Explaining the conversion rate - and 13 strategies to improve it on your site

Websites and e-stores are usually built to achieve certain goals by prompting visitors to perform specific tasks in several attractive ways. One of the goals of the site or e-store may be to sell customers products and services in different forms. The website owner may also aim to have visitors create an account on his site to increase the likelihood of them visiting it repeatedly. Whatever goals you aspire to achieve with your website, understanding your conversion rate and knowing how to improve it will be of great benefit to you.

That is why we will explain to you here in a simplified way the conversion rate, and we will inform you of the most important strategies and techniques that will help you improve it on your website. What is the conversion rate? The term conversion rate refers to the percentage of visitors who performed a desired action on your site to the number of visitors to the overall site or the number of visitors to the sales page.

If you have an online store that sells products and services, and you get 400 visitors, 40 of whom purchased a product or service from your site, the conversion rate here is the result of dividing the number 40 by the number 400 multiplied by 100%, i.e. 10%, as this percentage represents the conversion rate for making a purchase from the site only. If you want site visitors to perform another action as well, that action will have a conversion rate different from the conversion rate for the purchase. The action that the visitor is asked to perform in order for him to transform from just a visitor to a customer or user is determined by the site owner and based on his goal. This action does not necessarily have to be related to purchasing products, but rather it may be any task that he is asked to perform, such as clicking on a button, filling out a questionnaire, answering a question, or voting for someone or something. It is worth noting that the action that you ask the visitor to take is referred to as the abbreviation (CTA), which is an abbreviation for the English phrase (Call To Action) which is translated into Arabic as (Call to Action), meaning that the conversion rate is the percentage of people who responded to your invitation (customers) to the number of people who were invited (visitors).

The importance of conversion rate Conversion rate is one of the most important metrics in e-commerce and digital marketing, because it increases the more visitors do what you want on the site, and decreases the fewer visitors do what you want, and this can help you evaluate the success of your project. A high rate means that you are on the path to success, and a low rate means that you have to follow more powerful and effective techniques and practices to achieve your goal and push visitors to carry out the required task. If you spend $200 a month for an advertising campaign that brings you 1,000 visitors to your online store, 100 of whom turn into customers by purchasing a product or service from the store, and you want to increase your sales, you will be able to do that by improving the conversion rate instead of spending more money on advertising campaigns to bring more visitors. In this case, you can invest money in other advertising campaigns to improve various aspects of your store or expand it.

How to measure the conversion rate for each action you want from

What the visitor has to do on your website is a conversion rate. If you are displaying ads on your site to profit from clicks, and there is a membership system on the site, and at the same time you are selling products on it, you will have 3 conversion rates. The first is for clicking on ads, where the visitor is converted when he clicks on the ad, the second is for registering on the site, where the conversion process takes place when the visitor creates a membership, and the third is for selling products, where the conversion process takes place when the visitor buys a product from your site. The conversion rate for any action is calculated in the same way, as we take the number of conversions and divide it by the total number of visitors, and multiply the result by 100% to produce the conversion rate for the action. If you get 4,000 visitors, 20 of them click on your site’s ads, 40 of them register on the site by creating a membership, and 300 of them buy the products displayed on your site, then the conversion rates for these actions are calculated as follows: Conversion rate for clicking on ads = 20 ÷ 100% The number of conversions that occurred on the entire site.

When is a conversion rate good?

There is no fixed limit that a conversion rate is considered good if it is greater than it. A good rate varies depending on the industry. A rate that is considered good in one field is not considered good in another. A good conversion rate also varies depending on many other circumstances, such as the action required by the visitor to be converted into a customer, the amount of money you earn from the conversion process if you created the site for the purpose of profit, and so on. But in every field of e-commerce (selling books - selling electronic tools - selling jewelry - ...) there is an average conversion rate, and when your store's rate is somewhere close to this average, it is considered weak and you must take measures to improve it to become among the conversion rates of the top 10% stores in the field of your online store.

To know the average conversion rate in the field of your online store or site, or how much your conversion rate must be in order to be among the first 10% in the field of industry, you must search the Internet and research in depth. This is because many sites do not publish their conversion rate data and keep it for themselves so that competitors do not benefit from it, but the following chart shows the average conversion rates for a number of e-commerce fields in light of data that can be obtained from more than one source. Regarding websites whose owners do not make money from selling products, the average conversion rate for pay-per-click ads is about 2.35%, the average conversion rate for advertising campaigns in Google Ads is 3.75%, while the conversion rate for Amazon ads is 9.47%. For your conversion rate to be considered good in these previously mentioned areas, it must be equal to or greater than 10% for ad clicks, 5.31% for Google Ads campaigns, and 12% for Amazon.

