Finding out whether you have a good conversion rate or a bad conversion rate can be tough. The main reason, there are many different purposes and goals for websites, so conversion rates can vary by a large amount from industry to industry and depending on the purpose of the site. In addition, you need to consider if you are looking a micro or a macro conversion.
With all of this considered, we do have some information on conversion rates and how high yours should be to share.
How High Should your Website Conversion Rate Be
What is the Average Website Conversion Rate?
Most conversion rates I have seen over the years have been in the 2% to 3% range. However, I have also seen less than 1% and more than 10%. An article in 2007 in Target Marketing said that 2.9% is the mean conversion rate for all websites online; most people seem to stick to this number roughly.
Google Analytics may be able to help here. Although they don’t give you access to your competitors analytics accounts, they have recently launched new Benchmark Reports. These will allow you to get a good idea of how you line up to your competition, but we are not 100% sure that conversion rate metrics will be in here.
What Influences Conversion Rates
So now that you generally know some numbers on conversion rates, and understand the difference between micro and macro, what influences conversion rates? At the most basic level, there are three factors. Those are the user, the landing page and the way they found the website.
The User
What is the demographic and psychographic data of that user? Was the person attracted to your website a good fit for a customer and conversion? Would they be considered quality traffic?
The Way they Found your Site
The traffic source can play a large role in conversion rates and have strong indications on the mentality of the user. For example, an email newsletter is someone who already is part of your list, a display ad is something that was pushed to a user and an AdWords search ad is something that was served to someone actively seeking information. Every traffic type has different targeting qualities and psychological qualities that must be matched with a landing page that meets the user’s needs in order to get a conversion.
The Landing Page
If you have a qualified user and traffic source, the last thing you need is a website that matches expectations and causes them to convert. This means a good landing page, funnel and conversion process. There is a lot that goes into this. You can read a post we wrote on it here.
So what is a Good Conversion Rate for Your Website?
Really only you know what a good conversion rate is for your site. The longer your website has been around, the more data you have. You can then use that as a benchmark and determine if your conversion rate is improving or declining. Generally, 1 to 3% is what you see on most sites, but not all of them. It all depends on the type of conversion, the industry, the user, the traffic and the website. Once thing is for sure though, no matter how good your conversion rate is, it can always be improved.
Source
- Google Analytics Begins To Roll Out New Benchmark Reports, SEL. Amy Gesenhues on September 10, 2014
