Improve Website Conversion Rate: 12 Ways to Increase It
The gap between your website's current performance and its true conversion potential represents the most overlooked opportunity in your digital marketing strategy.
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Most of what passes for website optimization is rearranging deck chairs. Changing button colors and tweaking headlines might give you a small bump, but if the fundamental approach is flawed, the site still underperforms.
Most businesses leave money on the table without realizing it, because they work on the wrong things.
What is conversion rate optimization (CRO)?
Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is the methodical work of finding out why visitors don’t take the action you want on your site, then fixing it.
Many companies obsess over traffic and ignore what happens after visitors arrive. That’s like filling a store and never checking whether anyone buys.
Your conversion rate is the percentage of visitors who complete your desired action. Divide conversions by visitors and multiply by 100.
The number can look small, and small changes to it have large effects. If your ecommerce store gets 100,000 monthly visitors at a 2% conversion rate with a $50 average order, you make $100,000 a month.
Raise that conversion rate to 2.5% with no extra traffic and you’re at $125,000. That’s a 25% revenue increase without an extra dollar on advertising. It adds up fast.
Why CRO matters
Better conversion means more value from every marketing dollar, so return on investment rises across paid ads, SEO and email.
CRO research also shows you what your customers care about, which is often different from what you assumed. It helps product and marketing decisions too.
And CRO forces you to find and fix pain points in the customer journey. A better experience builds loyalty and repeat business.
1. Define clear objectives for your website
“We want to improve our website” is a goal nobody can measure or act on. Yet that’s how many companies approach their sites.
What is the primary purpose of your website? Not five things, the one that matters most.
Ask most executives and you’ll get a laundry list: more sales, leads, subscribers, engagement and awareness. Wanting everything means prioritizing nothing.
The sites that convert at high rates usually focus each page on a single goal, with one clear next step, and every image, headline and design element serves it. Look at how many competing objectives your page carries:
- Your newsletter signup pulls attention from your product purchase.
- Your chatbot distracts from your lead generation form.
- Your social media links lead visitors away before they convert.
Pick the one action you need to move, commit to it, and cut what competes with it.
2. Optimize your website design and navigation
A beautiful website doesn’t guarantee conversions. Clarity matters most: how easily visitors can reach their goals, which should line up with yours.
Take a hard look at your navigation. Is it organized around how your company thinks about its products, or how your customers think about their problems?
For landing pages in particular, optimize these elements:
- Loading speed. Slow pages lose visitors with every extra second, and anything over three seconds costs you a real share of potential customers.
- Mobile responsiveness. Much of your traffic is probably mobile, so test every page on a phone.
- Clear copy. People scan, so use headings and bullet points and make your value proposition obvious at first glance.
- Visuals that support the message. Remove decorative images that pull attention from the call to action.
- Visual hierarchy. The most important elements should be the most prominent and lead visitors toward your conversion goal.
- Headlines. Connect with visitors’ needs or pain points; “Welcome to our website” wastes the space. Write 10 to 15 options before you choose one to test.
- Trust signals. Testimonials, case studies, security badges and guarantees help, especially when you ask for payment details. For an event, our webinar landing page template shows the same elements in order.
3. Enhance your call-to-action (CTA)
Your CTA may be the most tested element in digital marketing. Yet many CTAs still underperform because they talk about the company.
Your visitors care about their problems and desires. Connect your CTA to their outcome.
“Sign up for our newsletter” is about you; “Get weekly industry insights” is about them. “Contact us” is about you; “Get a custom solution” is about them.
Match the CTA to the visitor’s stage in the buying journey. “Buy now” suits someone ready to purchase and can scare off someone still researching, so offer a primary and a secondary CTA. A/B test your CTAs, and our guide to improving click-through rate covers the copy side.
4. Prioritize user experience (UX)
User experience is about making things work intuitively. Every bit of friction costs you conversions.
Long forms are conversion killers. Ask for the email first and only the fields you need to convert, and question every other field at this stage.
Navigation should be intuitive, not clever. Specific labels that customers use beat vague ones like “Solutions.”
Mobile users behave differently. Forms that work on desktop can be painful on a phone, and buttons sized for a mouse may be too small for thumbs.
Page speed affects everything. Properly sized and compressed images are often the quickest win, followed by good hosting, caching, fewer redirects and fewer plugins on a platform like WordPress.
User experience is measurable: heat maps, scroll maps, session recordings and user testing reveal problems you would never spot otherwise.
5. Implement A/B testing
A/B testing is how you move from guessing to knowing what works.
Focus your tests on the elements most likely to move conversions:
- Headlines, the first thing visitors read
- CTAs, both the button design and its copy
- Images, especially hero images on landing pages
- Page layout and visual hierarchy
- Pricing presentation, including discounts or special offers
- Form design, including the number of fields and their labels
Test one significant change at a time, or you won’t know which change drove the result. Run each test until it reaches statistical significance, because stopping early leads to false conclusions.
Then ask why the winner won, so you can apply the insight across your site. For one nonprofit client, four straight A/B test wins added $41,167 a month in revenue.
6. Use social proof
People look to others when they make decisions, so good social proof builds trust and increases conversion rates.
Show reviews next to the product features they praise.
Testimonials work best when they’re specific: a detailed account of a solved problem beats “Great service!” Video testimonials feel more authentic.
