Find out how your business can improve its conversion rate optimisation and ensure you’re turning casual users into loyal customers. Read online at Feefo.
A high-converting website is a crucial step in transforming users into customers.
The more people that discover your brand, the more leads you’re going to acquire. This is why ensuring you have the right messaging in your webpages is key to acquiring new prospective customers. This includes a clear call to action (CTA) so readers know what to do next, a great value proposition to explain why a customer should do business with you rather than a competitor and positive trust factors, so your audience and crucially, Google, recognises that you’re safe to do business with.
In this guide, we’ll look at what conversions mean for your website and how you can make positive changes to attract new business through conversions.
What is conversion rate optimisation (CRO)?
CRO is the method of turning passive website visitors into committed customers. A conversion doesn’t necessarily have to be a purchase; it could be the creation of an account, the completion of a contact form, an app download, or something else entirely.
To do this, websites must understand and focus on what drives, stops and persuades users so they can provide the best user experience.
Improving CRO with integrated reviews
One of the most fundamental aspects of CRO comes down to a simple equation: building trust = higher conversions. The good news is that there are proven ways to build confidence with customers. Our own research shows that almost seven in ten trust other shoppers’ recommendations — so integrating reviews properly is the first step.
Spilt test
Split testing is an excellent way to determine whether integrating reviews on a page makes a difference in conversions, or if there’s another issue holding visitors back from converting. A Feefo client ran a split test to measure the impact that showcasing reviews had on bookings. During the test, some visitors were shown Feefo service ratings close to the basket summary, while others were just given the basket summary.
The results of the test proved that the presence of the Feefo service rating increased consumer confidence and led to a 3.01% uplift in revenue per visitor and a 2.94% increase in total bookings.
Integrate product reviews
If you have an eCommerce site, it’s essential to integrate your product reviews. Our research found that over half of UK consumers (66%) say reading reviews is the first thing they do when making purchasing decisions. If there aren’t any present, and they’re not sure about the product, then they are unlikely to buy.
Display your accolades
It’s important to highlight when your business wins awards or gains recognition for great service and products. Displaying award badges adds an additional layer of authenticity to your brand, helping to reassure customers that you are reputable.
At Feefo, we seek to reward every business that delivers an exceptional service to their customers, as we believe that consumers greatly benefit from knowing which brands people like them trust most. That’s why we run the Trusted Service Awards every year— all winners receive a special badge recognising their achievement which they can place on their site.
This acts as an excellent trust signal, as businesses must collect at least 50 reviews in a year and achieve a service rating of 4.0 or higher. We give Gold Trusted Service awards to businesses that gain at least a 4.5 rating. When customers see the Trusted Service badge, they know they’re dealing with a business that consistently delivers a fantastic experience, thanks to ratings from previous customers.
Increase your conversions with no media spend
Possibly the most attractive aspect of CRO is that the only investment you need to make is time. There are no fees, hidden costs or subscriptions. All you need to do is:
- Alter something on your page
- Test the new variant against the original
- Assess the results after a few months and implement the winning variant.
In reality, just increasing your conversion rate from 1% to 2% actually doubles your sales numbers. So, how do you do this?
1. Conversion rates and social proofing
Social proofing is the inclusion of third-party reviews, testimonials or support, e.g. customer reviews, on your site. They are an important way of showing potential customers that they’re not the only one who thinks that your product is amazing. It builds trust in users for you and your product, making people more likely to buy.
There are several ways to do this:
- Review Snippets— this is a Google code that takes ratings and reviews from review sites and adds them to the search results. This means that your excellent 5-star rating shows up in ads, on your site and in the organic results of search engines too, giving you extra exposure.
- Third-party review sites — a great way to include a more quantitative perspective of your product, is by offering a rating, instead of words. Third-party sites will often have a on page display tool that you can easily add to your site to show off your rating and keep it updated.
- Written testimonials — adding these provides potential customers with a more in-depth idea of the specifics of your product. Written reviews can also improve your search engine optimisation (SEO), by increasing the number of times you include a certain word or phrase on the page, without making the copy unreadable. Google ranks pages higher when they are relevant, clear and use keywords often and organically.
2. Conversion rates and mobile compatibility
Google studies show that 40% of people only use their mobile phones to search online in an average day, and that there are more Google searches taking place on phones than on computers.
