In marketing, far too much emphasis is put on doing new things vs. improving what already works.

When you create a landing page that converts pretty well or run an ad that generates solid leads, the immediate thought becomes: “Can I do more of this?”

Instead, the question should be “Can I do this even better?”

Using Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO for short), you can do just that.

But in order to figure out how to do something better, you need to have ideas for what to change. If you know a lot about your target audience, you can compare your page to what they’re looking for and try to change things to better serve that audience.

Eventually, you’ll run out of steam because you can’t get in their heads. Now what?

You open up a list of things that other marketers have tried changing in the past, and try things out. Below are ideas for what you could do to improve your conversion rate.

Changes to your offer:

• Begin with low commitment, then leverage that commitment to make a larger ask. For example, it’s easier to get someone to purchase something after they’ve submitted an email form to hear more from you.
• Find a way to make it easy for your prospect to try the main product before committing fully. Ex: start watching the movie, get a sample chapter, read the book for 2 minutes before it prompts you to pay.
• Try higher prices as well as lower ones. It’s actually possible in some cases to increase conversion by increasing price. Sometimes the price is so low, people are suspicious of it. This is especially true of physical products.
• Test prices that don’t end with .99 or .00. Research has shown that pricing products in a very specific, “strange” way can actually increase conversions.
• Offer more product/service variants at different price ranges. Test different amounts, but keep in mind that too many choices will often result in analysis paralysis. Many people experience success with making a cheap tier 1, reasonable tier 2 with the price they want people to choose, and a very expensive tier 3 for the super fans. Even if no one ever buys the third tier, the very presence of it anchors the price higher.
• Try adding a bonus to your offer, or changing your bonuses. A bonus is usually a relatively inexpensive product or service that you throw in for free if someone buys what you want them to.

Trust signals:

• Show company logos or famous names of clients.
• Using a purchase notification tool like Fomo to show people who are on the page with you, or show purchases made.
• Surely you already have testimonials, right? Well, if not—try adding them! Test out different testimonials to see which ones resonate the most.
• Try out different guarantees. Money-back guarantee, satisfaction guarantee, etc. Many video course funnels are now doing this because a lot of people have been burned by low quality courses.
• Written testimonials are one thing, but video testimonials are a whole new level. Anyone can fake a written testimonial, but video testimonials get people’s attention. If you’re selling a high-ticket product or service, a video testimonial is almost required.
• Include security icons/certifications in your checkout process.
• Have you won awards in your industry? Add “Award-winning” to your copy in a few places, and put an badge image of the award you won.
• If you’re selling a product, display user star reviews. Consider using a third-party service that verifies reviews (Such as Trustpilot). People have been burned by sites with fake user reviews before.
• Add in-depth case studies on a page in your site.
• Get talked about a lot in the press? Include a press mention section with highlighted quotes!

Design techniques

• Figure out the most important points in your page, and find ways to highlight them. It could be as simple as bold text or a larger font, but you can also use arrows and callouts of various types.
• Test a single-column layout vs. more complex layouts. If you’re trying to sell one product, single-column will likely win. If your site is an ecommerce store, single-column wouldn’t make sense because you want to display a variety of products.

Copy techniques

• Your headline is one of the highest yield elements of copy you can change. Try focusing on a different benefit, making it longer or shorter, making it more specific (perhaps with metrics?) and believable.
• Does your page take readers on a journey and anticipate their questions/needs as they come? Make sure the order of your page’s sections follow a logical journey like an essay would.
• Check for clarity. Are you letting the curse of knowledge affect your copywriting? If someone who knows nothing about you read this page, would they understand what they’re looking at?
• Replace copy about the product with copy about what the product will do for people.
• There are many ways to word your CTA button—try out different variations. Try to match the CTA button copy with what they’re actually doing. Be very wary of using copy that makes it sound like the user is purchasing something by clicking it if they really aren’t. For example, “Get it now” is not good copy for sending someone to the product page. If they have the courage to click that button, you want them to go to the cart!
• Try very long sales pages vs. short ones with different featured benefits. Even if the short ones lose, you can start to infer which benefits are most compelling.
• Are your claims too big? If you over-do it, people may be scoffing at your copy. Make your claims equivalent in strength with your proof. Use “if” statements to make claims more credible.

Organization

• Have you recently moved your most popular or trending products into prime locations on your page? (For sites with multiple products). If you sell multiple products, your homepage will have to decide which one to feature and where. Test different variations.
• Test re-ordering sections of the page. For some businesses, it may be good to put testimonials near the top of the page. For others, testimonials should be lower.
• Do you have enough CTA buttons or a CTA that follows the reader? On longer pages, you want people to have the option to sign up as soon as they’re convinced.

These are just a taste of some of the ways you can improve your conversion rate. Leave a comment below with any we didn’t mention!