Service 07 / 09

Conversion rate optimisation (CRO)

Conversion rate optimisation, or CRO, is the work of turning more of a website's existing visitors into enquiries, sales or bookings. It finds where visitors stop, works out why, and changes the page, the form or the offer to remove the reason. Peacock Search treats CRO as part of search: before you pay for more traffic, the pages that receive it should do their job.

Traffic but no leads?

It is the most common complaint about SEO and paid search, and it usually has one of three causes. The pages rank for searches that were never going to buy. The pages that do get the right visitors make it hard to get in touch. Or the tracking is wrong, and enquiries are arriving without being counted. CRO checks all three before anything else changes, because each one has a different fix. The first is a targeting problem, which belongs to SEO and paid search. The second is the work of CRO. The third is a tracking repair, and it changes every other number in the report.

What the work covers

  • Conversion tracking checked end to end: every form, call link and booking counted once
  • The path from landing page to enquiry, read in Analytics step by step
  • Forms: the number of fields, the error messages and what happens on a phone
  • Page speed and layout on the devices your visitors actually use
  • Headlines, calls to action and the words on the button
  • Landing pages for paid search that match the ad they come from
  • Trust: the facts a buyer looks for before getting in touch, placed where they look

How changes are tested

Where a site has enough traffic, changes are tested properly: one change at a time, with a control, run until the result can be trusted. Most small business sites do not have that traffic, and pretending otherwise produces false wins. For those sites, CRO fixes what is clearly broken, makes one change at a time, and compares before and after over a fair period. Wins are shipped and measured. Losses are written up so the same guess is not made twice.

Not the other CRO

In life sciences, CRO also means a contract research organisation. This page is about websites: getting more enquiries from the people who already visit yours.

Who it is for

If you were looking for a conversion rate optimisation agency or a CRO consultant, Peacock Search does the work directly, alongside the search work that brings the traffic in. It suits businesses with steady visits and few enquiries, businesses about to increase ad spend, and businesses whose site was built to look good rather than to be used.

Online shops fit too, where the same work is measured in sales, not enquiries.

CRO from Peacock Search is run from Leeds for businesses in Leeds, York, Harrogate and Sheffield.

What Peacock Search will not do

  • Report split-test results from a site without the traffic to support them
  • Add testing or recording tools before you approve them and your cookie consent covers them
  • Promise a conversion rate
  • Keep quiet about a change that did not work

What you get

  • A written review of where visitors stop and why, in order of what it costs you
  • Changes made or briefed for your developer, one at a time
  • Each change measured against your own Analytics, with the result written up either way

Questions

Do I need a lot of traffic for CRO?

Not to start. Broken forms, missing tracking and pages that hide the phone link can be fixed on any site. Formal split tests need more traffic, and where a site does not have it, Peacock Search says so rather than reporting results that are really noise.

Will CRO tools slow my site down or need cookies?

Some do. Session recording and testing tools add scripts, and many set cookies that need consent. Peacock Search uses the lightest tools that answer the question, and only with a consent setup that matches the law and your privacy notice.

What is a good conversion rate?

There is no single number worth aiming at. It varies by sector, price, traffic source and what counts as a conversion. The useful comparison is your own site against its own past, measured the same way each month.

CRO, place by place

Free visibility audit

Find out where your visitors stop before they get in touch. Start with the free visibility audit.

A free visibility audit: where you show up on Google, the map pack and AI answers, where you do not, and the three things to fix first. In writing, within five working days.

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