BlogCTAs | Programmatic CRO Software

Understanding what a conversion rate is in SEO can feel like trying to solve a puzzle without all the pieces. You’re doing the work, optimizing your content, and pouring over analytics, but still not seeing the results you hoped for. Frustrating, right? This is where the SEO Conversion Funnel comes in. By understanding the key stages of the funnel, you can identify where potential customers are dropping off and make necessary changes to improve your conversion rate. In this article, we'll define a conversion rate in SEO, how to measure it, and strategies for boosting it.

BlogCTAs' programmatic CRO tool can help you achieve your SEO objectives by automating much of the heavy lifting in optimizing your conversion rate. This tool allows you to focus on other aspects of your SEO strategy and let the tool do the work of improving your conversion rate.

What Is A Conversion Rate In SEO?

In search engine optimization, the conversion rate is a crucial metric. It’s the percentage of website visitors who complete a specific action you want them to take. This could be anything from buying a product to signing up for a newsletter. The conversion rate tells you how effectively your site turns visitors into engaged participants.

Purpose-Driven Conversions: Tailored to Your Goals

Conversions are unique to your business objectives. If you run an online store, a conversion might be a sale. For a blog, it could be getting someone to subscribe to your email list. The actions that count as conversions should align with what you’re trying to achieve.

User Experience: Meeting Visitor Expectations

Conversion rates are closely linked to how well your website satisfies its visitors. If people find your site helpful and simple to navigate, they’re more likely to take the actions you want. User experience plays a huge role here.

Search Intent: Getting Relevant Traffic

SEO isn’t just about getting lots of visitors; it’s about getting the right visitors. By optimizing for keywords that match what your audience is searching for, you ensure that the people arriving at your site are relevant. This increases the chances of conversion. A strong conversion rate in SEO means you’re not just attracting traffic, but engaging your audience in a meaningful way.

How Do You Calculate SEO Conversion Rate?

calculator with money - What Is a Conversion Rate in SEO

Calculating SEO Conversion Rate: Two Methods

The conversion rate is the primary metric that marketers study when they perform conversion rate optimization. You can calculate your conversion rate in one of two ways.

Different Methods for Calculating Conversion Rates: Total Conversions vs. Unique Visitors

You can calculate the conversion rate by the number of total conversions divided by the number of total users.

So for example, if you had 1,000 visitors and 200 conversions, your conversion rate would be 200 ÷ 1,000 = 20%.

You can also calculate the conversion rate by taking the total conversions from a unique list of visitors divided by the sum of that unique list of visitors.

The Hybrid Approach for a Better Estimate

An additional hybrid can be used to estimate conversion rate, which may be slightly more accurate (from a conversion rate best practice perspective) than calculating conversion rate by sessions.

The calculation takes a static time frame and determines the total number of conversions on your website and then divides that value by the total number of unique visitors on your website.

Using Hybrid Conversion Rates to Identify Trends and Estimate Real Conversion by Visitor

Although the conversions themselves may not be coming directly from the unique visitors being reported on, if you check this hybrid conversion rate over a time frame (let's say once per week on a Monday), you will start to see patterns that will help you estimate what's the real conversion rate (by visitor).

Track Each Goal Separately

The formula remains consistent whether you’re tracking:

Downloads
Purchases
Signups

If you’re tracking multiple goals (e.g., newsletter signups and purchases), calculate the conversion rate separately for each goal. This clarity helps you identify which parts of your website are effectively driving user actions and which may need improvement.

Streamlining Blog-Wide CTA Implementation for Increased Conversions

Blog CTAs is a programmatic CRO tool for your blog. We noticed that it was too difficult to set blog-wide CTAs on most content management systems like:

Framer
Webflow
Ghost
Strapi
Wordpress
Sanity
Tina
Dozens of other CMS’s

Our engineering teams needed to jump through multiple hoops and divert their attention from pressing issues to set aside 3-7 days to manually setup a blog-wide CTA for our websites.

‍Blog CTAs was created to make setting up CTA on your blog easy. Increase your blog conversion rate by 3-7%+ with sidebar CTA’s. Start to capture more leads from your blog within 5 minutes. Sign up for the waitlist today.

