What To Look For During A CRO Audit?

As a digital marketer, my job responsibility is simple: produce results. You too. You’re likely familiar with questions like, “How many leads did this generate?” or “How much revenue did this produce?” etc. Unfortunately, most online marketers stumble over their answers because they aren’t able to support their efforts with hard data – numbers. Yes.

In light of that, Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is a web marketer’s one-stop solution. It gives us a way to experiment, analyze, and optimize ideas, then produces real results that are easily measured using tools like Google Analytics or through a marketing automation platform like HubSpot or Salesforce.

If you aren’t familiar with the world of CRO, this is the right place to start. Follow these guidelines to learn how to conduct a CRO audit, and soon you’ll be improving results and influencing ROI.

What Is A CRO Audit?

A CRO audit is a comprehensive website gap analysis to discover why visitors on your website aren’t converting. Following the audit, you make modifications based on what you have found and track your experiments while you increase the conversion rate. It sounds complex but simply put, there are a number of easily traceable reasons to figure out why your visitors are leaving your website or not performing the action you desire.

The CRO Checklist

One of the best ways is, you’ll need to do a top-to-bottom analysis of your website. Let’s use this checklist to get started.

Gather Information

• First, take note of your current overall goal conversion rate. For example, what is your visit-to-lead ratio? And what is your lead-to-customer ratio? These are the two most important metrics to keep in mind throughout the auditing.
• Take note of your top five most popular landing pages. These are where you should initially give attention because they represent the bulk of your website traffic.
• Establish the goal of each selected page. The goal could be to simply learn more about your company, or it could be to fill out your “Contact Us” form. Don’t move on until you make sure that every webpage has a goal.
• Next, collect data. How many page views is each of these five selected website pages getting? What is the bounce rate? What is the percentage of new traffic? How much time is being spent on each page? How many are currently hitting your goal (what is your current goal conversion rate)?
• As you complete the breakdown of data at the page level, queries should start arising in your head. You may find out indications like, that visitors are only scrolling through the top 20 percent of your page or primarily visiting your website via mobile device. Try to recognize where the friction is. What is the reason any number of visitors aren’t hitting your goal?

Test Your Theory

Prepared with data and information, now you can start testing. Based on the goal of the landing page and the current behavior of your page visitors, make changes to your website pages that influence the conversions.

• Majority of the website visitors coming from mobile or not? Make sure every section of the landing page is optimized for that platform. Use forms smartly to shorten the forms on landing pages when viewed from a mobile device.
• Are visitors only scrolling through 1/3rd of your page? Rearrange of sections or move CTAs higher up. Allow your visitors to take action as per your goal above the fold.
• Which landing pages are getting the most attention in terms of views? Try repositioning your forms on these pages to increase your conversion rate. Also, try presenting the forms as concisely and gracefully as possible.
• Are you asking for too much information from the visitors? Use progressive profiling techniques to collect data gradually and strategically from the visitors throughout their journey.
• Is the headline of the page confusing your visitors? Rephrase it out in more enticing language.
• Do visitors feel an emotional attachment to your offer? Modify the action verbs used in your CTA copy and landing page content.
• Have you tried different CTAs? Use a few designs and try links instead of buttons in some cases.
• Is your form inappropriately stood? Try moving it above the fold or transforming it to a sticky form.
• What do your images say about the landing page? Use images logically, making sure they are high quality and aligned with the message.
• Have you tried swapping your content? Use language that resonates with your buyer persona or target audience.
• Are your visitors using the site the way you planned it to be used? With Google Analytics, you can track the path (i.e., conversion funnel) your visitors took through your website.
• What are visitors actually clicking on within your site? Remove or replace the sections of your website that aren’t engaging or creating friction in the buyer’s journey.
• What pieces of content are performing the best or presenting your USP or representing your value proposition nicely? Feature these first in your landing page wireframe.
• How far are visitors scrolling down your page? Update sections of your website where they became disengaged without deteriorating the website’s structure and functionality.
• How many opportunities are you giving your visitors to convert? Try increasing conversion chances, or even decreasing (refrain from overdoing it), if the call to action isn’t clear.

