO tool for your blog. We noticed it was too difficult to set up blog-wide CTAs on most content management systems like:

Framer
Webflow
Ghost
Strapi
Wordpress
Sanity
Tina
Dozens of other CMSs

Our engineering teams needed to jump through multiple hoops and divert their attention from pressing issues to set aside 3-7 days to set up a blog-wide CTA for our websites manually.

Blog CTAs were created to make setting up CTA on your blog easy. Increase your blog conversion rate by 3-7%+ with sidebar CTA’s. Start to capture more leads from your blog within 5 minutes. Sign up for the waitlist today.

Benefits of Website Conversion Optimization

Amplify Your Visibility

Getting noticed online is all about standing out. Google cares about how fast your page loads, how well it responds, how stable it looks, and the content it offers. These are the things that make your site rank higher in search results.

Optimizing for these metrics is like giving your website a megaphone. Want a tip? Use semantic HTML, focus on accessibility, and ensure your site is mobile-friendly. These moves boost your visibility and make your website more inclusive and appealing to a broader audience.

Crafting a Seamless User Experience

Let’s face it: no one has time for a slow or broken website. A slick user experience is crucial to keep people engaged. Think about an online store with a checkout system that works smoothly. That’s the kind of site people want to stick around on. By creating a frictionless experience, you’re not just keeping users happy—you’re keeping them on your site longer.

Supercharge Your Conversion Rates

An optimized website is like a mind reader—it knows what users want. This insight helps you craft call-to-action buttons that work. Whether getting people to sign up for a newsletter or encouraging them to buy a product, these CTAs are key to engagement. And when your website is optimized, you can deploy these CTAs with maximum impact.

Capture More Leads from Your Blog for Free Today with Blog CTAs

Have you ever felt that setting up blog-wide CTAs is more convoluted than it needs to be? It’s often a tangled mess with platforms like:

Framer
Webflow
Ghost, etc.

Your engineering team gets bogged down, losing 3-7 days on something that should be seamless. That’s where Blog CTAs step in. Designed to simplify the process, it allows you to set up CTAs across your blog in five minutes. Imagine the time you save—and the leads you capture.

With sidebar CTAs, you can boost your blog’s conversion rate by 3-7%. It’s a quick win for your blog and a game-changer for your conversion funnel.

Tired of Not Driving Enough Revenue from Your Blog?