Trust badges such as security seals, certifications and client logos work as shorthand for credibility, especially near checkout forms.
7. Use high-quality visual content
People process images faster than text, so your visual content shapes engagement and conversion.
Product images should be high resolution and show the product from several angles, including shots of it in use. Zoomable images reduce purchase anxiety.
Videos can demonstrate products, explain complex features or tell a brand story, and product pages with video often convert better.
Match visuals to your brand and your audience, optimize image size so pages stay fast, add alt text, and check every visual on mobile.
8. Create urgency and scarcity
Urgency and scarcity tap into the fear of missing out. Used honestly, they increase conversion rates.
Limited-time offers give people a reason to act now, and specific deadlines work better: “Offer ends Sunday at midnight” beats “Limited time offer.”
Low-stock notices combine scarcity with social proof, but only when they’re true. False scarcity erodes trust fast.
Try progressive urgency: start with gentle reminders and make the message more prominent as the deadline approaches. If your offer is always “ending soon,” customers learn to ignore it.
9. Simplify the checkout process
Checkout is where many websites lose conversions that should have been theirs. The Baymard Institute’s average across 50 studies puts online cart abandonment at 70.22%.
Reduce form fields first: ask only for what the transaction needs.
Offer guest checkout, because forcing account creation before purchase kills conversions; invite customers to create an account after they buy. Offer several payment methods, such as PayPal, Apple Pay and Google Pay.
Add progress indicators to multi-step checkouts, and show specific error messages right next to the field that needs fixing. The best checkout gets out of the customer’s way.
10. Implement retargeting and abandoned cart recovery
Retargeting ads reach visitors who showed interest and left, so they usually convert better than standard display ads. Segment them by what each visitor did on your site.
Abandoned cart emails recover lost sales. Send two or three: the first within an hour, focused on service (“Did you have any problems completing your order?”), and later ones with an incentive if needed.
The same works for event registrations: automated reminders plus a call to anyone who started registering and stopped. Our guide to promoting your event online covers the traffic side.
11. Analyze your data
Data analysis is the foundation of optimization; without it you’re guessing. Track clicks, conversions and drop-offs, and read them in context.
Key metrics to track for effective CRO
| Metric | Definition | Importance |
| Conversion rate | Percentage of visitors who take a desired action | Shows how well your site drives actions |
| Bounce rate | Percentage of visitors who leave after viewing one page | Flags problems with content or user experience |
| Average order value (AOV) | Average amount spent per transaction | Shows purchasing behavior and helps revenue forecasting |
| Customer lifetime value (CLV) | Total revenue expected from a customer over time | Guides marketing spend and retention strategy |
| Average time on page | How long visitors stay on your pages | Shows engagement with your content |
| Pages per session | Number of pages viewed in a single visit | Shows how far users explore your site |
| Cart abandonment rate | Percentage of users who add items to cart but don’t purchase | Points to checkout problems |
| Revenue per visitor | Average revenue per site visitor | Measures overall monetization |
Go past the standard reports in Google Analytics: custom segments, conversion funnels and cohort analysis tell you more. Pair the numbers with user testing and customer surveys, so you learn why visitors act as they do.
12. Stay informed on best practices
Industry blogs, podcasts and case studies keep you current, but test before you copy any “best practice.”
Review competitor websites, especially ones that convert well, for ideas. Watch how user behavior shifts on mobile.
AI-driven personalization and other new tools are worth evaluating for your business. Keep the fundamentals first, though: good UX, clear messaging and customer needs don’t change.
The role of content quality in CRO
Much website content is generic and forgettable, and generic content converts poorly.
If your competitor’s logo replaced yours, would anyone notice a difference in the content?
Great content takes a clear point of view and speaks to what your audience cares about. List every reason a visitor might say no, then answer each objection with specific evidence.
Final thoughts on CRO
A low conversion rate is feedback from the market: your offer, messaging or user experience isn’t convincing enough yet.
The businesses that excel at conversion are willing to:
- Prioritize a single conversion goal
- Test assumptions, and drop the ones that lose
- Watch what customers do, as well as what they say
- Make decisions based on data, not opinions or hierarchy
Start by defining the one goal that matters most, then watch real users on your site. The gaps between what you expect and what happens show you where to begin.
Frequently asked questions
How do you calculate website conversion rate?
Divide the number of conversions by the number of visitors, then multiply by 100. Count one action per page, such as purchases or form submissions.
What is a good website conversion rate?
Rates vary widely by industry, offer and traffic source, and low single digits are common. The most useful benchmark is your own rate last quarter, so measure it first and improve from there.
What is the fastest way to improve website conversion rate?
Fix page speed on mobile, cut form fields to the essentials, and give each page one clear CTA. Then A/B test your headline and CTA copy.
How long should an A/B test run?
Run it until the result reaches statistical significance, and for at least a full week so weekday and weekend visitors both count.
Get expert help with your conversion strategy
We & Goliath runs landing page copywriting and CRO for event registration pages, with A/B testing and heatmap analysis built in, and your team can run as much of it as you like.
For NP Digital’s summit, conversion work on the landing page and copy helped take registrations from 9,000 to nearly 20,000.
Book a strategy session to find your biggest conversion opportunities.
