Conversion

In online marketing, a conversion occurs when a user acts on the website in the interest of the provider.

conversion tracking

The word conversion describes an event: the action by which a mere visitor to your website becomes your customer. The visitor is “converted” by taking an action such as a download, signing up for a newsletter, or making a purchase. This clear action results in a clearly measurable quantity. By dividing the number of actions by the total number of users on your site, you can easily plot the conversion rate as a percentage. These two key figures are Key Performance Indicators (KPI) Metrics that indicate the success of your website or marketing strategy. There is no ideal value, because both the yield and the effort are always different.

The conversion event is always preceded by the process, the customer journey in the conversion funnel. By tracking your users in this funnel, you can “track” how you’re achieving conversions.

Recording and using the key figures

To capture these metrics, there are several useful tools, such as Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords) along with Google Analytics. These will help you if you define your conversion types beforehand. With Google Analytics you can measure and evaluate the success of your marketing strategy.

With GoogleAds you can define your personal conversions. In doing so, you need to implement a tracking code, in e-commerce that would be on the order completion page. Google Analytics allows you to set goals by defining actions on the page as “events” and track them with Google Ads.

The conversion rate is an integral part of modern online marketing, e-commerce and search engine optimization (SEO) or search engine marketing (SEA). Ideally, you can also track the customer journey with different tools. Conversion tracking allows you to understand the surfing behavior of your visitors in their individual steps. Many companies are working to replace the cookie used for this purpose with more secure methods.

Since the conversion rate is an objectively measurable variable, service providers such as agencies use it as a fair basis for their billing. Every successful action on the client’s website can be evaluated by an agency as a success of its marketing concept or its sold website.

conversion optimization

Because conversion rate is so important, conversion optimization or conversion rate optimization (CRO) is equally essential. This includes all the actions you can take to increase the number of your conversions. Since working on CRO applies to all areas in the conversion funnel, working on CRO isn’t just working on your entire website, it’s working on your entire business. The means of search engine optimization of your site are as essential as maintaining your social media presence or sharpening your corporate identity.

The steps that should lead to an increase in conversion optimization, you build on a representative test. One such test would be an A/B test where you take your users to two different landing pages and then determine the conversion rate. If you can see from the bounce rate that your visitors are bouncing off your site after only one page view, you should work on your site:

• Search engine optimization like better keywords, clearer content and semantic optimization
• Technical SEO – shorter loading times and simple page architecture
• Search engine advertising such as meta description, marketing or landing page optimization

Customer journey and conversions

A conversion is preceded by a customer journey. This denotes the individual steps in the conversion funnel. These steps can denote finding the site, registering, purchasing or downloading. A distinction must be made here between the so-called lead. The lead is not the conversion, but is in front of it. It refers to the contact with which you address the user and is thus the prerequisite for conversion.

One danger here is bots, which can influence the conversion rate, especially in the case of downloads and newsletters. To counter this danger, you should pay attention to all the individual steps, the conversion funnel. Only this gives you an accurate, tamper-proof result for your effort.

After conversion, online marketing starts working on post conversion marketing, customer retention.

Significance for search engine optimization

The conversion rate is a clear indicator of the success of your website. The more visitors you can convince of your product, service or message, the greater your reach and the authority of your site. And the easier and more convenient your user can find and use your site, the better.

To get a good conversion rate you should direct the many resources of SEO towards it.

• Technical SEO – your audience would rather use a comfortable website than a cluttered one with long loading times. Google’s search algorithm also rewards a user-friendly site with better positions on the SERP.
• As part of content optimization, the right keywords and semantic analysis will help you present your information to your audience faster and lead to a better conversion rate.

Conclusion

The great benefits of conversion and the concepts that are explained by it are objectively measurable. Both the event and the process illustrate the success of the website and the overall marketing strategy. Through the various tools, the conversions can be counted and the individual steps towards this can be analysed. Therefore, conversions are central to planning a strategy and measuring the success of your website – which is how service providers use them to bill you.