Strategies to improve the conversion rate Improving the conversion rate means making decisions that aim to increase the conversion rate of the site, online store, or web page, and implementing these decisions correctly, by relying on techniques that will increase the likelihood of the visitor taking the desired action. This is done by studying users’ behaviors, reviews, and insights, taking into account the general conversion rate improvement tips and techniques that we will provide in this paragraph. Conversion rate optimization increases the number of customers without increasing the number of visitors, because it helps you convert the traffic you already get into conversions. It is worth noting that the process of improving the conversion rate, which relies on many methods and techniques, must be carried out continuously, regardless of your site’s rate, whether high or low, as you must always strive for the best to raise the level of success of your business, but this process is more important the lower the conversion rate on your site.

And if you don't know how to increase your conversion rate, here are the best techniques, practices, strategies and tips that will help you do that for your store or website. 1. A/B testing A/B testing or split testing is a method to compare the effectiveness of two forms of a web page in converting visitors into customers. It consists of displaying the first form (A) of the page to a section of visitors, and displaying the second form (B) to the other section, and making use of the data that shows the number of visitors who were converted into customers in each of the two forms to determine which form is better.

There may be one difference between the two figures, or there may be more than one difference. For example, the title in Figure A may be different from the title in Figure B only, or there may be a difference in the title and some of the images as well. This test may be useful in many cases. If you learn from your customers’ opinions, for example, that the design of your site or store needs improvement, you can make modifications to the design, or you can change it completely, but before you adopt the new design, you must really make sure that it is better than the old one and makes your site’s conversion rate higher. You can do this by using an A/B test, where you display Figure A with the old design to 50% of visitors, and Figure B with the new design to the other 50% of visitors. If Figure B converts a larger number of visitors to customers, you can rely on it to improve your site’s conversion rate. However, if Figure A converts a larger number, it is better to keep the old design, work on another new design, and re-execute the A/B test a second time.

There are many plugins and methods that provide the ability to conduct split testing on a WordPress site, and one of the most prominent and best of them is the Nelio AB Testing add-on, which provides you with the ability to apply A/B testing to many aspects of the site, including pages, articles, titles, images, menus, widgets, and templates. This add-on also provides you with the benefit of heat maps to know what a visitor is doing on your site. There is a free version of it available in the add-ons section on WordPress.org, but you will need to purchase a paid plan. 2.

Using pop-ups Pop-ups draw attention and create a sense of urgency for the visitor, which makes them a good tool to increase the website’s conversion rate when used correctly while ensuring that the visitor is not annoyed by them. Therefore, use them on your site if you want more conversions, but be sure to conduct an A/B test on them before adopting them on the site, and use the most effective form of them. In fact, many visitors consider pop-up windows to be annoying and distracting, because they interrupt their browsing of the site and make it difficult for them to access the content they entered the page or site to reach, but this mainly includes pop-up windows with content that is not related to the main page content, and pop-up windows that appear immediately after the visitor reaches the page. Therefore, it is better to show pop-ups when the visitor wants to leave the site, and to make sure that they have features that reduce visitor disturbance to the maximum possible extent.

Using pre-checkout popups is useful for improving your conversion rate in many cases, including the following: To prevent a potential buyer from abandoning their purchase To promote a specific offer that the visitor is likely to be interested in To get feedback about the website or the products it includes You can create popups in WordPress using the Popup maker plugin or the OptinMonster plugin, which allows you to easily create relevant popups and show them to the right people at the right time, in the right way depending on the type of device used to visit the page. If you want more information about popups and how to create them, read our detailed article in which we talked about them (What are popups?

How do you benefit from it on your site?

). 3. Facilitate the implementation of the required action. Whatever action the visitor is required to perform, there will always be more than one way in which it can be carried out. To obtain a good conversion rate for any action, facilitate the process of implementing it to the maximum extent possible so that the visitor does not expend a lot of effort or time.

No one will buy from your store if the purchasing process is difficult or takes a lot of time, and no one will fill out a form if you ask for a lot of information in it, so keep everything simple to get the most out of the process. For example, if your site has a membership system, and you can register or log in, do not make the registration or login page complicated, and do not request information that you do not need from the user on the registration page. Rather, make the page simple, and request only the important information that you will need, as this contributes greatly to raising the conversion rate for this action on your site. It is also worth noting that you can easily test the effectiveness of facilitation in increasing your conversion rate by using the A/B testing we explained above.

