Five ways to increase revenue from your website

Optimizing is simply doing better with what you have. For an optimization to have a real and lasting impact on a company's operations, it must tackle a well-identified problem and serve it with an appropriate response. From the outset, a question arises: How to increase the percentage of visitors who perform the action allowing me to earn an income?

Of course, there are a multitude of answers. In your case, this may consist of increasing the sales generated on your website, or the number of forms filled out, the number of subscriptions to your newsletter, etc.

In this article, we offer you an overview of the 5 major revenue optimization (CRO ) strategies that can increase the performance of a website.

To make sure that the content of this article is as clear as possible for as many people as possible, we will focus on e-commerce platforms. Indeed, the set of CRO optimization strategies apply to almost any e-commerce site, in addition to being able to be invested in several other contexts.

Consult the table below to find out which type of website is suitable for each of the 5 strategies that we are about to explore.

A site's "baseline" level of conversion, even that of a site that has just gone live, never reaches its full potential. If platform managers don't do this, their website's average conversion rate won't change, and in most cases will even decline over time.

Those who decide to remain idly by or to invest in media to attract more traffic (which only artificially boosts their performance) do not seem to understand that managing to improve their conversion rate average of 1 to 2% would bring them tens, even hundreds of thousands of dollars annually, and this, in a sustainable way. 

The conversion rate optimization (or CRO ) approach aims to increase the profitability of its site , by carefully analyzing the data collected to understand which modifications could positively influence the behavior of visitors and encourage them to buy. on your site (or to perform any other action, depending on the specific objective of each website). In other words, through this approach, we seek to identify and better understand the factors that encourage users to check out more often.

Without going into the details of each of them, a CRO approach is generally deployed in 4 main stages:

1. Identification of problems;
2. Creation of various possible solutions to these problems, in the form of hypotheses;
3. Testing these hypotheses;
4. Analysis and conclusion, if the solutions tested seem to have the ability to generate more revenue.

If a test is conclusive, then the tested solution becomes our new site and the site immediately generates more revenue. 

If, on the contrary, the test proves inconclusive, then the site does not change and it does not suffer any drop in performance. 

This approach has several advantages:

• It reduces the risk of a drop in performance that can result from the implementation of changes;
• It allows to understand what works in the case of a specific website, according to its visitors (the adoption of the best practices of an industry does not guarantee obtaining the best result for any company in the same domain );
• It avoids working blind, favoring instead informed decision-making, supported by objective studies with reliable results.

Proof that the CRO approach is an excellent way to generate income in the short and long term, let's see the different strategies to implement to deploy it wisely. 

An optimization is a response to one or more problems which, like areas for improvement, are identified during a research phase.

This includes at least an audit of the site under study, but there are also other research methods that can be very rich in insights, such as interviews or user tests. This step in the process is primarily used to find and prioritize issues. Then, in light of the collected information, we can identify the optimization solution most likely to increase the company's revenue quickly. 

Investing time and money in a random optimization strategy is a mistake. Another could have brought more interesting results in the shorter term. 

It's a bit like treating a cold while you have allergies. The analysis / audit of your website (diagnosis) serves to identify the type of optimization (treatment) that should be tested (prescribed) first.

Now, let's explore the options available to us.

1. Landing page optimization (or LPO, for landing page optimization) , aka “the best friend of your media campaigns”

The principle : 

In marketing, we commonly speak of landing page or the home page, the one on which visitors to a site land on their arrival, like on a landing strip. This page is essential, because it is the one which, most of the time, will influence the decision of your users to continue or not their visit of your platform.

Let's illustrate this with a little exercise in the imagination.

Suppose you run a specialty shoe store. Your products are of good quality, but your storefront is not up to par. As a consumer, walking past your shop, we don't understand what you're selling, we don't have confidence and, instinctively, we don't feel encouraged to enter your business. So even if the product you offer is what I need, I won't even visit your store. You will therefore have no opportunity to make a sale that you had an excellent chance of closing.

The same goes with landing pages . 

The LPO is very popular in the context of a media campaign. Whether the latter is deployed on Facebook, Google, Tiktok, LinkedIn or on another platform, it will invariably serve to redirect people to a page on the site of the company it promotes. The purpose of this landing page is to advance the visitor's intention to purchase your product. If a company invests in media to redirect on its website, it must therefore ensure that the first page that the user will see when he arrives has a good conversion rate, otherwise his campaign could very well be only a waste of time and money. 

However, we still too often see disappointing and ineffective landing pages , pages that do not arouse the interest of visitors and which, in doing so, serve the company rather than boost its online sales. 

Trick :

To check if your landing pages are making you lose money, it's easy.  

Carefully review the data for your landing pages and landing pages, and note the number of visitors who leave them without having had any interaction with their content or the options offered there. Compare them also to the number of visitors who move on to the next step, while taking care to observe. The average time your visitors spend on these pages. There are several ways to determine the performance status of a landing page. If you have a lot of them or are unsure, you should seek expert advice to audit your pages and communicate to you clearly what is going on. 

You make media but do not optimize your site? Start here if you want to increase your income quickly. 

Example of LPO optimization ( inspired by a real case ) :

• Issues identified : The main product landing page does not clearly present the benefit of the product. It also presents too many actions to perform and conveys too much information that is not directly related to why the user clicked on the ad.
• Hypothesis tested : Change the value proposition and content of the page to clarify the real value of the product, and thus increase the number of users who will test the product.
• Result : 10% increase in landing page conversion rate.

The principle: This is surely the most popular optimization, because it can be applied to any type of site. Unlike the first strategy, which focuses only on the first page that the user sees, this time it is all the pages of a website (in a targeted manner of course) that will be optimized. 

