3 Reasons Why You Should Consider Integrating CRO With SEO
CRO or Conversion Rate Optimization fits in perfectly with most of the marketing channels.
However, we don’t usually see it getting included in SEO campaigns, which is a big mistake that marketers and companies often make.
While Search Engine Optimization and Conversion Rate Optimization have specific roles to play, when employed together, they can also give considerable cumulative gains and outweigh their value when used individually.
In this blog, we will discuss the roles of SEO and CRO and look at the three most prominent reasons why businesses need to integrate CRO with SEO. So without wasting any time, let’s dive into the details!
The Role of Search Engine Optimization
Basically, SEO is set up to drive brand awareness and direct relevant traffic to your website, ideally on the web pages that best suit their search query and intent. As an extensive form of earned media, Search Engine Optimization provides the audience with a range of brand, coverage, and topical exposure throughout the information search and purchasing process.
Understanding the desired results of the users via their search behavior and available sets of data is what allows the SEO professionals to feed the marketing funnel with masses of low-cost prospects.
The Role of Conversion Rate Optimization
The goal of Conversion Rate Optimization is to maximize every website interaction to improve the final value extracted.
In simple words, the goal of CRO is to enhance the value you are getting from what you already have and what you are acquiring.
Often, CRO can be left to stay inoperative until the required traffic level is reached in order to make crucial decisions. Or it can also be discontinued till the time other resources, such as developer time to apply website changes, become available.
Both of these instances are a mistake.
3 Reasons Businesses Need to Integrate CRO With SEO
The role of SEO doesn’t end as soon as a prospect lands on a website. Had that been the case, people would not regard SEO as a continuous and ‘always-on’ primary component of their marketing strategy.
Similarly, CRO doesn’t simply discontinue until a certain number of users land on a website, or an organization makes developer time available for changes to take place.
As a matter of fact, both of these marketing and business specializations are always required to go back closer to the best value from any site.
It can be beneficial to see these subjects as overlapping instead of two entirely different specializations to promote an environment of interaction between them.
- The Majority of Search Opportunities Are Pre-Click
The idea of ‘conversion’ can be advanced further to support the goals of digital marketing before users land on a site.
Most of the untapped opportunities in the majority of search engine marketing lie within the gap between impressions (users see your ad) and clicks (users visiting your website).
Optimizing the CTR (click-through rate) is a persistent element of delivery search engine optimization and can be vastly supported with the CTA (call-to-action) depth of expertise of the SEO and CRO specialists combined.
What Is a CTA?
The most obvious reason why the calls to action are used is purchases, as users might not know what to do next once they see your ad.
However, the most effective CTAs are typically the ones that keep the prospects engaged with your brand before they decide to purchase, for example, free trials, signups, downloads, etc.
In digital marketing, the initial conversion hindrance is resolving the complication of persuading a potential lead to click on your ad and land on your site in the first place.
- Everything Can Work Harder
While we are talking about the value gained by integrating CRO with SEO in this blog, the truth is that CRO can function perfectly at a holistic level and when combined with other marketing channels like pay per click.
The attitude and perpetual expectation setting of businesses that everything can work harder are what turns the spotlight on CRO with SEO and other aspects too.
Usually, for any website, search engine optimization is the largest source of traffic. Considering the low cost per visit associated with it, SEO seems to be the perfect partner for CRO.
With SEO boosting the number of visitors landing on the commercially influential sections of your site, CRO has the job of continuous iterative testing, ongoing learning, and experience-based refinement.
This alliance between specialist services is essential to minimize wastage and provide each area of expertise with the insights they need to achieve business goals more effectively and contribute towards success.
Let’s take a look at an example to understand this approach better:
- Both SEO and CRO professionals focus on the same main service category page.
- Changes in the on-page SEO involve inserting keywords, expanding content to match new search queries and intent, implementing technical updates to rank higher in Google search results.
- CRO focus speeds up the page loading process and provides access to relevant content recognized as preventing conversions in the past.
- CRO also offers new CTA (call-to-action) messaging and positioning to aid in reading and taking action.
- While these changes are being implemented, the CRO team is simultaneously running an experiment on the page showing a variant of the page with a new short-form in place, which shows to half of the visitors.
- After almost a month of this page being active on the site, the team sees an increase in both traffic and rankings the page has acquired. In addition to this, more customers are getting in touch with the business without leaving the web page.
- Plus, the CRO experiment also shows that continuous short-form generates more new conversions (the team can feed this conclusion into the next experiment related to short-form).
This example shows how the value gained from SEO and CRO are increased when employed together.
- More Traffic Isn’t the Solution Always
Digital marketers lay a considerable amount of emphasis on boosting the traffic to a site.
When it comes to the revenue-generating potential of search engine optimization, the low-cost traffic associated with SEO can result in excessive wastage.
As well as the total website benefits accumulated from the added implementation of Conversion Rate Optimization.
SEO and CRO both can target every part of the purchasing funnel effectively.
From the Awareness stage to the Purchase stage, each has a specific role to play, which has a positive impact on the results.
Conclusion
The more businesses and marketing professionals emphasize monitoring, influencing, and enhancing the collective value from various marketing channels (besides their direct attributed value when used individually), the more marketing is becoming effective and valuable.