4. Make the value proposition clear and convincing Creating a clear and convincing value proposition to the potential customer is more important than choosing the most beautiful design or the most consistent colors in order to improve the conversion rate, as no one buys a product or service or performs any other action unless he knows why he is going to do it. No one will register on your site if there are no benefits that he will receive for registering, and no one buys a product that does not have a clear description that tells the buyer exactly what he will get and why he should make the purchase. Therefore, make sure to make the descriptions of products and services in your online store clear, convincing and honest, and try to sell products and services that are superior in at least one way to the products and services sold by competing online stores, and focus in your value proposition on giving the potential buyer the benefit he seeks from reading the offer with the least amount of words. Do not list the history of your company in the product description if there is no need for that, and do not repeat the features of the product or service, but rather make your statements clear, convincing and unique.

The presence of a countdown timer on the product page, offer, or other increases the conversion rate, as the countdown timer contributes to increasing the number of visitors who are converted into customers or members because it creates a feeling in the visitor that prompts him to buy the product or register on the site. When the visitor sees the price of the previous product and its price within the offer that will end after the countdown timer numbers reach zero, he feels that he will regret it when the offer ends if he does not seize the opportunity and get it, and therefore this will contribute to pushing him to make the purchase. For more information about the countdown timer and its marketing benefits, and how to add it to the pages of WordPress stores and websites, we advise you to read our comprehensive article in which we explained all of this in detail and in a practical way (How to use the countdown timer in WordPress and its marketing benefits). 6.

Allow adding reviews Most potential customers are reluctant to buy products that do not have reviews and opinions from previous buyers, and almost all buyers (97% of them) believe that reviews and opinions influence the decision to buy the product or service or not, according to a survey conducted in 2016, where the survey concluded that potential customers read previous reviews, and focus on their details to see if someone suffered from problems with the product or service, and to know how their problems were responded to. This means that not allowing buyers to add reviews and opinions on product pages will cause you to lose a large number of conversions, so add sections through which buyers can add their opinions and comments, and be sure to make all your customers satisfied with dealing with you so that they can add positive reviews in order to increase visitors’ confidence in the website. To learn about some of the best ways in which you can allow customers and visitors to add reviews and ratings to your website, review our article (Ways to show reviews on your website or store to increase visitors’ confidence), in which we explained this in detail and with pictures.

7. Comparing yourself with competitors Only a few users buy a product or service without comparison, as most people compare the products offered by competitors before making a purchase, and this is actually very logical, as everyone wants to get what is better. You can use this fact to your advantage. Instead of letting potential customers compare your products with others' products, you can do that by saving them the trouble of comparing themselves, and explaining to them exactly what distinguishes your product from others' products at the same time, as people usually only look at the main features and the price.

You can use the method you deem appropriate to compare your products and services with the products and services of other competitors. If you do not know which method is more appropriate for making a comparison, search online for methods in which products and services similar to yours have been compared with each other, and use the method that you deem most illustrative and convincing to you, but be careful that your comparisons are honest, and that you show the advantages of your products in a clear, good, and useful way to potential customers. 8. Improve site speed. Loading speed affects the conversion rate. The faster the page loads, the more likely the visitor will perform the desired action on it. Many studies have indicated that companies can achieve good improvements in their conversion rates by reducing the page loading time.

Walmart found that the conversion rate increased by 2% when it reduced the page load time by one second, and Mobify found that the conversion rate increased by approximately 1.1% for every 100 milliseconds that it reduced the load time of the company's home page. This is why you must make your site pages as fast as possible in order to improve the conversion rate. You can learn how to speed up your WordPress site by reviewing our comprehensive article in which we talked about this topic (the most important procedures for increasing the speed of your WordPress site). It will also be useful for you to look at the article (updating the Core Web Vitals and instructions to make your site compatible with it), because the Core Web Vitals factors are closely related to the speed of the website. 9.

Making the site compatible with smartphones. The incompatibility of your site with a smartphone affects the ranking of its pages on Google, as it leads to a decline in its ranking in search results, which makes the number of visits less and reduces sales if it is an online store. But incompatibility with a smartphone also contributes to a lower conversion rate, because it makes it difficult for visitors to perform the desired action when they enter your site or store from their phone. If you do not know whether your site’s pages are compatible with a smartphone, there are many tools and methods that allow you to check it, such as the (Mobile Friendly Test) tool from Google, which enables you to check the compatibility of any web page - whether it belongs to your site or not - with a mobile phone. Using the tool to perform a test will only require you to place the link to the page in the designated field and then click on the (Try the URL) button. The page will then be analyzed and the result shown to you within a few seconds.

