Your conversion rate can go up even if you don't CRO
August 2019
No doubt, a big pile of winning A/B test 🏆🏆🏆s will increase your site’s conversion rate over time. But there’s more to it than that.
Your conversion rate can go up for all kinds of reasons, even if you’re not testing. (Or all your tests are losing.)
Traffic mix
Turn off some underperforming paid search or social campaigns, and 💥! Your conversion rate goes up.
Same effect if you decide to retire an outdated SEO page from 3 years ago, when your product and target market were totally different. (No more confused real estate agents landing on your site, trying to figure out why you want to sell them semiconductors.)
Content
Been blogging? Awesome, your current site is much richer with content that shows visitors how wonderful life could be if only they became customers. This site should convert better than a year ago, when it was nothing but a homepage and a BUY NOW button.
The same goes for technical documentation. You don’t create it as part of some grand CRO initiative, but some visitors will check out your docs before deciding. And some will nope out if the docs suck, or don’t exist.
Stuff you don’t control
Outside forces can drive more qualified traffic your way. For example:
- Some genius affiliate marketer has built a landing page that explains your product better than your site, and is sending tons of clicks
- Someone on reddit wrote a how-to guide that links out to your product, and now it’s sending you a few hundred ready-to-buy visitors a day
Outside forces can change how visitors perceive you:
- An accumulation of positive reviews across the interwebs takes you from “🤔 Never heard of ‘em, sounds sketchy” to “👍 Looks legit”
Or the market itself can shift to your advantage:
- A competitor raises prices, changes their offering, or suffers from a shameful scandal
Or public awareness and perception of your product can change favorably, for reasons no one understands:
This list is nowhere near complete.
What other factors can increase your site’s conversion rate while the CRO team is on vacation? Hit Reply and share if you’ve got a minute. Have a lovely weekend 😌