The Delicate Balance Your Local Small Business Digital Marketing Agency Keeps Between UX & CRO on Your Website

Whether you're working with a local small business digital marketing agency or managing things in-house, you should know that two key elements can make or break your online success: User Experience (UX) and Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO). But how do you strike the right balance between the two? The easy answer is to hire a digital marketing agency to do it for you. Whether you leverage an agency or prefer a DIY route, there are a lot of factors to consider when trying to achieve the perfect balance between UX and CRO. Call us today to learn more!

The Importance of Both UX and CRO

User Experience (UX)

First off, let's talk about user experience. It's all about how your customers feel when they interact with your website. Nothing drives customers away quite like a poor user experience! If your website is slow to load, you’ll lose your potential customer in about 5 seconds, and we’re not even exaggerating. The average length of time visitors are willing to wait for a page to load is 3 seconds! Once your page does load, if it’s hard on the eyes and your visitors can’t figure out how to get around your site or complete any actions, they are as good as gone. Imagine a website that's easy to navigate, visually appealing, and quick to load—that's the dream, right? A great user experience can turn first-time visitors into repeat customers and even brand advocates.

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)

Local small business digital marketing agencies know that not all websites are created equal. A website that is built with marketing in mind will be optimized to influence conversions from visitors. Conversion rate optimization is the art and science of turning those website visitors into customers. Think of it as the tactical side of things—where you place your action buttons, how you structure your pricing page, and so on. Effective CRO means you're getting the most bang for your buck from your marketing efforts since your website is literally made for that.

The Symbiotic Relationship

User experience and conversion rate optimization go hand in hand. A website that is attractive and easy to use is going to keep visitors on your page, while the conversion rate optimization elements guide them seamlessly down the user funnel toward completing a desired action on your website. It’s all about striking the perfect balance between aesthetics and functionality! Local small business digital marketing agencies specialize in maintaining this balance.

Making It Pretty & Making It Work

Visual Appeal

We all know that first impressions matter, and your website is often the first impression potential customers get of your brand! A visually appealing website can make visitors stick around longer, which gives you more time to convince them to take action. For a visually appealing website, local small business digital marketing agencies follow these best practices:

• Use colours and fonts that align with your brand, but don’t go overboard with colour. Stick to one colour for buttons, for example. This trains the user to associate that colour with a click.
•  Avoid annoying distractions, such a pop ups, rotating banners, and flash animations.
• Use video appropriately. Do not start videos automatically! Give users the option to play your video. Videos that play on their own are distracting, and frankly, annoying.

Functionality

But what good is a pretty website if it doesn't work well? Slow load times, broken links, or a confusing menu can send your visitors running for the hills. Make sure your website is as functional as it is beautiful. Functionality items that local small business digital marketing agencies consider include:

• A split-second load time. More accurately, under 3 seconds. Human attention spans are dwindling at an alarming rate! If you make a user wait too long for your site to load, they’ll bounce.
•  Make you data fields easy to use.
  •    Mark mandatory fields with an asterisk so that users don’t miss them. Also, be clear as to why you need their information.
  •    If you require a date to be entered, make sure you have clearly stated the format you want it in. Someone may interpret 09/07/2023 as September 7^th, 2023 and someone else may see it as the 9^th of July, 2023.
  •    For more fool proof data capturing, use drop downs wherever you can for things like city, country, province, months, days, years, etc. This eliminates the possibility of a user making a typing error and you getting incorrect information, or your user getting an error message.
• Avoid stiff and robotic error messages. They aren’t helpful, can make your user feel dumb, and are impersonal. Instead, try injecting some humour into your error messages, explain what went wrong and how to fix it. Also try to avoid red fonts for error messages. It has been shown to be ill-received with users!
• For example, if a user misses a field on your form, try a message such as “Oops! It appears that you’ve missed a spot! Please enter a valid email address” rather than a simple “Error. Enter email address.”

Balancing Act

The key is to make your website both pretty and functional! As UX and CRO work so well as team, they tend to help each other along the way. An attractive, user-friendly website often has CRO elements directly built in. If you’re working with a local small business digital marketing agency, such as Smart WSI Marketing, we kind of can’t help it. Conversion rate optimized websites tend to flow better which helps the overall user experience. That being said, if building marketing websites is not your bread and butter, like ours is, it can be tricky to get the balance right at first. If you focus too much on just the aesthetics and don’t consider conversions, it will not help your bottom line. While it may make people stay on your site a bit longer, it doesn’t help you if they don’t know why they are there. If you focus too much on driving conversions, your website feels like a pushy salesperson! CRO should gently guide your customers down the sales funnel, not make them feel bullied into buying something from you.

How to Implement the Balance

A/B Testing

One of the best ways to find that sweet spot between UX and CRO is through A/B testing. Try out different versions of a page and see which one performs better in terms of both user experience and conversions.

User Feedback

Don't underestimate the power of customer feedback. Use surveys or feedback forms to find out what your customers like or dislike about your website.

 Analytics

Tools like Google Analytics can provide invaluable insights into how people are interacting with your site. Your local small business digital marketing agency can keep an eye on metrics like bounce rate, time on page, and conversion rates to gauge your performance.

Benefits of Balancing UX and CRO

When you get it right, the benefits are enormous. You'll see increased customer satisfaction, lower bounce rates, higher conversion rates, and an improved ROI for your digital marketing efforts. Not to mention, your brand reputation will get a nice boost.

Google also considers user experience as a ranking factor! If your website is easy to navigate and loads quickly, it should rank higher, making it more discoverable and increasing organic traffic! More traffic means more opportunities for conversions if your website is set up for it.

Striking the Balance with A Local Small Business Digital Marketing Agency

By integrating user experience and conversion rate optimization into your digital marketing strategies, you're not just improving individual aspects of your online presence; you're creating a more cohesive and effective overall strategy that can result in better visibility and higher conversion rates. Whether you're a DIYer or working with a local small business digital marketing agency, keeping both UX and CRO in mind will set you on the path to online success. Get in touch with Smart WSI Marketing today to design a website that's both pretty and profitable!

Lynne Motkoski, Marketing Strategist

Specialty: Online Marketing Strategies
Education: MA Communications & Technology, BComm [U Alberta]
Author: The Online Marketing Handbook for Busy Entrepreneurs (coming soon)

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Lynne is known for her strategic approach to marketing communications, technologies, and lead generation. She has a passion for education, keeping up with current marketing trends and practices, and helping clients keep ahead of their competition.

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