Conversion Rate Optimisation Process, Step 1

Conversion rate optimisation (CRO) is not just testing which call to action (CTA) color is better, we all already know that it’s blue ☺. In this article you are going to discover that CRO is more than that, actually, you are going to spend most of your time researching and analyzing the data to find relevant information, scientific information if it’s possible, about the behavior of your users.

Before we start, I want to clarify that the process that I will explain below is a process that I found works better for me and my experiments but it’s not the only one and there are lots of CRO professionals with a different and valid approach.

This article is going to analyze and focus on the first step of my CRO program:

1: Data research and analysis.

2: Fixing and hypothesis creation

3: A/B test Plan

4: Going live with your test.

5: A/B test data analysis, implementation and learnings.

Data research and analysis.

Before you even start, you will need to understand the basic Company and website/app values, strategy & goals. It’s really important to acknowledge this otherwise your whole analysis is going to be really superficial.

I spend most of my time in this step to understand where we are losing the users or where is the problem on the page.

I organize my analysis in 5 different categories:

Page Clarity 

You should perform a page clarity analysis to understand if the page content and information is really clear for the user and if it’s easy to understand the next steps on that page. You can ask yourself the following questions.

Are the page structure and hierarchy clear for the user?

Is there any relevant value proposition to support your product or service?

Are the next steps clear for the user?

Relevancy

In the relevancy analysis you want to understand if the content displayed is relevant for the user intent, for example, if the main goal of your page is selling “running shoes” most of your content should be highly related to “running shoes” like models and prices. The main question that you need to keep in mind is:

Is the content relevant for the intent of the user?

Friction

For the friction analysis, I recommend to test your website on different devices and use GA custom reports to quickly identify if there is any technology compatibility problem. Pay special attention to the check-out funnel and double check that everything is working right. Key questions for this category.

Are there any bugs on the page?

Are the forms working or too long?

Too much empty copy?

Is the page slow?

Distractions

Most website pages are really full of elements & content distracting the user’s attention and taking the user away from your conversion funnel. The elements hierarchy plays an important role to guide the user on the customer journey. Relevant questions for your analysis are:

What is irrelevant and does not add to motivation?  

Which element is distracting the user from the customer journey?

 Motivation

We all are always looking for the right motivation to do the desired action. Including motivating elements to help the user is good practice, especially with social proof and benefits. People are “social animals” so they are going to feel more confident if someone else has already rated your product/service. Ask yourself the following questions:

Is the right benefit at the right time?

 Is there enough social proof?


Payment icons? 

You can cross and double check your analysis with another data source:

Web Analytics

You can analyze your website data with GA and understand critical data loke, average time on page, bounce rate, and exit rates.

Heat Maps

Heat maps and scrolling maps are really useful to improve your user journey. You can easily understand which ones are the most relevant elements of your page and reorganize your structure to improve the user experience (UX) and reduce friction.

 Session recordings

This is a really time-consuming resource but the insights that you are getting from the recording is just amazing, you can actually see how a real user is interacting with your page and this kind of data is really invaluable for your analysis.

Competitor analysis

Spoiler alert! Not all your competitors are going to have a conversion specialist on their side, so sometimes their pages are looking worse than yours, In this case, I recommend to focus your analysis mostly on the messages and the value propositions.

 Scientific data

Remember that there is a really high chance that someone else already did an analysis of your market and there is a big probability that the study is online. You can try to find any scientific document on https://scholar.google.co.nz the only problem is that most of these studies are not free.

Now you are going to have plenty of data to start creating your hypothesis, start by organizing your data and double check everything before starting with your hypothesis creation. I personally use the old and evergreen Excel to have a nice view of all my valuable data.

I hope you find this article useful, I ́ll try to continue and analyze the other 4 missing steps for an optimal CRO process. Enjoy your data hunting and let me know your thoughts or questions.

Mateo Alessio

Mateo Alessio is a Digital Marketing Specialist focused on Pay Per Click (PPC), Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), and Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO), he is really keen about results with a data-driven profile. Currently working at Alexanders Digital Marketing as a Digital Marketing Specialist.

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