What Is Conversion Rate Optimization?
Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is the process of increasing the percentage of visitors who take a desired action (like purchasing, signing up for a free trial, or booking a demo) on your website or mobile app.
Calculate conversion rate by dividing the number of conversions by the number of visitors, then multiplying by 100.
Here’s what the formula looks like:
Traditionally, CRO focused on tracking user behavior and running tests to improve website performance. Today, AI tools add predictive power by spotting likely drop-off points and recommending fixes automatically. This combination of classic methods and modern AI makes CRO more powerful (and essential) than ever.
Why Is Conversion Rate Optimization Important?
CRO matters because it turns more visitors into leads and customers, which grows your business.
Let’s say you run an ecommerce store with the following stats:
- Monthly visitors: 100,000
- Current conversion rate: 2%
- Average order value (AOV): $50
With these numbers, your current monthly revenue is: 100,000 x 0.02 x 50 = $100,000
Now imagine that you increase the conversion rate from 2% to 2.5% by implementing some CRO techniques.
Your new monthly revenue becomes: 100,000 x 0.025 x 50 = $125,000
That’s a 25% revenue increase, or $25,000 extra per month, without spending more on traffic. Clearly, even small improvements in conversion rate can have an outsized impact on your bottom line, which is why it pays to approach CRO methodically.
How to Do Conversion Rate Optimization in 6 Steps
Here’s a six-step process to help you optimize your conversions:
1. Set Your Conversion Goals
Clear goals prevent wasted effort on optimizing the wrong elements.
For example, to increase sales, optimize product pages. To gain more email subscribers, optimize signup forms.
Add these goals as key events in Google Analytics 4 (GA4) to enable conversion tracking. (Read our detailed guide to set up GA4 conversion tracking to learn more.)
After setup, let GA4 collect enough data to build a reliable baseline. Then compare your current conversion rate with industry benchmarks.
For example, the median conversion rate for food and beverage sites is 7.1%. Whereas fashion and beauty convert at only 1.3%, according to Unbounce’s Conversion Benchmark Report.
You can also estimate competitor conversion rates with Semrush’s Industry & Bulk Analysis tool. Enter competitor domains and click “Analyze.”
The report shows data for each site, including purchase conversions.
This insight reveals how your site compares to competitors. If your conversion rate is below the industry average, you’ll likely need improvement.
2. Identify Where Users Drop Off
Identifying drop-off points shows you which parts of your site need fixing to keep visitors from leaving.
Use GA4’s purchase journey report to analyze user paths—the steps visitors take to complete tasks—and see where they exit.
Use GA4’s checkout journey report to find where users abandon the checkout process. This highlights friction points, like complex forms, that prevent purchases.
Focus on areas with the highest exits.
For example, if many users view your products but don’t add items to cart, review product images or descriptions. As they might not be persuasive enough to drive action.
Also track these key metrics in GA4:
- Bounce rate: Percentage of visitors who leave without engaging. High bounce rates on landing or product pages suggest weak messaging and/or user experience.
- Cart abandonment rate: Percentage of shoppers who abandon carts. Common causes include high shipping costs or long checkout forms.
- Time on page: Low time on page may mean the content lacks value or distractions pull users away
- Scroll depth: Show how far users scroll. If they don’t reach CTAs or forms, adjust layout or placement.
Use tools like Microsoft Clarity to generate heatmaps and user recordings. So you can see how users interact with your content. Including where they get stuck. And what might cause them to bounce.
AI-powered analytics tools can also flag the riskiest funnel steps and suggest fixes.
Use these insights to form hypotheses for your CRO experiments. (We’ll touch on hypotheses and experiments in the following steps.)
3. Gather Data About Your Users
User data helps you identify why visitors leave without converting.
You can get this information through tools like Qualaroo that provide exit-intent surveys (surveys that trigger right before a user leaves) or feedback forms. Ask questions like:
- What stopped you from completing your purchase today? (To get direct feedback on issues like unreasonable pricing, lack of trust, or poor usability.)
- Was there anything confusing or frustrating about the process? (To uncover pain points in navigation, the payment gateway, etc.)
- Was there anything you were looking for today that you couldn’t find? (To identify gaps in your content or product offerings.)
- Did you experience any technical issues during your visit? (To identify glitches that could disrupt the buyer’s journey.)
- On a scale of 1-10, how easy was it to complete your goal on our site? (To quantify the overall user experience of your site.)
Next, collect information about your larger target audience.
Gather this data using Semrush’s Traffic & Market toolkit. First, follow our instructions to set up your Audience Profile dashboards by entering your domains along with competitor domains.
