This article shares the high-level takeaways from a webinar run by our CEO and Founder, Matthew Stibbe. To catch every pearl of wisdom, watch the full webinar here (gated content).
In our experience, most B2B websites do a lot of work for little reward. Traffic and session duration are good indicators that your SEO and UX are working, but if they’re not translating to sales opportunities, it’s like pouring (expensive) water into a bucket full of holes.
That’s where CRO comes in: a clear, systematic method for turning more of your existing visitors into qualified leads for your sales team. Below are ten practical experiments you can run to tighten the screws on your site and start seeing conversion rates lift fast.
What is CRO?
Conversion rate optimisation (CRO) is the systematic, data-driven process of improving the percentage of website visitors who take a desired action. This could be submitting a lead form, starting a trial, requesting a demo or booking a sales call.
If you’re wondering what ‘improvement’ looks like, benchmarks vary, but FirstPageSage has some helpful average conversion rates by industry (as a percentage of total unique visitors). These include:
- B2B Software-as-a-Service (Saas): 1.1%
- Environmental services: 1.3%
- Industrial Internet of Things (IoT): 2.6%
- IT and Managed Services: 1.5%
- Medical devices: 1.6%
- Pharmaceutical: 1.9%
As you can see, most B2B companies typically convert a very small proportion of their website visitors. As they’re averages, however, it means you can convert more, and many businesses do (including some of our clients.)
The benefits of CRO for your website
If you need evidence that CRO is worth the investment, you only need to read our SearchPilot case study. Our CRO project with them delivered:
- 40 incremental leads over six months
- 2.3x increase in newsletter sign-ups
- Hundreds of additional CTA clicks per month
- A blog that generates traffic and leads
Another sign of CRO done well is improvement in lead quality: if your SEO is firing on all cylinders, sharper, more targeted messaging at conversion points will ensure the right buyers will be ready to take the next step in their journey with you.
10 CRO experiments to run on your website
To tune up your website’s conversion rates, try these 10 essential CRO experiments. If you’d like to hear directly from our CEO how we would apply them to a hypothetical case study, you can catch up on the original webinar recording.
1. Value proposition clarity
- Hypothesis: A clearer headline describing what your company does and why it matters will increase engagement on the homepage.
- Goal: Improve scroll depth and CTA clicks on the hero section.
- Next steps:
- A/B test different propositions
- A/B text different ways of improving contrast for the text, such as tinting or making the video smaller
2. Form optimisation
- Hypothesis: Shorter forms have a better conversion rate.
- Goal: Increase form submissions.
- Next steps:
- Improve CTA button text
- Simplify GDPR legal text and toggles
- Add microcopy reassurance (e.g. ’We’ll get back to you within 24 hours’)
3. CTA clarity
- Hypothesis: Clearer, more action-oriented CTAs will increase clickthroughs.
- Goal: Lift in CTA clickthrough rate and conversion rate from hero or product pages.
- Next steps:
- Compare conversion rates for ‘Learn more’ vs. ‘Talk to our team’ vs. ‘See hydrogen in action’
4. Audience-specific paths
- Hypothesis: Visitors are diverse (partners, investors, press, engineers); offering segmented CTAs increases relevance.
- Goal: Make it much easier for visitors to self-identify and find the content that’s relevant to them.
- Next steps:
- Add a ‘Who are you?’ mini-navigation in the hero or mid-page e.g. ‘I’m an Airline Partner’ or ‘I’m an investor’
5. In-blog CTAs
- Hypothesis: People visiting ZeroAvia’s site may be coming in from AI or Google to look at one article e.g. a press release.
- Goal: Get more conversions from one-page visitors.
- Next steps:
- Add two CTAs to every blog post
- A/B test CTAs
- Use a HubSpot campaign to track additional clicks
6. PDF download option
- Hypothesis: Offering downloadable PDF versions of existing content can generate more leads without requiring additional reading.
- Goal: More leads from existing content.
- Next steps:
- Identify your top ten articles and blog posts
- Turn them into a PDF
- Embed a download form into the blog itself
7. Improve newsletter offer
8. AI chat
- Hypothesis: Embedding company knowledge into a chatbot with the option to hand off to a human.
- Goal: Increase visitor dwell time, engagement and self-service for routine questions.
- Next steps:
- Set up HubSpot customer agent
- Create careful guardrails about handoff to humans e.g. live chat
- Conduct careful cohort testing and monitoring
9. Pop-up CTAs
- Hypothesis: Pop-up forms, especially with time-limited offers, can turn any visit into a lead capture opportunity.
- Goal: Get more registrations or offer downloads.
- Next steps:
- Create a pop-up CTA
- Link to a related landing page which explains the offer
- Hypothesis: Putting high value content behind a form will generate more leads. Own a topic.
- Goal: Understand audience engagement and turn visitors into contacts.
- Next steps:
- Gate press media kit and images
- Build a registration-required investors area
- Sign-up for job posting alerts
- Gated flagship reports
Convert smarter and faster
If you’re reading these experiments thinking, ‘What should I tackle first?’ That’s the right question to ask. The best CRO programmes prioritise the experiments most likely to move your numbers and improve lead quality.
If you want a fresh set of expert eyes to help you create your programme, we’d love to help. Book a free marketing strategy session and we’ll talk through where your biggest conversion wins are hiding and how to go after them.