Taking it one step further: User Journey Optimization

When talking about conversion rate optimization, it can be easy to get caught up in things like:

• Improving your CTR (click-through rate)
• Decreasing your bounce rate
• Comparing conversion rates on one test versus another

At the end of the day, CRO isn’t just about improved ROI. It’s about really trying to understand the pain points of your audience, and what problems you’re trying to solve for them. 

Think of it like telling a story. If you were going to read a story, you wouldn’t start in the middle. And if you were going to tell a story, you wouldn’t start in the middle, either. Conversion rate optimization would certainly be part of the story.

What else do you need to consider?

Telling a story requires you to consider the hero, the knowledge the hero needs to be successful, and the conflict. As a company your issue might be low sales, so this can be a helpful exercise to ensure that what you are selling is useful for the market. 

Your Hero

First, take a look at how your hero (in this case, our audience, or website visitors) might arrive at your page. How did they end up on your website? What problem are they looking to solve? Do they have special needs? What specific qualities might they embody (are they millennials? Do they have kids? Maybe they are aspirational)? Keep in mind that data is incredibly important as you consider who your hero is and what issues they’dl ike to solve. The bottom line is that we want our heroes to be successful, and we want to help solve their problems.

Avoiding a Bumpy Journey

Once you learn a bit more about your hero, you can focus on understanding the problem they are trying to solve. Data and heat maps can also give you helpful information about where users are struggling. As you analyze the steps different people take their issues, you will gain insights about what information might be missing. You will also start to see patterns you can iterate on to ensure users have a smooth journey through the funnel.

Helpful Knowledge

Finally, you can take a look at what knowledge your hero needs to be successful in his or her quest. This is how you set your company up as your hero’s helper. It’s important to actually interact with some customers when you are setting out to solve this. You can do this through a survey, a focus group, or by doing individual user testing via recorded sessions. This will shape the way you structure your site (and the other touch points – social media, physical store locations, etc.) And don’t forget to consider the different phases of the marketing funnel. A potential customer’s needs may change throughout the process.

How do you put it all together?

Again, creating a funnel can be a helpful way to really understand your User Journey. This will help you find places you can optimize it using data and customer insights gathered from surveys or focus groups. 

As you can see, User Journey Optimization and Conversion Rate Optimization are closely linked. By taking CRO beyond facts and figures, you can create a lasting, iterative strategy that continuously improve on-site experience (and thus, your ROI). Who doesn’t want that!?

Now what?

Throughout this series, we’ve discussed:

• What is a conversion?
• What is the CRO process?
• Types of testing
• CRO tools
• What can you optimize?
• User Journey Optimization

It’s a lot of information to process. But our team has got you covered. If you want to learn more about CRO, User Journey Optimization, or even just discuss what tools are right for your organization, our team is here for you. Get in touch today!