Since the digital turn shook the marketing world, there are two acronyms in the spotlight for those involved in optimizing the digital presence of brands: SEO and CRO. If the first abbreviation – as we well know – stands for the set of activities necessary to increase visibility and organic positioning on search engines, the second – Conversion Rate Optimization, download our dedicated White Paper – is that multidisciplinary approach that helps turn mere site visitors into customers.
SEO and CRO are optimization activities for a digital property: the first for improving search engine rankings, the second focused on conversions.
Both operate to improve a site, being concerned with information architecture, navigation structures and content: any choice made to increase organic traffic can potentially influence the conversion rate and vice versa. This is why it is essential that these two activities are developed, when possible, in a coordinated way.
SEO: how to attract traffic to your site
Since the day Google was launched, the Mountain View giant has continued to update its search engine’s core algorithm. Comparing the major updates, you can see how they they have all headed in one direction: to offer the user the results that best relate to their search. In this sense, it can be said that SEO is customer-centric in exactly the same way as CRO is.
Search engines are becoming response engines and increasingly focused on the user and understanding their search intent
An effective SEO strategy allows you to make it onto page one and attract a good amount of traffic. In fact, searches like the one carried out in 2017 by IgniteVisibility show that the top ranking gets the majority of clicks (about 20%); thereafter the CTR plummets.
But is attracting users to their site sufficient for a company to be able to achieve their business goals? It is in this context that the CRO comes into play: let’s explore how it can support SEO.
CRO: attract and convert your visitors
Through SEO techniques, we try to attract a quality audience to our websites: this means that search engine optimization must be based on an in-depth knowledge of the sector, research trends and user behavior. It is possible to estimate the potential audience, but these data may not correspond to reality. So, it’s here then that CRO pushes us to give voice to our users and to listen to them using qualitative and quantitative research methods.
Among the various CRO activities, we find improvement of the user experience: the navigation paths must be simple and linear, the user must be able to find what they are looking for in a short time, otherwise they will abandon the site disappointed without completing our target actions.
A/B testing and SEO: there are some who consider them conflicting activities. In fact, well-conducted testing, not designed to manipulate the search engine, is entirely SEO-friendly
There are those who argue that the testing phase, typical of the CRO process, can conflict with SEO best practice: this is a myth and, as such, must be debunked. The interaction between A/B testing activities and SEO does not generate friction: when we do A/B testing we are using JavaScript to modify page content that very often has already been indexed by Google. Can this trigger a penalty on the part of the search engine? No, because if the test is conducted correctly – i.e. without trying to to “manipulate” the search engine “- it is completely SEO-friendly.
SEO and CRO: two gears for a single mechanism
At this point, it is easy to see how SEO and CRO are actually complementary:
- SEO is the first step of the strategy, used to attract traffic and increase site visits. By gathering more visitors it is easier to find people who match our ideal target and are interested in our product/service;
- CRO is used to close the circle opened by search engine optimization. At this stage, our job is to remove every obstacle that can hinder conversion.
SEO and CRO are complementary and both absolutely customer-centric.
It is now clear that the focus of both is the user: providing useful, clear and immediate information to the user is essential on the SEO side, to ensure that a site is well-valued by search engines and acquires traffic in an organic way; offering a smooth and smooth conversion path is the sine qua non to ensure that we achieve our marketing objectives.