Forge Search Marketing

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Telling someone you do “SEO” is actually a very loaded answer considering the wide variety of tasks that SEO actually entails. SEO as an industry is continuing to be broken down into more specific industries, and one of the most recent to debut is Conversion Rate Optimization.

Kate Morris of Distilled recently posted on the SEOmoz blog and defined CRO as:

“Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is simply focusing on the conversion as the core metric when optimizing any particular page. I personally see this as an offshoot of Landing Page Optimization (LPO) and is sometimes seen as just another way of saying LPO.”

The key point here being that Landing Page Optimization has always been a focus of good SEO professionals, though perhaps not prioritized as much as this new class of Conversion Rate Optimization professionals who make this their sole focus.

There is an age-old contention in the industry as to whether driving traffic with SEO or converting more of that traffic with CRO is of higher value. It is not uncommon for us to work with a client that is looking to generate more leads or sales from their website, but the core issue is not their traffic it is the website itself. On the other hand, several clients have wonderfully designed websites with clear calls-to-action, intuitive interfaces and low purchase barriers, but simply don’t have exposure they need to really be successful.

Which Service? And When?

The decision of to focus on landing page / conversion rate optimization versus search engine optimization is unique for every client and website. In most cases clients benefit from both services, resulting in a highly visited website that converts optimally, though we generally recommend starting with conversion rate optimization before driving traffic. After all, it doesn’t matter if you are sending 100,000 visitors a month to a website if they leave as soon as they arrive. In contrast, if a website is only receiving 50 visitors a day but converts well, the end result is much better.

In summary, when approaching a consultant or firm for search engine optimization, don’t be surprised if their first initiative has nothing to do with driving traffic to your website. Good SEO professionals have a single goal in mind and that is to make your website more profitable and the work required to do that comes in a variety of forms.

Do you have any examples of when you used Conversion Rate Optimization to increase the performance of your website? Let us know in the comments below, we’d love to hear your story!