Website conversion rate

What a conversion rate is

When a user completes a desired action on a website, it is conversion. It can be making a purchase, ordering a service, filling out a subscription form, or requesting a SaaS-product demo.

Many businesses invest in websites precisely to generate conversions. If you want to make money within your site, conversions should be one of the priorities during the website design process.

In some cases, UX specialists may distinguish two types of website conversions: micro-conversions and macro-conversions. It is a good idea if making a purchase is a complex process that consists of several steps or micro-conversions. For example, website visitors might request a demo or watch a video about a product before they achieve their end goal, which is called a macro-conversion. A macro-conversion may be a purchase, filling out a contact form, or a request for a meeting.

The conversion rate is calculated by dividing the number of conversions (desired actions taken) by the total number of website visitors. To get a percentage, you need to multiply the resulting number by 100. For example, 15 purchases divided by 250, then multiplied by 100 equals 6%. This percentage shows a website conversion rate.

Why measuring website conversion rate is important

First and foremost, a conversion rate affects a business revenue driven by your website. The higher a website conversion rate, the better for business.

But measuring a website’s conversion rate is essential for understanding the user experience of a website and knowing customers.

When you analyze a conversion rate, it may give you clues about how visitors experience your site. If a conversion rate is good, it means your website is good designed, user-friendly, understandable, and relevant for visitors. A low conversion rate might indicate issues or mistakes in website UX design.

Knowing customers allows businesses to improve their products, services, and marketing campaigns to drive more revenue and market share.

A high website conversion rate means a company is on the right track. But a low conversion rate may suggest that product features are irrelevant to visitors.

But it would be best to do research before drawing conclusions. There may be many reasons for the low conversion rate, like a seasonal decline in sales, new competitive products, and others.

What is a good conversion rate?

One of the most asked questions is, “What is a good conversion rate?”. Many people want to know “the average conversion rate” to compare it to the conversion rates of their sites.

Looking up business niche average conversion rate may give business owners helpful information. Still, it would be better to understand how users interact with a website and what should be improved.

In fact, the website conversion rate depends on many factors like business niche, product specifics, location, target audience, and end goals. For example, a website where people order 100 foots yachts may generate just a few macro-conversions per year, which equals 0.2%. But it is OK for that industry because many people visit such websites to look at beautiful yachts, not buy them. On the other hand, 2% may be a low conversion rate for a news site that needs subscribers.

Some conversion marketing experts say 2% to 6% is a good conversion rate for most business websites. Anyway, a good conversion rate works for your business goals. If a website conversion rate doesn’t work for you, it makes sense to improve that.

How to improve conversion rates

The first piece of advice for business owners who want to increase a website conversion rate is to focus on user experience instead of focusing on the conversions themselves. It’d be better to know what blocks visitors or causes pain when they interact with a website, as well as learn which factors persuade them to click a button, fill out a contact form, or phone a company’s sales department.

To do conversion rate optimization is essential to learn why people visit the website. What are visitors looking for? What do they need? Which problem?

It is easier said than done. There are different methods and tools to learn more about website visitors. Some experts recommend using surveys. You can ask visitors about things that drive them to your business site. But what to do when very few customers visit a website? For example, web designers may use the Value Proposition Canvas (VPC) tool. It is a more convenient way that can be used for new websites, websites with low traffic, and other cases where surveys can’t be used. Also, VPC can be used together with other UX research methods like UX competitive analysis to gather detailed information about customers’ behavior.

When enough customer information has been collected, the next step is finding UX design issues blocking website visitors’ actions. Website owners may use many tools to identify the barriers stopping potential customers from converting. The most popular tools are Microsoft Clarity, Hotjar, Crazy Egg, and Smartlook. These tools record users’ behavior and actions on pages, and marketers, UX designers, or business owners can review these records to identify issues. Also, it is an excellent idea to analyze calls to action and product benefits to improve webpage content.

Now it is possible to fix UX design issues, improve the content, and add more persuasive calls to action. As a result, these improvements may increase a website’s conversion rate.

Conclusions

As you can see, a conversion rate is more than just another key performance indicator for a website. It may help improve a website’s UX design, product or service, and company’s business processes. All that you need is a correct interpretation of information. Despite a conversion rate optimization process looking easy, it has many pitfalls for beginners. That is why it recommends entrusting the process to professionals.

Anyway, measuring and improving a conversion rate is a great way to increase your business revenue from the website.