Your website can be your company’s greatest asset—but only if it turns visitors into customers. Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) ensures that every interaction on your site brings you closer to achieving your business goals.
Conversions are the actions that matter most to your business, such as completing a contact form, requesting a demo, downloading a white paper, or signing up for a newsletter.
What is Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)?
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is systematically improving your website to convert more visitors into leads, sales, or desired actions. It focuses on making your site more effective by refining content, design, and user experience based on data.
It begins with investigative research and observation to shine a light on what’s working well to convert customers and where website language, content, images, and design can be changed to improve your results.
At the heart of CRO is understanding your audience—what motivates them, the language they respond to, their pain points, and the tasks they need to accomplish. The more deeply you understand your users, the more effectively you can address their needs and increase conversions. This people-first approach yields better results in the long run.
Using the statistical data uncovered in research and a strong understanding of your audience supports the other phases in CRO planning decisions: hypothesis, testing/implementation, and analysis.
CRO follows a structured, iterative process:
- Observation & research to identify conversion opportunities and barriers.
- Form a hypothesis for improvement.
- Test/implement your hypothesis using methods like A/B testing.
- Analyze/evaluate your results.
How are Conversion Rates Calculated?
Before you begin your work on CRO, you must know your current statistics. Mathematically, conversion rates are the number of conversions divided by the total number of website visitors multiplied by 100.
One of my customers updated their website a couple of years ago by Keystone Media. Using data from September 1, 2023, to August 31, 2024, the first full year of available data, we can see great results. Our case story on Catholic Cemeteries shows that their previous site had random and rare conversions. For this article, we are defining conversions as a ‘request for contact’ made on a form on each of their nine cemetery landing pages. There were 347 conversions on 14714 active users, for a first-year conversion rate of 2.36%. It’s pretty darn great, considering we came from a standstill. My client is thrilled! Just wait until they see what we have in store for them now that we have a full four seasons of data!
Why is CRO Important?
Focusing on CRO ensures your website is primed to convert visitors before increasing traffic. Think of it like fixing the leaks in a bucket before trying to fill it with water—there’s no point driving more visitors to a site that isn’t effective at converting them into customers.
At Keystone Media, we’ve spent years helping businesses refine their websites for optimal performance. Whether you’re just starting out with CRO or looking to fine-tune an existing strategy, we’re here to help you maximize your website’s potential.
Contact us today to learn how we can improve your conversion rates and grow your business.