The domain of E-commerce is a challenging one where success and sustainability comes with dedication, diligence, and perseverance. There is a huge competition going on in this domain which is also the biggest hindrance as one needs to compete with a huge number of competitors for standing out and become more visible to online shoppers. Its not only about attracting more people but to convert them also. The word conversion refers to enticing more visitors for completing the purchase before he/she leaves the website. 

The measuring metrics here is 'conversion rate' which can be defined as total visitors percentage that have been converted by completing the purchase. Any seller would definitely look to maximize this rate for driving high-sales and revenue for his business. This is a primitive reason, conversion rate optimization (CRO) is considered as important strategy for enhancing the performance of any e-commerce store. 

Let us understand the significance of this metric for any ongoing digital marketing campaign.

Why CRO is the building block of any digital campaign?
CRO is the process for optimizing an e-commerce website to boost conversions. The fundamental element of a successful CRO strategy is creating excellent user experiences by working on the ui/ux of the e-commerce store. But its important to consider parameters like website design, CTA placement, loading speed, etc. The basics here is combination of data and creativity for redesigning a customers journey to drive more conversions. Usually the conversion rate is 1-3% which is globally-accepted average for businesses and you should set this as a benchmark.

The digital experts prefer working on product pages, shopping carts, landing pages, and sign-up pages as a part of a CRO strategy, but mobile conversion rates should be focused here too. A store can increase the CRO by using 2 simple ways - first, boosting the traffic while maintaining conversion rates and secondly, increase the conversions with the same number of visitors. Here second option is more feasible since it requires effort only to hike conversions rather than boosting the traffic. Therefore, any smart digital marketer will put efforts to increase the ROI for boosting website's CRO.

Crafting effective strategy 
An effective CRO strategy has far-reaching impact on the sales to be made by e-commerce stores. Therefore the focus should be on maximizing conversion rates by application of innovative ideas and best practices. Few measures for crafting a new strategy or fine-tuning an existing one are as follows:

User analysis
Its important to understand users, their expectation, preferences and demographics. There is a huge requirement to know about most searched keyword phrases for understanding what are they exactly looking for.  Those experiencing a low conversion rate, must recalculate your buyers persona and understand where it falls short to align with the actual one. Try to search what your audience is exactly searching and give them the same in terms of content and design of your e-commerce store. Also need to revamp your products and services to make them more user-focused.

Simplified checkout 
This factor has a fa-reaching impact on your sites conversion rate. Most online shoppers are impatient and always in hurry. To make them fill long forms having multiple fields increase the chances of bouncing away due to cumbersome journey. Here its important to making the checkout process short along with providing the option of guest checkout to the users. Furthermore, you can offer multiple payment options so that online buyer has at least a few that he or she may prefer.

Capture attention
Whether it is a landing page, checkout page, sign-up page or home page, designing is most important for conversions. Today's visitors judge the whole website within a few seconds and make up their mind about whether they would continue or abandon at the initial stage. Therefore, its important to invest in an eye-catching design for improving the conversion rates and make the shopper again. Keep the design minimalist, appealing and intuitive, with well-placed elements.

Easy navigation
Navigation is crucial aspect in conversion optimization as it simplifies the customer journey and drives more convert. The online shoppers look to find the needed products and information two-three clicks. Offering easy search functionality along with filters to make shopping fast and efficient is a trend now. One can also use latest trends like voice search and image search. Just focus on simplified navigation process with contextual placement of elements so visitors can move intuitively. 

A/B testing

You cannot take chances in CRO, because if you are not serving perfection, visitors will move on. Prefer A/B testing or  multivariate testing to ensure that your online store provides perfect shopping experience. One must test every single element; from images to sales copy, product descriptions, call to action and the navigational elements. The purpose here is finding optimal list of elements that could work for the prospective shoppers in getting the desired results in the form of an improved conversion rate for your