What is a Good SEO Conversion Rate?

man on a laptop - What Is a Conversion Rate in SEO

A "good" SEO conversion rate isn't a fixed figure. It hinges on:

Industry
Audience
What you're measuring

On average, rates hover around 2.9%. But numbers can vary. How well does your site align with user intent and deliver value?

Industry Benchmarks: What's Normal for Your Niche?

Conversion rates differ by industry. E-commerce sites often see rates between 1-3%, while lead-generation industries might hit 5-10%. Content-heavy sites like blogs have lower rates because they prioritize engagement over traditional conversions.

Search Intent and User Experience: The Direct Connection

Pages that match search intent convert better. Think of service pages for “local car repair.” These metrics all boost conversions:

User-friendly design
Fast load times
Clear calls to action

Type of Conversion: Simple vs. Complex Actions

Simple actions like signing up for a newsletter often have higher conversion rates than complex ones, like buying a $1,000 item.

Quality of Traffic: The Right Visitors Matter

Targeted organic traffic is crucial. Visitors who find your site through relevant keywords are more likely to engage than untargeted traffic.

Landing Page Relevance: Tailoring for Success

The content and type of landing pages affect conversions. Product pages should focus on visuals and pricing. Service pages should build trust with reviews. Blog posts usually aim for softer conversions, like email signups.

SEO Conversion Rate Benchmarks: By Page Type and Industry

E-commerce Product Pages: 1-3%
Lead Generation Service Pages: 5-10%
SaaS Trial/Demo Pages: 7-10%
Content Blogs with Lead Magnets: 2-5%

These benchmarks are guidelines, not rules. Success depends on tailoring your SEO strategy to your audience and search intent.

Why You Need To Measure Your SEO Conversion Rate

google search console - What Is a Conversion Rate in SEO

Maximize Your ROI by Leveraging Existing Traffic

Focus on conversion rates in your SEO strategy to boost your ROI. Conversion rates show how well your website turns visitors into customers without extra spending. A high-quality SEO campaign can yield an average ROI of 748%.

This means for every dollar you invest, you get $7.48 in return. Improving conversion rates increases revenue from existing traffic, enhancing profitability without constantly needing new visitors.

Enhance User Experience and Build Trust

Streamlining the user experience is key to boosting conversions. Visitors can easily navigate your site and find what they need quickly, reflecting professionalism. This builds credibility and trust, which is especially important for first impressions that affect future conversions. A seamless experience encourages engagement, leading to more sign-ups or purchases.

Improve SEO Performance with Positive User Signals

Conversion optimization isn't just about revenue—it's about boosting SEO performance too. Better conversion rates improve engagement metrics like:

Bounce rate
Time on page
Click-through rate

Search engines see these positive user signals as indicators of valuable content, which can improve your search rankings. By focusing on conversions, you enhance revenue and drive more traffic through improved visibility on search engine results pages.

11 Best Tips For Improving Your SEO Conversion Rate

serp stat - What Is a Conversion Rate in SEO

1. Optimize Your Calls-to-Action (CTAs)

Your calls-to-action tell visitors what action to take next. They need to be:

Clear
Compelling
Strategically placed to drive conversions.

‍Some CTA best practices include:

Use action-oriented text that creates a sense of urgency
Make CTAs visually prominent with contrasting colors and placement above-the-fold
Test different CTA variations to optimize click-through rates

2. Align Your Content With Search Intent

One of the most important factors in organic conversions is search intent, the reason behind a user's search query. If your content doesn't match what searchers are actually looking for, they'll quickly bounce from your site.

Do keyword research to understand what types of content will best satisfy search intent at different stages of the buyer's journey. Create informational content for top-of-funnel keywords and more conversion-focused pages for bottom-of-funnel commercial intent keywords.

3. Simplify Your Forms

If your conversion goal involves a form submission, keep your forms as short and simple as possible. Only ask for the information you need. Consider breaking longer forms into multiple steps, and leverage social autofill and inline form validation to reduce friction. Test removing non-essential form fields to increase completion rates.

4. Leverage Social Proof

Social proof is a powerful psychological principle. When people see that others have had a positive experience with your brand, they're more likely to convert themselves.

