You might think that making your site look beautiful is all that matters for a successful website, when you are trying to reach customers and get them to buy from your business. This mindset is completely understandable. After all, if you’re running a business related to fashion or beauty you definitely want your website to reflect the stunning qualities of your company.
That said, it’s important to realise that the way your site looks is really one piece of the puzzle. From here on out we’re going out we’re going to look at the factors that make a successful website through the perspective of technical marketing jargon starting with CRO.
All You Need To Know About CRO for a successful website
CRO stands for conversion rate optimisation and the basic principle behind this is quite simple. Basically, CRO measures how many users visit your site and then decided to buy from your business, as opposed to clicking away. You want your CRO rate to be high to ensure that your marketing is paying off.
The thing to realize about CRO is that it only becomes relevant once customers find and click on your site. It’s at this point you can start thinking about how your site looks. Research shows that the style and design of a site does effect CRO so in this way the appearance is important. You want your site to be beautiful and keep the attention of customers. But it’s not the only factor at play here.
Customers will choose to click off due to a variety of other reasons and that’s why A-B testing is important. Through A-B testing you can run two versions of one site, changing small parts to find out which site design is more effective at retaining customers.
There’s also site performance. It doesn’t matter how beautiful a site is. If it doesn’t respond at rapid speeds and instead leaves customers on loading screens, it won’t get the attention you want from customers.
SEO for a successful website
Of course, before CRO becomes relevant, we need to consider the impact of SEO. SEO or search engine optimisation will determine whether customers find your site in the first place. You need to use SEO techniques to guarantee that your site does appear in the in SERPS (search engine results pages).
Though, it is worth pointing out that there are lots of different paths that you can take to ensure a successful website appears in the SERPS. Adword marketing is an SEO alternative that could be effective. But remember, this will rely heavily on your site having a fantastic CRO. Otherwise, you’ll just be pouring money down the drain.
As you can see then, there are lots of different pieces that fit together to ensure that you are marketing for a successful website. It’s not just about making a site beautiful, nor is it about ensuring that customers find it. All the different parts of the puzzle need to fit together in the right way otherwise your site will never be the success that you want. The truth is this is just the tip of the iceberg because there are also areas away from your site that are important as well like social media.
I hope you now see why, while having a beautiful site is really important for a successful website, it’s far from the end of the story.
