17 Jul 9 Best Practices to improve your CRO by Karl Gilis

During the last edition of AdWorld Experience in April 2017, we had the chance (and the honor) to host Karl Gilis and his business partner Els Aerts for an advanced seminar on Conversion Rate Optimization and for a case stories collection with practical tips on CRO and… first dates (which has been voted by participants as the best international speech of the event). For those who don’t know, Karl is the 3rd most influent CRO specialist in the world, according to 2016 PPCHero survey (and the first for sympathy and laid back-ness, in my personal ranking). So, you can just immagine how many useful tips he gave us during those days.
Starting from real case histories and conversion optimization tests, Karl and Els analyzed how every element of a landing page can affect conversions: from headers to photos, from copy and call-to-actions to the general layout. Here is a small recap of the most important tips about CRO they showed us:

• Design your site thinking about why people is there. In other words, don’t focus solely on your goals but first ask yourself what is bringing them on your site and answer to their questions: you will reach your goals accordingly.
• Pay more attention to text than to design and frictional problems. Nothing can kill the conversion rate of your site like a bad copy. Stop thinking about how you want to sell and start thinking about how people want to buy.
• Show immediately to visitors what they are looking for or they will leave your page in seconds. To improve your conversion rate use more keyword rich bullet points and less big headers or sliders.
• Remove all distractions and clutters. Landing pages should have only the elements functional to achieve your goal. Nothing More, nothing less. CRO is all about that.
• Find your style, be unique and recognizable. The web is literally filled up with clone sites which are 0 income showcases.
• Don’t put everything up the line. Make clear there is something more and give people a reason to scroll down.
• Right hand side of your web pages is the graveyard of the web. If you have it, don’t place primary call to actions there.
• Your call to action must stand out of the design. They must literally jump out of the page. Don’t be afraid to even repeat them and use button texts to make clear what is going to happen when you click and why they should do it (“what is there for the user”).
• Show your most expensive items first. This way you will set a context in which your best sellers will seem more convenient and add urgency, social proofs and reviews.

To put these tips into practice is not always easy on any kind of site, but in his 1,5 hour CRO advanced seminar Karl and Els for sure showed a lot of real examples to help doing that.
On the second day, Gilis also presented a very nice speech where he suggested 10 best practices for landing pages and… first dates! The case was the most voted by the live participants and thus won the PPC Caesars Award 2017 (the picture refers to the final awards ceremony). It is the second year in a row that wins a speaker presenting topics related to CRO – this must not be a simple coincidence.
Go and optimize your conversions and… may the ROI be with you 😉