As such, your site needs to reflect this shift in how people use devices. When optimising your site, make sure any changes are compatible with mobile screens and are visible in these altered displays. Small, unreadable text or sections of a page that are only partly visible are examples of mistakes to watch out for. There are several tools for mobile performance analysis but looking in your Search Console is a great place to start.
3. Conversion rates and call to actions
You cannot overestimate the importance of having a clear call to action (CTA). Lots of buttons, links and menus on your page, all leading to a variety of other areas of your site, will confuse customers about where they should go next to buy your product — they might even get lost on your site.
Try to have one clear CTA that you repeat throughout the page you’re optimising. Have a button that clearly leads to the next step in the buying process, and ensure you repeat that button several times on the page as well, to make it clear what the next step is and how to get there.
Use your online booking process to improve conversion rates
From travel companies to restaurants, businesses that feature a booking system have an additional tool for improving conversion rate optimisation (CRO). Here are some tips to ensure your booking process captivates your customers so that they book directly with your business.
1. Make it clear that you offer online bookings
58% of visitors to your site come to check prices and availability with the intention of booking, so you need to make the process as clear and easy as possible if you want to seal the deal before they look elsewhere.
Make your “Book Now” CTA a prominent part of your homepage, so visitors are in no doubt that you offer an online booking service. Live availability tracking, an easy-to-navigate search function, and clearly presented search results all contribute to a seamless booking experience that makes it easy for visitors to find the information they need to secure their booking with minimum fuss.
2. Optimise the booking process for mobile
In 2022, mobile still beats desktop in the online shopping statistics, with 58% of all visits coming from mobile phones. So make sure your booking process works seamlessly across both mobiles and tablets to engage with as many people as possible. Simply optimising your site might not be enough. The way people interact with your business on mobile differs massively from a desktop, so pay careful attention to every aspect of your booking process to make sure the mobile version is up to scratch.
3. Reward people for booking online
By booking online, travellers are saving your business precious time and money, so why not give something back? Offering exclusive discounts for making their purchase online gives users more reason to book directly through your website and helps increase online sales.
Take the opportunity to encourage people towards online booking, whether that’s in your brochure, email footer or even your reception’s answer phone message. Offering different discount codes for each contact point lets you track which channels are most effective for pushing people towards booking online.
4. Collect and share customer reviews
Showcasing customer reviews during the booking process is an incredibly powerful way of building trust in your business and reducing basket abandonment from indecisive shoppers; especially if you’re collecting your feedback using an independent and reliable source. 94% of consumers check feedback to help them choose which hotel, car rental company or airline to go with.
For the biggest impact, incorporate your reviews into every stage of your online booking process — from the moment visitors land on your homepage, right the way through to the checkout. There are even plug-ins, such as our very own Feefo Dynamic Topic Display, that make it easy for customers to find the reviews that matter most to them. By letting them filter feedback by topics such as location or WiFi quality, they can start making decisions with confidence based on the stuff most relevant to them.
5. Add images and videos
An online booking process that shows, as well as tells, users what they’re getting creates a more compelling shopping experience for travellers looking for that picture-perfect destination. Better yet, encourage previous customers to share their holiday snaps with you. Using authentic and unique user-generated content to showcase your holidays is far more convincing than yet another boring slideshow of perfectly framed stock photos.
6. Use AI to offer real-time support during the booking process
Prominently displaying contact details throughout your site is an easy way to show that you have a helpful customer support team just a phone call away. However, many online users seek quick and simple solutions to their problems or they will likely try and find them elsewhere.
AI chatbots aren’t the revolutionary piece of tech that they were several years ago, but they’re becoming more sophisticated every year. They offer the ideal cost-effective solution for travel companies looking to give real-time support to customers during the booking process, without sacrificing the time and manpower that traditionally comes with offering 24/7 customer support.
7. Keep the conversion going
Just because a customer has confirmed their booking, it doesn’t mean the booking experience is over. Make sure you keep the conversation going right up until they’ve touched back down after their holiday. Follow up the booking with an automated email confirmation that includes all of their booking details, and make sure to personalise the email journey by giving them some handy content tailored to their trips, such as a helpful city guide or travel advice.
Also, why not ask them for a review of your current booking process? You can learn from their feedback to improve the process for future customers and create an even better customer experience for them the next time they book with you.
Improve your CRO with social proof
As a final piece of advice from Feefo, find out how you can boost conversions to your eCommerce site by using social proof in our 45-minute webinar. We've teamed up with Yieldify to bring you this masterclass in which you'll learn what social proof is and six ways to use it. Watch the video here.