Analyze Results

Soon after implementing some of these hypotheses, you’ll have more data with a clear direction at your disposal. Then, you can use a variety of tools during your CRO audit to continue to analyze, tweak, and improve the performance of your landing pages or the entire website.

One of the best available tools for conducting, analyzing, and optimizing the test results is Google Analytics. Its free version will be more than enough for many like me. Now, there’s no need for me to dig deep all that Google Analytics can do, but keep in mind that this tool isn’t just important for forming a website’s benchmarks at the start of a CRO project’s initial stage. It’s also just as important once the user data allows you to see how website visitors are behaving and converting on your site. Google Analytics is just as important once you understand why users are acting in a specific manner on your site’s landing page. That context we like to get from another type of research at the final stage of the CRO project.

One of the common CRO mistakes to avoid is relying only on A/B testing predominantly. Although A/B testing is certainly necessary and very much effective on top of acceptable to many quite easily, it’s only one piece of the CRO jigsaw puzzle. You should also consider usability testing, customer journey mapping, personalization and segmentation tools, event-triggered emails, copy optimization, and sundries of multivariate testing. If you focus too much on A/B testing, you will actually limit the possibilities of your website in terms of reaching the optimum level of CRO.

Final Thoughts

Lastly, remember to be a little patient. It usually takes weeks (or in some cases months) before you start seeing the output of your CRO effort, but when you do, it will be beneficial. If you’re interested in learning more about CRO, subscribe to our blog.

Why Would Your SEO Not Be Working?

The reasons why SEO isn’t working for you range from impractical expectations to internal business factors to inappropriate resource allocations. Look into 10 of them here.

Introduction:

There are now only a few developing businesses that don’t bother about their web presence.

SEO is a process that takes more time and effort than almost all the paid media channels.

That doesn’t mean it’s insignificant. It hurts me when I hear sayings like “SEO isn’t working for us” or “SEO doesn’t profitable for us” or any kind of skepticism about the value of SEO.

There are at least 10 reasons why SEO hasn’t work.

Most of the time when SEO fails, it’s due to one or more internal reasons ranging from impractical hopes and beliefs or inborn challenges within the company or organization rather than external factors.

These are just pure realities that might hurt a bit if you can relate.

These are basic necessities to recognize before shutting down SEO operation or if you are unsure it will work for you or not.

