As a business owner, it can be frustrating when you’ve invested in SEO, you’re running Google ads, you’ve got great email marketing campaigns, and traffic is flowing, yet no one seems to be converting.
You need more traffic, right? It’s an easy misconception that pushing as much traffic as possible through your website is the way to get conversions, but this isn’t necessarily the case. The real problem isn’t the volume of visitors on your website, it’s what happens once they visit that counts.
Read below for our insights into conversion rate optimisation and how you can ensure that you’re catering to your visitors and what they want to see. Here at You and I, we’re leading experts in conversion rate optimisation in Bristol. We work with our clients to ensure their websites consider their target audience and activity.
First Things First, What Is A Bad Conversion Rate?
When we talk about ‘conversions’, we mean when a particular event happens on your website. Say you’re a local plumber, you’ll want form fills, or calls made from your website, or if you are an online clothes shop, you’ll want to make sales on your website. Essentially, what is the desired action you want your customers to take?
Conversions mark when a visitor turns from a passive user into an engaged lead or an actual customer. This is a crucial metric for measuring the effectiveness of your campaigns and your website.
A healthy conversion rate sits around 2-5%. To be more accurate will depend on the sector of your business.
A bad conversion rate comes down to a bad on-site user experience. To identify a bad conversion rate, you’ll typically see:
- High traffic, low engagement,
- High bounce rates,
- Abandoned baskets or forms,
- Low form submissions.
Why Isn't More Traffic The Answer?
When you drive more traffic to a website that isn’t optimised for conversions, it’s like pouring water into a leaky bucket. No matter how much water you pour in, you will still lose some.
So now, think about the budget you are putting into SEO, PPC and all the digital channels you currently invest in. When you are not optimising your website with conversions in mind, you are not maximising on this investment.
Conversion rate optimisation leads to a better return on investment as it maximises the value of your existing traffic by increasing the visitors who turn into customers. Instead of bringing more traffic to the website, it focuses on making the user experience more efficient, therefore, resulting in more conversions and more revenue from the same number of visitors and the same investment.
What Are Common Conversion Killers?
Most common conversion rate killers can be down to design or marketing errors.
Poor Website Design and User Experience
Remember that your website’s design and physical appearance will be the first impression a user gets of your company. A poorly designed website can negatively affect the conversion rate on your website.
Overcrowding or, on the other hand, a lack of features, can frustrate visitors, leading to them dropping off the website.
This leads to a higher bounce rate and fewer conversions.
A Slow Loading Website
A slow-loading website is probably the fastest way to lose conversions.
We’ve all done it; landed on a website for it to take ages to load, and then jumped off and went to another in the search results.
If your visitors wait more than 3 to 5 seconds for the site to load, they’ll likely leave without interacting.
Poor Mobile Optimisation
In Q4 of 2024, according to Statista, 62.54% of global website traffic was generated by mobile. If your website isn’t mobile-optimised, you’re likely cutting out many visitors.
Unclear Call To Actions
If you want your visitors to convert, you must direct your audience in the right direction. Otherwise, they’ll look at your website and leave without converting.
A Complicated Checkout Process
If you run an e-commerce store, you must ensure your checkout process is as streamlined as possible.
Adding lengthy forms or lots of steps to your checkout will lose you customers. Make sure that purchasing a product on your store is straightforward.
Lacking In Trust Signals
Customers must trust you to hand over their card details or personal information. Adding secure checkout details, customer reviews and testimonials, and clear returns policies are all ways to build trust.
Think about it, you wouldn’t buy from a faceless company without any reviews, would you?
Your customers won’t either.
Fix The Leaks In Your Conversion Funnel Before Pouring More Traffic In
Once you’ve realised that your website is converting, it’s an easy mistake to think that boosting your ad spend or doubling down on your SEO is the answer. Whilst this will likely bring you more traffic and therefore a few more conversions, when your website has fundamental CRO problems, more visitors mean more people leaving without converting.
Before you invest more, optimise what is already there. Start small, make tweaks and carry out tests to better understand your customers and drive more conversions.
Or, perhaps, work with a specialist offering conversion rate optimisation in Bristol today and speak to our team to better understand how your website could be improved!