Incorporate throughout your website and landing pages to build trust and credibility with organic traffic these elements:

Customer reviews
Testimonials
Trust badges
Social media proof points

5. Improve Page Load Speed

Page load time is not only an important Google ranking factor, it also has a major impact on user experience and conversions. Nearly 70% of consumers say page speed impacts their willingness to buy from an online retailer.

To improve page load times:

Compress images
Minify code
Leverage browser caching
A content delivery network (CDN)

Aim for pages that load in under 3 seconds.

6. Create Dedicated Landing Pages

Conversion-optimized landing pages are focused on a single customer action. They eliminate distractions and clarify what the visitor should do next.

Create dedicated SEO landing pages that match specific search queries and guide users toward your conversion goal. Keep your messaging tightly aligned from the search results page to the conversion point.

7. A/B Test Your Pages

A/B testing allows you to experiment with different page variations to determine which drives the most conversions. You can test elements like:

Headlines
Images
Copy
Forms
CTAs

Use an A/B testing tool to split traffic between two page versions and track which one performs better. Incorporate the winning elements into your page to improve SEO conversions over time.

8. Analyze Your Analytics

Digging into your website analytics can provide valuable insights into how organic traffic navigates your site and where you may lose potential conversions.

Use Google Analytics to set up conversion tracking and analyze your organic traffic patterns. Look at metrics like bounce rate, time on page, and user flow to identify potential roadblocks or drop-off points in the conversion process.

9. Use heatmaps

Heatmapping tools like Hotjar and FullStory can give you incredible insights into where your traffic interacts on the site, not just the content in focus.

Look for the prime engagement real estate on your:

Homepage
Navigation
Service pages
Top blogs, etc.

Make sure you’re giving users a way to convert.

10. Leverage insights from your higher-converting content

Dig into your Google Analytics to find instances of posts or properties that have relatively low traffic and relatively high conversion rates. What are those pages providing that leads to conversions?

Here’s likely something you can recreate on more popular pages, whether:

It’s language
Product information
CTA type

11. Build engagement before the conversion event

Warm up users: Giving them ways to engage can help them feel invested in your product or service, which will increase acquisition activity down the road.

Surveys are a great tool here: And it can even be a short path from “interested in seeing the survey results? Drop your email here” if you’re using the survey to collect robust data and insights.

Real-World SEO Conversion Rate Optimization Examples

Need some inspiration?

Check out these SEO conversion rate case studies from real businesses:

Moz increased organic traffic conversions by 52% by redesigning their SEO landing pages based on user feedback and A/B testing different variations.
HubSpot increased lead conversions by 55% by creating topic clusters of pillar content to better match search intent at different stages of the buyer's journey.
Backlinko boosted organic traffic by 110% by optimizing existing content and building high-quality backlinks with the Skyscraper Technique.
Shopify doubled organic search conversions by improving page load speed and implementing technical SEO best practices sitewide.

Capture More Leads from Your Blog for Free Today with Blog CTAs

Setting up CTAs on your blog shouldn’t feel like an uphill battle. Yet, many content management systems make it exactly that. Creating a blog-wide CTA often means diverting valuable engineering resources whether you’re using:

WordPress
Webflow
Any other platform

‍Blog CTAs changes the game by allowing you to set up CTAs with ease. That means you can increase your blog's conversion rate by 3-7% without losing time and focus on what matters.

Turn Readers into Leads with Sidebar CTAs

A well-placed call-to-action can make all the difference. Sidebar CTAs are particularly effective, catching the reader’s eye without interrupting the flow of content. Blog CTAs lets you implement these quickly, helping you capture more leads from your blog content. In just five minutes, you can start seeing an uptick in conversions.

Seamless Integration with Your CMS

One of the biggest hurdles in setting up blog CTAs is ensuring seamless integration with your content management system. Blog CTAs is designed to work with a range of popular platforms. You won’t need to worry about compatibility issues or complex coding processes. This tool does the heavy lifting for you, so you can focus on creating quality content.

Get Ahead with Our Waitlist

The benefits of using Blog CTAs are clear. You’ll save time, increase conversions, and streamline your workflow. Sign up for our waitlist today to ensure you’re first in line to experience these advantages. The sooner you start using Blog CTAs, the sooner you’ll reap the rewards.

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