1. Impractical hopes and beliefs	If we’re considering SEO as the magical source that will meet all of our goal conversions instantaneously, we need to rethink as, like media channels and other digital marketing disciplines, SEO should be planned and systematic. Search for industry-standard, competitor data, and audience (keyword) research to define and design the SEO road map.
2. Stop trying too early	One thing we all have to remember that SEO doesn’t guarantee anything in short term. Algorithm updates, website’s health and history, backlink profile, and the competitive landscape all make an impact on ROI through SEO and making it difficult and unpredictable. Most business owners hate the unpredictable nature of SEO outcomes when it comes to timing for results. With so many unknowns, the known thing that makes SEO campaigns flop though is giving up too soon. In general, the more competitive the market, the more time you need. Likewise, the more issues you have when you start SEO, the more time you need to wait for producing ROI.
3. Directionless decision-makers	When SEO doesn’t work, it’s often because it is without direction. Strategy means doing research, setting goals, planning out a process, measuring the outcome, and having mechanisms built in that allow to take actions to implement the intended strategy is called tactics. So, strategies and tactics must work cohesively for achieving success.
4. Old-fashioned practices	It’s understandable why even seasoned SEO professionals need periodic updates for their methods and understanding of the SEO profession. The risk of outdated or ineffective practices comes with having someone add SEO to their responsibilities, those that cost measly, or those that haven’t done SEO in the recent past.
5. Lack of demand in the market	I mentioned that most of the time it’s hard to find a case where SEO can’t help a business. That’s not always 100% true. Or, at the very least, I can definitely attest that there are times where it shouldn’t be one of the leading or highest priority channels in the marketing mix. When a company’s target audience isn’t searching for what they offer, that’s a warning sign that SEO won’t work. It isn’t a case where SEO efforts can’t get the site ranked for certain keywords – it’s about the fact that those rankings won’t matter in terms of driving traffic and/or leads and sales. Some examples include products or services that are ultra-technical, have zero awareness, or in selling models that are private and aren’t conducted publicly on the web. SEO is an inbound channel. We have to have people actively coming to a search engine, do a search, find us, and click through to see it work. When there’s no opportunity (or desire) for that, then investing in SEO and working to optimize can be a pointless exercise.
6. Heavy competition	Google search results use to appear with the different layouts and types of content in the SERPs based on search intent and keyword, and organic search results are just one portion of the SERP. SEO expectations need to be filtered by considering how competitive the market is and what feature-set SERPs are displaying against the focus keyword terms and phrases. If organic results are pushed way down the SERP below ads, images, local listings, and other content created by your direct and indirect competitors, the traffic potential for a number one organic search ranking is less than it would be for a page where organic results are above the fold near the top. Rankings don’t support traffic and conversions in such cases. SEO may not work despite the top organic position if SERP features are working against us.
7. IT support issues	I know many system engineers personally. Some of the professionals sometimes don’t understand or like SEO requests. Cloud security, server functionality, and domain configuration data are often seemingly considered unnecessary requests from the SEO team even after providing necessary justification. SEO doesn’t work when the IT infrastructure or support doesn’t work. When SEO isn’t even an option for prioritization by the IT team, the situation becomes worse. If technical site issues can’t be touched, updated, or fixed, things like indexing and site speed can suffer before we even start talking about on-page factors and CMS needs.
8. UX and UI issues	Especially for conversion-focused SEO campaigns, UX and UI can often make or break the opportunity. It’s one thing to get rankings and then targeted traffic. It’s another if that traffic doesn’t convert. You can have the best rankings and alignment with keyword research, supportive content, and apt promotion on the web. However, if the UX and UI is a weak point and people can’t navigate to where you need them to, then SEO will be judged as a failure. Just like the IT team, often the designers are reluctant to address requests that come from the SEOs. Maybe they refrain from reworking on an image. That’s why involving SEO at the time of site design and development is critical.
9. Poor team configuration	Team structure often a hidden issue for poor performance. Whether it’s tied to skill sets, experience, priorities, or commitment of the resources, the team (or individual) responsible for SEO success combined with others that need to support it. Early in my career, I was an individual SEO contributor in an organization. That has changed a lot - which is a positive thing. However, many organizations still run SEO operations with an undervalued or understrength team. If there’s no real commitment and prioritization by all involved, then SEO success is in jeopardy. We need people within or around the team for content, IT, UX, and other levels of support.
10. Lack of investment/budget	SEO traffic is free! This is an utterly false statement. While no direct media dollars are required, internal or external resources are needed to be hired. That means, either pay an agency for outsourced work and/or invest in software/tools to manage SEO for a large/complex site, in addition to the costs of setting up an internal team; so SEO definitely has a price. Many organizations and business leaders still feel hesitant to invest sufficient money for SEO from their marketing budget. Not a fully funded SEO effort with direct and indirect costs cannot keep SEO working. Proper investment of money and resource needs are both critical.

Conclusion:

We all want all of our digital marketing efforts to work.

SEO is no exception.

Whether there are one or more issues or challenges that stand in our way, being aware of the reasons why SEO doesn’t work is key.

SEO is an investment at many levels, especially in a multi-layered organization. Knowing where to resolve encounters or what can sink it before even SEO starts, or after efforts are underway, can have a deep impact on making it work and unlocking the potential opportunities for reaching overall marketing and business goals through it.