Conversion rate optimisation (CRO) – what it is and how to improve your conversion rate

Definition

Conversion rate optimisation (CRO) is the process of increasing the share of visitors to a website who take a desired action – such as filling in a form, making a phone call or completing a purchase.

What is conversion rate optimisation?

Conversion rate optimisation means systematically improving a website or landing page so that more visitors take a desired action. A conversion can be anything from a purchase or an enquiry to a download or a sign-up – depending on what the business wants to achieve.

CRO is built on data, behavioural analysis and structured testing rather than gut feeling. The aim is to maximise the value of the traffic you already have – before you invest more in driving new traffic.

How is conversion rate calculated?

The conversion rate is simple to calculate: the number of conversions divided by the number of visitors, multiplied by 100. If 1,000 people visit a page and 30 of them fill in a form, the conversion rate is 3 per cent.

Calculate your conversion rate with our calculator

The formula is simple: the number of conversions divided by the number of visitors, times 100. If you have 50 purchases from 5,000 visitors, your conversion rate is 1%.

The interesting part is not the figure itself but what an improvement is worth. Lifting the conversion rate from 1% to 1.5% means 50% more deals from exactly the same traffic – without a penny more in ad budget. Enter your figures below to see your current conversion rate and how much extra revenue a chosen target would bring in.

What is a higher conversion rate worth?

Work out how much more a website turns over if its conversion rate goes up, with traffic unchanged.

Visitors / monthConversions / monthAverage order value (SEK)Target conversion rate (%)

• Your conversion rate1.00%
• Revenue today / monthSEK 100,000
• At target75 conversions / month+25 more per month · SEK +50,000/month

The calculation assumes unchanged traffic – the whole upside comes from a higher conversion rate.

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What is a good conversion rate? Industry benchmarks

That varies a great deal by industry, traffic quality and type of conversion. Some general benchmarks:

• Average (all industries): 2–3% of visitors convert
• E-commerce – top 20%: 3.2% or higher
• Food and drink (e-commerce): 6%+ – one of the highest-converting categories
• B2B SaaS: 1–2% is normal; below 1% is a clear signal that optimisation is needed

An important distinction: always compare against your own history. A conversion rate of 1.5% can be entirely reasonable for a complex B2B service with a long sales cycle – and very poor for an e-commerce website selling impulse products. Industry averages are a starting point, not a target.

How does CRO differ from UX design?

UX design and conversion rate optimisation overlap but are not the same thing. UX focuses on the user experience as a whole – how a person navigates, understands and experiences a product. CRO is narrower and more business-driven: it means identifying and removing specific obstacles that stand in the way of a conversion.

In practice they depend on each other. A frustrating user experience lowers the conversion rate, but good UX does not guarantee high conversions if the offer, the copy or the flow is unclear.

A/B testing and multivariate testing

A/B testing is the most common method in CRO. Two versions of a page – A and B – are shown to different groups of visitors. The version that generates more conversions wins and is implemented permanently.

Multivariate testing is more advanced and tests several elements at the same time – for example headings, images and CTA buttons in different combinations. It needs more traffic to reach statistical significance but provides deeper insights. If you run A/B tests, keep the following in mind:

• Test one element at a time – otherwise you will not know which element caused the change
• Run the test long enough – at least two full weeks to avoid weekday bias
• Define the winner in advance – decide which conversion goal settles it before you see the results

Six factors that affect your conversion rate the most

CRO is not a one-off effort – it is a system of interacting factors. These six have the biggest impact in most cases:

1. Page speed

It is hard to overstate how much speed affects conversion. According to Portent's analysis of 100 million page views, B2B websites that load in 1 second have around three times the conversion rate of websites that load in 5 seconds. For e-commerce, the conversion rate was 3.05% at a load time of 1 second and fell noticeably after just a few seconds' delay. A threefold difference – for a single technical improvement.

2. Trust and social proof

Visitors will not decide to buy until they trust you. In concrete terms: products with at least five customer reviews are 270% more likely to be bought than products without reviews (Northwestern University). In a documented VWO test, three lines of customer quotes above the form increased conversion by 34% on a specific landing page. In B2B, trust comes from other things: customer logos, case studies, certifications and reviews on Trustpilot or Google. They should be visible early – preferably above the fold.

3. CTA – wording, placement and design

Personalised CTAs convert 202% better than generic alternatives, based on HubSpot's analysis of 330,000+ CTAs. And in documented A/B tests, small changes to button text have raised the click-through rate by tens of per cent. A practical guideline: one clear primary CTA above the fold, repeated at logical decision points further down. Avoid having three or four primary buttons competing for attention on the same page.

4. Form friction

Every extra field in a form costs conversions. Multi-step forms, where the user fills in a little at a time, often convert considerably better than long single-step forms – in documented cases, the completion rate has nearly tripled. Rule of thumb: only ask for what you actually need for the next step in the sales process.

5. Visual hierarchy and UX

Users form an impression of a website in under 50 milliseconds – almost entirely based on design and layout. A well-thought-out typographic hierarchy, sufficient contrast (WCAG-compliant, at least 4.5:1 for body text) and consistent components are not aesthetics – they are conversion work.

