Conversions are valuable target actions performed by users on a website. This metric helps to assess the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of a site’s performance. Every marketer’s dream is to drive traffic to a website and convert it into sales.
The meaning of target conversions differs for various websites: for some, it’s a phone call, for others, it’s a product sale, registration, subscription, or clicking the “Call Me” button. For example, on your site, a conversion may be a product purchase. If the product was bought 8 times in one day, and the site received 3,200 visitors, the conversion rate would be 0.25% (8/3200*100).
Site effectiveness is typically calculated over a long period – a month, half a year, or a year. To calculate the conversion rate, divide the number of target actions by the number of visitors and multiply by 100 to get the percentage. The lower the percentage, the lower the conversion rate. The goal of any entrepreneur is to continuously improve the site’s conversion rate. Many factors affect conversions, from one-click purchases for an online store to the overall usability of the site.
What factors affect conversions on a website?
Conversions on a website depend on external and internal factors. External factors affect the visitor even before they enter the site. These include contextual advertising and search engine optimization. You can set up conversion tracking on the site, which will help you understand how often clicks on ads lead to target actions. Conversion tracking in AdWords allows you to track actions on the site, phone calls, in-app purchases, and other goals, as well as analyze associated conversions – additional channels that weren’t the last point before the purchase but helped lead to it.
Internal factors include the user experience interacting with the site, which ideally should lead to a target action. There are several important nuances that influence the conversion rate:
- design (if your website design is from the 2000s, even the best offers will be overlooked by users);
- content;
- loading speed and stable site performance;
- website usability (how easy it is for the user to navigate towards completing a target action).
Increasing conversions is the goal of any website owner. To achieve this, one can try the following methods:
- create a landing page instead of a multi-page website;
- use responsive design;
- offer users promotions and include calls to action;
- duplicate contact information on all pages;
- position important elements higher up (for example, in online stores, product details, promotions, and discounts should appear above the fold).
As a rule, conversion analysis on a website is done through the popular free service with good functionality – Google Analytics. The service allows setting goals (registration, purchase, subscription, etc.) and analyzing metrics. Conversion analysis is an important step in the process, as it helps identify the weak points of the site and make the right adjustments to improve its effectiveness.
