What Is an Online Conversion?
“Optimize your website to increase your online conversions” – have you been hearing this same, old sentence for some time now? If yes, then you’re not alone!
As marketers, we tend to forget, like any small business owner, that not everyone lives in our world.
We spew technical terms like sales funnels, content management systems, conversions, etc. So I thought I’d start a series of blog posts that go into detail for some of the more convulted but popular terms.
Table of Contents
What is an online conversion?
An online conversion occurs when your website visitor completes a desired action while on your website. Some common actions include filling out a specific form on your website, buying your product or service, downloading your eBook, subscribing to your newsletter, and making a phone call.
However, online conversions go even beyond this. Here are some of the examples according to the different types of websites and their online conversion goals:
Online Conversion for Ecommerce websites
If you have an ecommerce website, you can have more than one conversion goal. For example, you can gain online conversion with the following actions:
- Your customers have made a purchase
- They’ve signed up for your new offers
- While they’re on your website, they have added a new product to their shopping cart
- They have viewed your product page
Online Conversion for Media/Content/Publication websites:
Do you have a website that focuses on publishing articles to targeted readers? If yes, then you can increase your online conversions with the following:
- The number of articles read
- They subscribed to your newsletter
- The number of readers who viewed your web pages
- Bounce rate (your readers’ clicks onto your web pages)
Online Conversion for Lead generation websites:
If your business is related to turning your prospects into profitable clients, then you can gain the following online conversions:
- Making your website users complete a form
- Getting them click on the “Contact Us” page of your website
Examples of Businesses with Successful Online Conversions
SAP.com increased the size of their Call-To-Action button
Previously, SAP.com had a small, blue link for the “Add to Cart” option. To get improve online conversions, the company switched it to a bigger, orange button. This increased their conversions to 32%.
Basekit redesigned their pricing page
Pricing matters and affects online conversions. Basekit identified this too. They changed their pricing page design to a newer and brighter version that showed currency clearly with more visibility. The new pricing layout helped them achieve 25% higher conversions.
Performable changed their button color
Performable had a clear and concise CTA on their website, “Get Started Now.” They tested the homepage by adding two CTAs one after the other. One was red and the other one was green while the text was the same. Interestingly, they got this finding: 21% more website visitors clicked on the red CTA. Since red grabs more attention, it proved that changing the button color created increased online conversions.
What is your website conversion?
So as you look at your website, what is your conversion? What purpose does your website hold in your business marketing plan? Even if it’s a static website, it has a purpose to convince visitors that you exist as well as trust you. The next goal, a phone call.
What is “conversion”?
The definition in the MarketingSherpa glossary that appears in MarketingSherpa handbooks defines conversion as, “The point at which a recipient of a marketing message performs a desired action.” In other words, conversion is simply getting someone to respond to your call-to-action.
Getting someone to open an email is a conversion. Having them click on the call-to-action link inside that email is another conversion. Going to the landing page and filling out a registration form to read your content is a conversion. And, of course, buying your product is the ultimate conversion.
For consumer marketers, conversion can be relatively fast and simple. A possible customer scans a QR code to get a coupon (that’s a conversion right there), and then they immediately go to the restaurant to get their free french fries with a burger and soft drink purchase. (That’s the key conversion.)
In the longer and more complex B2B sale, you want a steady series of small conversions. Engage with your lead nurturing email sends, engage on the website, interact with your social media efforts, and hopefully do a lot of these activities on a mobile device.