Then head into the Demographics tool. The “Demographics” report shows information like age groups, gender, and location.
Next go to the Socioeconomics tool to find details about your audience’s average household size, employment status, income level, and education level.
And use the Behavior tool to get insights into users’ preferred devices, interests, and social media platforms.
Use this information to refine your messaging.
For example, if most of your audience is 35-44, lives in a household with three to four people, and works full time, many audience members are likely working parents. Tailor your content and offers to their needs.
4. Develop Hypotheses
Use your insights to identify one problem you want to solve, propose a solution, and predict an outcome. This forms the basis of your CRO experiment.
Your hypothesis structure includes a:
- Problem statement: “Users abandon carts because the checkout page requires registration”
- Proposed solution: “Add a guest checkout option”
- Expected outcome: “Purchase conversions will improve by 2%”
Final hypothesis:
“Offering a guest checkout option alongside standard registration during checkout will reduce cart abandonment and increase purchase conversions by 2%.”
Here are some broad ideas to consider for different pages:
- Homepage: Communicate your value proposition (a statement that describes why customers should choose your products over the competition) clearly and ensure easy navigation
- Landing pages: Match content to search intent or ad campaigns and minimize form fields
- Product or service pages: Highlight benefits over features, use high-quality visuals, and display customer reviews to build trust and credibility
- Pricing page: Simplify the layout, clearly outline pricing tiers and features, and include trust signals like testimonials and guarantees
- CTA buttons: Ensure buttons stand out and test the text, color, size, and placement
- Blog pages: Add targeted CTAs (e.g., “Download this guide” or “Subscribe to our newsletter”) and optimize for lead capture by offering relevant free resources
At Semrush, SEO Content Strategist Zach Paruch ran a simple experiment on a blog popup that highlights the power of small CRO tweaks.
Here is the original popup:
Zach noticed the headline was feature-focused and not especially persuasive. He hypothesized that a FOMO (fear of missing out) message highlighting benefits would perform better.
Here’s the redesigned version:
“Generally, users don't care about features,” Zach said. “They care about results/benefits and with the new popup, I wanted to trigger an emotional response.”
The result? A 14% lift in conversions, which shows that even subtle shifts in messaging can drive measurable gains.
5. Run an A/B Test
A/B tests let you compare two variations of a page or element to see which converts better.
Variation A is your control (current version). Variation B is your test (new version). Some AI testing platforms can predict winning variants before testing, which helps you prioritize what to experiment with first.
Push both pages live and implement a 302 redirect (a temporary redirect) that randomly redirects users to each of the two versions. (You may need to work with a developer for help.)
Alternatively, use a tool that takes care of the technical details for you. Like the Landing Page Builder app.
This tool makes it simple to set up a landing page and duplicate it to run A/B tests.
Run the experiment long enough to collect reliable data.
For smaller sites, test for at least two weeks to achieve statistical significance. For high-traffic sites, shorter test periods may be enough.
Adopt the winning version as your new default. Then continue testing other elements to keep improving conversions.
6. Track Results, Iterate, and Improve
Continuous testing helps you ensure your pages have high conversions even as audience behavior shifts and preferences change.
Keep an eye on your site metrics and prioritize optimizing pages that no longer meet your goals (such as pages with falling conversion rates).
Use AI-powered dashboards to automatically flag when conversion rates dip. So you can react faster.
Maintain a testing log that includes the hypothesis, results, and any AI-assisted insights. This record helps you build on past experiments instead of repeating them, and ensures your CRO strategy keeps improving over time.
Attract Traffic Aligned with Your Goals
Even the best-optimized site may not convert if the wrong visitors are landing on your pages. CRO works best when you’re attracting people who are already a good fit for your offer.
For example, if your goal is to increase product sales, you’ll want to drive traffic from buyers who are actively comparing solutions, not just casual browsers. That’s where tactics like targeted ads, SEO, and content marketing come in.
And as AI Overviews and LLMs become major traffic sources, optimizing for visibility in these channels is just as important as ranking in traditional search. Traffic from LLMs is already 4.4 times more valuable in terms of conversions than regular organic traffic.
To track and grow your brand’s visibility in AI search, tools like Semrush’s Brand Performance (as part of the AI SEO Toolkit) can give you a clear edge.
Open Semrush’s Brand Performance, enter your domain, and click “Analyze.”
You can add competitors to see how your share of voice compares in different platforms. And get a list of strategies to help you grow your share of voice.
Ready to win in AI search? Use Semrush’s AI SEO Toolkit to attract high-intent traffic and convert more visitors today.