10. Use of pictures and video It is certain that the use of pictures and videos contributes to conveying information to the visitor better, faster, more accurately, and much easier than words. In order to describe a table in words, for example, you will need an entire article to do so, and the description may not be accurate for some reason, while a video or several carefully created pictures can convey the specifications of the table to the visitor once they see it, and this makes the effort of describing the table easier for you, and for the visitor the effort of reading the article to find out the details. Of course, this does not mean that it is always better to use images instead of words, but images are also important and contribute to increasing the conversion rate, and their role is no less important than the role of text or description, so use them on the landing page, and various other pages of the site.

Note: The landing page is the web page that a visitor reaches from a place other than one of the pages of your site. When you place an advertisement for a product that you sell in your online store on another site, the landing page could be the page of the product itself, as the user who clicks on the advertisement will reach this page that is supposed to prompt him to buy this product, transforming him from a visitor into a customer and contributing to raising the page’s conversion rate. To learn more about the landing page and how to create one in WordPress, review our comprehensive and detailed article (Creating a Professional Landing Page) in which we talked about everything related to the landing page. 11.

Use influential and effective main titles The main title of a web page is often the first thing that catches the visitor's attention, so it is necessary and useful to use this to your advantage by making the main title on the page influential and contributing to pushing the visitor to carry out the required action. To help you make your titles effective and influential, we present to you here the most important types of titles that are supposed to contribute more than others to increasing the number of conversions when used correctly: Command Headlines: These are titles that include a command action that the visitor must carry out, such as (Discover the best way...) and (Get the full mark...), and so on. Direct Headlines: This type of heading conveys the idea directly to the visitor. Examples include (a tutorial for creating a blog using WordPress).

Question Headlines: These titles include a question and end with a question mark, and an example of it is (Is it possible to make money from WordPress?). Problem Solving Headlines: These headlines explain that your product solves a potential problem for a potential customer, such as (Get rid of excess weight in 3 months with the help of a distinctive exercise device). How-to Headlines: These are titles that begin with the word (how), such as (How to create a professional website).

To make your title more effective, try to include an English translation of the main term in it, put an odd number in it if possible, and make it 8 words long. The probability of getting more visitors and profits will be higher in this case. 12. Add live chat to the site Some visitors sometimes face problems with websites, others feel concerned about something in the product or service, and this leads to these visitors not converting into customers.

In order to avoid losing such visitors, add a direct chat to your website. If a visitor encounters a problem while purchasing a product, or if he has a question about the product, or wants to obtain more information about it, he can then speak with the technical support employee on your site to get what he wants, and he can continue implementing the procedure after solving his problems and answering his questions, which leads to raising the conversion rate on your site. If you use the WordPress content management system, you can easily add live chat to your site by using WordPress plugins. To learn about the practical method that allows you to do this, see our detailed article in which we talked about this topic (Create a live chat in WordPress to communicate with customers better). 13.

Providing a money-back guarantee: People do not like to take risks. Rather, they prefer to be sure that they will get the same product or service offered in the online store before they pay any money for it. The money-back guarantee creates reassurance for them and makes them more confident in your description and more certain of its honesty. This prompts a greater number of visitors to decide to buy from the store, because in this case they know that if the product does not meet the specifications, they will be able to get their money back as if they had not paid anything, and this leads to an increase in the conversion rate. In fact, many experiments have proven that a money-back guarantee contributes significantly to increasing the conversion rate, and it has also been shown that a money-back guarantee with a longer period improves the conversion rate better than one with a shorter period. So, obviously, you can improve your conversion rate by offering a money-back guarantee to your potential customers, but in order not to get many refund requests and build trust in you with visitors, always be honest in everything you offer, and live up to the responsibilities you place on your website customers and visitors.

With this, we have finished explaining the conversion rate and the method of calculating it for any action on the site, and informing you of the best practices and tips that will contribute to raising it and increasing sales and profits without the need to generate more visits. In conclusion, we reiterate the importance of understanding the conversion rate and applying methods to raise it on various websites, especially online stores, so be careful to apply what we have mentioned in this article to achieve more successes that you seek on your website or online store.