How can CRO and UX be used together to create an effective web design?

CRO and UX are – or should be – bosom buddies. They go together like peas and carrots. They’re a dynamic duo. In short, take together they’re your website’s secret weapon.

But wait…

What are CRO and UX?

We have written a lot about both CRO and UX on this blog, but perhaps we don’t always use the acronyms. CRO stands for Conversion Rate Optimisation, and – like the more well-known SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) – stands for the tools and techniques developers employ to ensure that a website’s users become a business’s customers.

UX, meanwhile, stands for User Experience and is the field of web design that is all about understanding how visitors to your website will interact with it. This understanding can then be used to design a site that works better for users – and which will consequently be more successful.

In both cases, developers can draw on both theory and practice. There are plenty of principles when it comes to CRO and UX that can be incorporated into a website from day one: designers know, for example, that certain navigational layouts appeal to certain types of users, and adopting the best for a site’s target audience will enhance its performance among that demographic.

Even when the work on a website is complete, though, the work on CRO and UX is not. Basic principles can be “baked in” to a design, but actual user data – gathered while a site is live – is just as important. Sites can be tweaked as you go, new changes tested against user behaviours and results consequently improved.

This is where the interaction of UX and CRO comes in. As a general rule, UX is more based on principles, CRO on practice. This means that good UX design can give your site a “leg-up”: before it is even launched, if UX has been part of the design process, it will perform better. A site designed for users will be a site that encourages conversion.

Improving user experience and conversions

From this great foundation, once a site is live CRO techniques can be employed to constantly improve it. For example, create five different pages for a particular product with larger and smaller images, different calls to action, separate layouts: which performs best? CRO is often a long-term process, involving the observation of users over time to understand what turns them into customers.

In other words, UX can, in a relatively short period, ensure your website performs well at launch; and CRO can, over the months following launch, improve it even further. That’s how CRO and UX can be used together to create an effective web design. And like salt and pepper, you wouldn’t want to do without either.

Contact ImagePlus for Web Design & Development

If you need help developing your website to create an optimum user experience and maximise your conversions, then speak to our friendly experts. Our web designers and web developers are based in Coventry, Warwickshire and are always ready to help. Please feel free to contact and speak to our team.

Call us on 02476834780, or send us an email at info@image-plus.co.uk.