Data Driven Decisions: Merging SEO Data with Conversion Rate Analytics in eCommerce

How do you increase organic traffic to your eCommerce site? With solid SEO best practices. With more targeted traffic comes more quality leads. To turn those leads into customers, you need CRO, or conversion rate optimization, as part of that SEO strategy. Let’s look closer at what CRO is, and how it works with SEO to increase your revenue stream and ROI (return on investment).

CRO - What Is Does

Conversion rate optimization is a term used to describe a set of techniques that increase the conversion rate of an eCommerce site. They do this through visitor engagement tools such as an online sale or registration. Essentially, if your goal is to convert the new visitors coming to your site as a result of SEO, into new customers, you would then employ CRO to achieve this.

Where CRO truly benefits you is the data that it produces. Not only will you learn more about the habits of your eCommerce website visitors, but the data you collect will help you to make improvements to your website. Some of the details CRO reveals include visitor gender, age, language, location, and anything else you ask in surveys they must complete. This data allows you to make wise decisions on changes to your website that will convert these visitors, and others like them, into customers.

CRO - The Three Key Components

Three primary parts to CRO make it function successfully. They are visitor segmentation, content, and design. Here are some details on each to help you understand their roles in an effective CRO strategy.

Visitor Segmentation

When someone enters your website, they may not be there for the same reason as the visitor before them, or the one following them. A visitor may be on your site just to learn more about the eCommerce items you are selling. Another may be there to shop while another one may have ended up on your site by chance. 

It is through customer segmentation that you can increase conversions. This groups visitors into different categories and allows you to focus attention on the group most likely to convert. It does this by directing content strategy towards these visitors. The goal of the content strategy is to meet the expectations of the segments of visitors most likely to convert.

Content

This is all about the words and visuals that appear on your web pages. One positive way to impact the CRO of your eCommerce site is to use shorter text and include more terms that are both descriptive and impactful. Words like “new” and “discount” are attention grabbers that pull visitors to further engagement. Essentially, you want to connect with visitors interested in your products by using words that encourage them to make a purchase. One way to narrow down what works best is through A/B testing. More on that in a moment.

Design

UX design is a valuable CRO tool. When an eCommerce site is designed with conversion rate optimization in mind, it impacts various website components. They include layout, color, spacing, and alignment. All of these items work together to be pleasing to the eye and easy to read and navigate for visitors. The more a visitor enjoys the experience they get from your website, the more likely they will come back and the odds of them converting increase.

The Benefits of CRO

The main purpose of using CRO with your eCommerce site is to make the process of purchasing from your company easy and efficient. The last thing you want is to frustrate potential customers with a website that is difficult to use. When CRO is properly executed, your website content is targeted to those visitors who are most likely to convert to customers. Here is how CRO does that:

Reduces Costs

CRO utilizes existing resources to drive sales. These results maximize the marketing ROI of your company.

Target The Right Customers

CRO analytics teach you about customer habits. With this understanding, you can better target visitors.

Higher Rankings

CRO helps you to better serve the needs of website visitors. Google rewards websites that do this by ranking them higher, which increases their visibility.

Competitive Edge

CRO can push your website ahead of that of a competitor that is only relying on SEO to reach its audience.

Ease of Use

CRO streamlines how your website functions making it easier for visitors to buy from you and become customers.

Combining CRO and SEO

CRO and SEO work well together and here’s how they do that. SEO is what attracts visitors to your eCommerce site. CRO funnels them where you want them to go on your site which assists in converting those visitors into customers. While SEO helps prospects to find the websites that feature the items they are looking for, CRO takes them directly to those items. Even if your eCommerce site ranks well and generates a lot of traffic, that is only part of the equation. If most of that traffic does not convert, it means something is missing. When you add CRO, your conversion rate will increase. 

A Little About A/B Testing

A/B testing was mentioned above. What this does is it helps you to better meet the needs of your website visitors through a process of comparison. It requires two different versions of the same content to test which one produces the better results. It can be a comparison of webpage design, the content on the page, or anything else that results in two variations of the same page. Half of your website visitors will see one and the other half will see the second version. With your CRO analytics, you will learn which of those versions bring the most conversions. It is an effective measuring tool that helps you to improve web pages.

Final Thoughts

SEO and CRO are powerful tools when used together in eCommerce. The data that comes from CRO analytics provides information on the visitors SEO sent to your website. Through examination of that data, you can make changes to your web pages that increase conversions. More conversions translate to an increase in revenue and success for you and your eCommerce site.