If someone said to you, “I want to double my sales,” your initial reaction as a PPC manager would likely be, “Ok, let’s double the budget – or possibly more since efficiency decreases as reach increases.”
While doubling a budget may be the easiest way to double your sales, it’s not the most efficient nor the most practical. Instead, we are going to double sales by doubling your conversion rate.
As a quick reminder, your conversion rate is your conversions divided by your website visitors. In plain English, what percentage of people who visit your website do the thing you want them to do?
Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is a skill that historically would not be on a Google Ads manager’s radar, but today, it is essential. Here’s how you can start building your CRO skills to optimize your landing pages for better conversions and double your sales.
Three key focus areas for CRO
While there are infinite tests you can launch to improve your conversion rate, most will fall into one of three categories: Copy, Design, and Experience.
Once you’ve studied up, I recommend you start by running one CRO test per month and changing the “category” each month.
Doubling your conversion rate with Copy improvements
Copy is a fancy way of saying “text” – the actual writing on your page. This is something that many Google Ads Experts, myself included, put together as an afterthought. If your writing skills are subpar, you should hire a copywriter to write your landing page text or study copywriting frameworks to improve your skills.
Regardless of the current status of your copy skills, here are a few Copy tests you can run on your landing page right now to elevate your conversion rate:
- Ensure you have a clear call-to-action when a user lands on your page – without having to scroll! Test this on mobile, too, to ensure that the “Shop Now” or “Book a Demo” button isn’t hidden below the scroll.
- Talk about benefits, not just features. One of my favourite sayings is “Features tell, benefits sell.” Your copy should emphasize the value the user will get from your product or service – it should be about them – rather than listing the features of your product or service – which is about you.
Doubling your conversion rate with Design improvements
Design is your website’s look, feel and layout, especially on mobile. Do your fonts, colour choices, button usage, search elements, etc., facilitate a smooth path to conversion or get in the way of conversion? Again, this is not a skill that most Google Ads Experts are blessed with (myself included!), so if your design skills are subpar, you should hire a designer, work with proven landing page templates, or study up on your CRO design skills.
These are some tests you can try with your landing page design to increase your conversion rate:
- Move your testimonials higher on the page -right up to the top, just underneath your main headline & call-to-action. Ensure that with each testimonial, you visually show five stars, a real person’s face and name, and their words edited down to the most powerful, convincing portion.
- Employ trust badges like “as seen on” or “our customers include.” Nobody wants to be the first to try something out, they want to know it’s a proven solution. These trust badges should be on almost every page of your website, not just the homepage.
Doubling your conversion rate with Experience improvements
The experience involves how you guide the user through their journey to conversion. People don’t convert because they run into an objection: is this right for me? Do I want to pay that? Will it do what I need it to do? Do I need this now? etc.
By improving the User Experience, you anticipate these objections and address/deflate them to keep the user “on the right path.” The best way to improve your “Experience” skill set is to put yourself in your users’ shoes and frequently test the website yourself. You would not believe the number of times I meet with a business owner who has no idea that some third-party app is blocking the “Purchase” button or a link with crucial information is broken.
Your landing page Experience could potentially be improved by testing a few conversion rate tweaks:
- Make it easy to contact you. If a potential customer has a question, you want to make it as smooth as possible for them to get it answered. Live chat, a phone number and/or email address, a contact form, and a well-built FAQ section – add it all and make it easily accessible everywhere, not just from the homepage.
- Have user-friendly policies. For example, if you’re not offering free shipping, you lose 50% of potential conversions immediately. Please don’t blame me; blame Amazon. It’s not fair, but it’s reality. If you can’t offer free shipping on all orders, what can you offer? A lower threshold? Product bundles to help customers reach the threshold? Same with return policies – if you can’t offer free returns (the ideal), what can you offer users to encourage them to try you out? Remember, your policies aren’t just there to protect you; they’re also there to protect your customers.
Now that you have a foundational understanding of landing page optimization for conversions, the next time someone says to you, “I want to double my sales,” I hope you’ll respond, “Great! Let’s double your conversion rate.”
If you’re looking for more ideas on increasing your conversion rate, plus a proven framework for identifying gaps and measuring success, you should check out my course, “The Growth Formula.” In addition to CRO, you’ll learn how to drive organic traffic, improve average order value and implement an effective email marketing strategy.