6. Content and messaging

Does your message on the landing page match what drew the visitor there? A mismatch between ad and landing page is one of the most common conversion killers. Consistent messaging from keyword to ad to landing page can improve conversion by up to 50%.

CRO for B2B vs e-commerce – two different worlds

Conversion rate optimisation looks different depending on the business model. The two main models have different conversion goals, different points of friction and different definitions of a "win".

B2B websites rarely have a purchase as their primary conversion – the goal is to start a sales conversation: forms, demo bookings, call-back requests. That calls for fewer form fields (not more), specific trust signals such as customer logos and case studies, and CTAs that state an exact next step ("Book a meeting" rather than "Contact us"). Because B2B traffic is typically more expensive to acquire – paid traffic, events, outreach – every extra second of load time costs proportionally more.

For e-commerce websites, the purchase is the direct conversion goal. The average basket abandonment rate is around 70% – seven out of ten people who add a product to the basket never complete the purchase. The most effective measures therefore focus on the checkout flow (guest checkout, autofill, several payment methods), the product page (customer reviews, high-quality images, a clear returns policy) and reminder automation (abandoned basket emails convert 5–15% of abandoned sessions back into purchases).

These are two different playbooks. Applying B2B CRO to an online shop – or the other way round – is one of the most common reasons CRO work fails to deliver the expected effect.

CRO, SEO and AEO – three strategies that reinforce each other

SEO drives traffic to the website. CRO decides what that traffic does once it is there. Investing in SEO without optimising for conversion is like opening more doors to a shop with empty shelves.

The relationship works both ways. Google uses aggregated data on how searchers click in its ranking systems – this came out in the 2024 ruling against Google – although individual metrics such as time on page have not been confirmed as signals. A page that matches the visitor's intent tends to perform better in search and to convert better too.

AEO adds a third dimension. When Google shows AI Overviews in the search results, the traditional click-through rate falls – according to a US study from Pew Research Center (July 2025), searchers clicked an ordinary result on 8% of visits when an AI answer was shown, compared with 15% without. Many read that as bad news: organic traffic volume is falling.

But something else is happening at the same time. The visitors who still click have already seen the AI answer and got an initial overview – and have chosen to click through to dig deeper or to act. Intent per session goes up.

When traffic falls in volume but rises in intent, the value of each individual session increases dramatically. A website that converts at 1% both when traffic was 10,000 and now that it is 6,000 has lost 40 per cent of its conversions – even though the visitors who remain ought to be more ready to buy. So the conversion rate needs to rise when traffic falls.

That is why we see CRO as one of the few SEO-related investments that become more profitable in the age of AI search, not less. SEO and AEO drive the traffic; CRO decides what you do with it.

How do you get started with conversion rate optimisation?

A structured CRO process always starts with data, not assumptions:

• Quantitative analysis – Identify which pages have high traffic but a low conversion rate using Google Analytics or similar tools
• Qualitative analysis – Add heatmaps and session recordings with tools such as Hotjar or Microsoft Clarity to see where visitors get stuck
• Hypothesis – Formulate a clear hypothesis: "If we change the CTA text from 'Send' to 'Get your free analysis', form completions will increase"
• Test – Run an A/B test with enough traffic volume for statistical significance
• Implement and iterate – Conversion rate optimisation is never finished; it is an ongoing process

When to bring in outside help

Once you have done the first analysis yourself and want to scale up the testing, the question is no longer what CRO is – but who should run it and what it costs. We have written a separate guide on how to choose a CRO agency, pricing models and calculating ROI, which is a natural next step once you have worked through this guide.

CRO checklist 2026

Use this list as a starting point for a CRO audit of your website. It is ordered by priority – from basic measurement to advanced testing.

The foundation

• Conversion goals defined and tracked in GA4 or Webflow Analyze
• Heatmap and scroll map tool installed (Microsoft Clarity, Hotjar or Webflow Analyze)
• Funnel analysis carried out – you know which step loses the most visitors
• Baseline conversion rate documented per page and per channel

CTA and structure

• One clear primary CTA above the fold on every key page
• CTA text is action-oriented ("Book a demo", not "Click here")
• The CTA is repeated at logical decision points further down the page
• No competing primary CTAs on the same page

Trust and social proof

• Customer reviews or testimonials visible without scrolling
• Customer logos for B2B websites
• Certifications, guarantees or trust symbols near the conversion point

Forms

• Max 3–4 fields in primary forms
• Clear error handling and a confirmation message after submission
• GDPR wording that explains rather than alarms

Speed and technology

• Load time under 2 seconds – test in PageSpeed Insights, on both mobile and desktop
• Images in WebP format, lazy loaded
• Core Web Vitals passed (LCP, INP, CLS)

Testing

• An A/B test is running or planned
• One variable is tested at a time
• Statistical significance reached – around 400 conversions per variant are needed to detect a 20% improvement

Want your website not just to attract the right visitors but to turn them into customers as well? Here is how we work with conversion rate optimisation. Get in touch – we are happy to look at where your website is leaving money on the table.