You can optimize a particular page ( ex: the home page ) as well as a simple element ( ex: the thumbnail image of the products ) or even a sequence of several pages ( ex: the checkout flow ).

To use the metaphor used earlier, this strategy involves optimizing the interior of your specialty shoe store. You could renovate the entrance to your store to make it more welcoming and to display more clearly the offers that you offer to your customers and the services that you make available to them. You could also optimize the box you pack your shoes in or improve the experience once your customer checks out. 

Example of page optimization (inspired by a real case):

• Problems identified : The page presenting the offer does not mention everything the user must do to be able to take advantage of it. The latter only discovers the steps to follow during the application process.
• Hypothesis tested : Changing the layout of the various elements on the page by emphasizing the requirements that the user must meet will increase the number of requests sent, because users will know if they are eligible in advance and will not won't give up along the way.
• Results : 19% increase in the rate of requests completed and sent.

The principle: This approach has several applications in marketing. Originally, the term “merchandising” referred to the art of arranging products on shelves (literally) so that they sell more easily. Today we use the word to refer to the work of optimizing the environment in which a product is presented so that it helps to generate more sales.

For its part, electronic merchandising ( e-merchandising) is inspired by sales techniques formerly used in stores. Typically, on an e-commerce site, merchandising means determining ways to cross-sell , increase the value of the average basket or promote certain products according to individual's search history or available product inventory.

For our fictitious store, this would consist of highlighting the shoes best suited to the current season, offering the ideal cleaning product for the maintenance of a certain model or even offering the perfect pair of socks to complete the style. of a particular shoe.

Example of optimizing the presentation of products (inspired by a real case):

• Problems identified : Within the page of the site where all the products offered are presented, several of those which arrive at the top of the list are out of stock. The order of presentation of the products is managed manually.
• Hypothesis tested : Adding a dynamic sorting rule taking into account stocks and best sellers will simplify users' access to available products, which will have a direct impact on the company's turnover.
• Results : 10% increase in the rate of access to product sheets and 10% increase in turnover (compared to the annual forecast, all other things being equal).

The principle : 

The term “searchandising” is a neologism resulting from a cross between the English words “search” and “merchandising”. It is therefore only natural that he leads us to address the internal search engine optimization of a website. 

You should know that the strength of searchandising is to enhance the effectiveness of the internal search engine for a very specific type of user. Indeed, only a small portion of visitors to a site uses this tool (5 to 15% on average, according to Addsearch ). On the other hand, the latter are generally much more motivated and committed than an average user. For an e-commerce site, optimizing this aspect of the site's online experience can therefore have strong payoffs by translating into increased sales. 

There is obviously no search bar in a physical store. On the other hand, we can all the same establish a certain parallel between an Internet user using the internal search function of a site and a · e customer ·e from our shoe store who would come and ask us questions directly. If you're a good seller, you're not just going to tell them where to find their product. If you don't have or no longer have the product you are asked for, you are not just going to mention with a sad look that you no longer have the product in stock. You will not only tell him where to find the coveted product, but also take the opportunity to advise him to consider another similar product, the price of which is reduced. You could also recommend the right product and let the person know that other products they are interested in are in high demand and selling out fast.

The idea, in digital as in a store, is to best serve the interests of the consumer by helping him adequately and by presenting him with various options or useful information that will clarify his decision and which will encourage him, at the same time, to complete a purchase.

Example of a searchandising strategy (inspired by a real case): 

• Issues identified : The look & feel of the search bar does not follow e-commerce best practices and the results the engine delivers to visitors are rarely relevant.
• Hypothesis tested : Implementing a first-class search engine will have a positive impact on the user experience, on the relevance of search results and on commercial performance (conversion rate, turnover, value of average basket, etc.)
• Results : 48% increase in the value of the average basket and 20% increase in the number of visitors using the internal search engine.

The principle : 

Personalization is the adaptation of the experience offered on a website according to the characteristics of the user browsing it.

To experience it, nothing could be simpler than visiting Amazon at the same time as one of your colleagues. You'll immediately notice that you don't see the same homepage at all, its content being tailored to the information Amazon has about each e .

 By wisely using the data it has access to, a business can customize its greeting message, the image displayed on a certain page, or even the entire user experience. If used well, this strategy allows the brand to get as close as possible to its prospects and to be as relevant as possible in their eyes. 

As part of a personalized online experience, the user wastes no time and is immediately presented with the right content. If the company aims just by virtue of the finesse of its understanding of its target, its performance can literally explode, because visitors will quickly find the product or service that meets their exact needs.

In reality, like in our shoe store, offering an ultra-personalized experience exactly like on the web is not really possible. Indeed, applied to the letter, this would mean changing his shop for each type of customer. Unfortunately, we're not into Harry Potter and no one can actually do that on a large scale. Perhaps the closest realistic comparison would be the cordial and individualized service of a customer-oriented salesperson. Upon entering the store, a loyal customer knows that the seller, knowing his situation well, will immediately advise him on the most suitable shoes.

Going back to digital marketing, we often see personalization being used in media. Indeed, by customizing a page according to the audience to which the visitor belongs, it is possible to present him with exactly the information he needs by changing the content dynamically. It is a powerful way to align media campaigns and a website according to user interests.

Example of personalization (inspired from a real case):

• Problems identified : The message displayed on the hero banner of the page presenting a banking service offer is always the same, regardless of the visitor's geolocation. 
• Hypothesis tested : Reworking the value proposition presented by the hero banner according to the country of origin of the visitor will have a positive impact on the user experience and will result in an increase in the number of people starting to fill out a form.
• Results : 37% increase in form launches, coupled with a 42% increase in form submissions.