Inbound Marketing and SEO: Insights from the Moz Blog

Chapter 21: Lessons Learned from 21 Case Studies in Conversion Rate Optimization

By Paras Chopra

Editor's Note: Conversion rate optimization (CRO) must be tailored to support the specific goals of a website's business. After observing more than 1,000 split tests for landing pages, however, Paras Chopra identified a number of general patterns among the ones with the highest conversion rates. He shares them in this post, which was originally published Aug. 3, 2010, on The Moz Blog.

Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is the newest darling of Internet marketers. After all, what good is traffic if it doesn't convert? Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending how you look at it), unlike pay-per-click (PPC) marketing, CRO isn't a game of how much money you can throw. In fact, this field requires as much creativity as it requires monetary investment. That's what makes conversion rate optimization a fair arena. Your well-funded, bigger competitors can of course beat you at generating more traffic, but they can't beat you at the conversion rate game (unless you allow them to).

Every website has unique conversion goals, so the best approach to CRO is unique for every website. You should not expect to follow tips from a “best-practices” article and boost your conversion rates instantly. Chances are high that what worked for others may not work for you. So, the biggest step in increasing conversion rates is coming up with creative ideas and designs that can work

Even though CRO is a highly ...