How to Create a High Converting Website

Website optimization with the goal of growing conversions is a step-by-step process and it forces you to pay attention to details. You can execute the CRO strategy in six steps:

1. Determine the business goal
The ultimate goal of every small business is not to attract website visitors, but rather to turn them into verified leads and full-time customers. To put it simply, you don’t want the site viewer to just learn about your business but also to take action.

Now the critical question arises: What do you want your site visitor to do?

Do you want to get their email address so that you can plug them into your CRM as a lead to follow up with? Or are you looking for their phone number? Perhaps you want to sell a product directly through the website?

There are so many answers to consider here and you’ll have to pick the right one because your calls to action (CTA) will depend on it.

2. Create a responsive website
Users browse the Internet on different devices, so creating a responsive website becomes fundamental to the success of your small business. This CRO trick is particularly important because the number of smartphone owners keeps growing at a staggering rate.

Reports show that over 3.5 billion people own a smartphone in 2020, but there are also devices such as laptops, tablets, and desktop computers. They all come with different screen dimensions and only a responsive website guarantees to make the site look great regardless of the platform.

3. Make it lightning-fast
Saying that modern customers appreciate speedy websites would be a serious understatement. A recent survey revealed that a mere 100-millisecond delay in load time can cause conversion rates to drop by as much as 7%.

What does it tell you?

The answer is pretty obvious: It is important to make a lightning-fast website for your company. A typical visitor wants a webpage to load in two or three seconds the most. You can test page load speed with online tools such as:

- Google Page Speed Insights: Just enter a URL to the text box and the platform will analyze the performance of your site.
- Pingdom Website Speed Test: This tool can analyze website performance from multiple locations worldwide and give you instructions on how to make it faster.

4. Publish appealing content with a CTA
Content marketing dominates the Internet because consumers are constantly searching for informative and educational posts. Therefore, your goal should also be to publish lots of appealing and insightful posts and grab the attention of the target audience.

How you do it depends on the purpose of your small business, your style, and branding guidelines, but the only thing that really matters is to include a CTA or a lead magnet to your articles.

The last thing you want is to see potential customers abandoning the site after reading a high-quality post. On the contrary, you need to seize the opportunity and inspire them to engage using CTA solutions such as:

- Start Your Free Trial
- Sign Up For Updates
- View Portfolio
- Buy Now

5. Craft an eye-pleasing website
Web design is yet another factor that strongly impacts the conversion potential of your site, which means you ought to make it compelling and eye-pleasing without jeopardizing the overall functionality.

How is this possible?

We suggest keeping things simple because redundant elements will only distract visitors. Less is more in web design, so make sure to focus on features that really make the difference in the eyes of the average customer. Here’s what you should do:

- Ensure easy and intuitive navigation
- Add attractive visuals
- Use a color scheme that aligns with the branding guidelines
- Pick a font that matches your business image
- Clarify your messages and write up-to-the-point copies

6. Keep improving with A/B tests
CRO is not a one-time thing, but rather an ongoing process that you have to plan and manage in the long run. What works well in 2020 may not give the same results next year, so it’s highly recommended to keep improving the website with A/B tests.

You can test and compare almost everything – your color schemes, CTA buttons, images, headlines, and so on. For instance, you can experiment with CTA dimensions and see how a larger button affects the behavior of your visitors.

The same goes for every other website element, which is exactly why A/B testing is the second most used method in the conversion optimization industry.