SEO & Conversion Rate Optimization: How Both Work Together

The conversion rate is an important metric in advertising effectiveness analysis for evaluating the success of advertising campaigns. It indicates the percentage of website visitors who perform a specific action (e.g., purchase or subscription) and are thus converted into customers or subscribers. The more conversions website operators achieve, the higher the revenue will be.

While the Conversion Rate is hard to imagine without advertising effectiveness analysis, the metric has so far played a very subordinate role in SEO (search engine optimization). However, SEO agencies are slowly realizing that SEO without CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization) is too little. The focus on generating as much traffic as possible is and remains an important part of online marketing. But optimizing CRO in addition to traffic opens up much wider opportunities to make marketing more efficient.

What is CRO (Conversion-Rate-Optimization)?

CRO (Conversion-Rate-Optimization) is a term under which measures to improve conversion numbers are summarized. The possible measures to increase the conversion rate are diverse and come from various specialist areas of online marketing. For example, website operators can implement SEO and SEA measures as well as web design optimizations to improve conversion numbers. We have put together some examples here:

• An SEO measure to increase the conversion rate is the optimization of content. High-quality content increases the dwell time of website visitors, which increases the likelihood that they will perform the desired action (purchase, subscription, etc.).
• The selection of relevant keywords for the content and for the advertisements is both an SEO and a SEA measure. In order to reach their own target group, target group-relevant keywords must be selected for both the content on the website (SEO) and for advertisements (SEA).
• Examples of technical optimizations of web design, which can also contribute to CRO, are the integration of CTA buttons and the improvement of navigation on the website. While the CTA buttons encourage users to take the desired action, the improved navigation promotes longer dwell time.

Because the conversion rate is most often evaluated in the context of ad impressions, it is often overlooked that they closely relate to SEO(see next section). Too often the conversion rate is considered and evaluated solely as a metric of advertising effectiveness analysis. In order to close gaps in the practical implementation of SEO and conversion rate optimization, we will focus in the following sections on how the two specialist disciplines SEO and CRO should be coordinated.

How are SEO and CRO related?

To explain the connections between SEO and CRO in an easily understandable way, let's first take a look at the definition of the term 'Conversion Rate'. For this purpose, an excerpt from the Gabler Business Dictionary:

“Key figure of advertising effectiveness analysis. The conversion rate is defined by the number of transactions relative to the number of AdClicks and thus describes the direct effect chain.” (Gabler Business Dictionary)

In other words: The conversion rate is calculated from the number of transactions (e.g., purchase, subscription, contact) in relation to the number of clicks on the advertisement. Google defines the Conversion Rate in its own Google Ads Help in a similar way. Accordingly, many advertisers focus on measures related to ad impressions for conversion rate optimization.

For example, advertisers strive for a careful analysis of the keywords and select the keywords for the ads in coordination with their own budget and target group. The coordination of the keywords with your own budget takes place in order to assert oneself in the bidding for the advertising spaces against the competition. The coordination of the keywords with the target group is intended to ensure that the right prospects are reached with the keywords.

Also important in the context of CRO for advertisements is a sales-promoting design of landing pages. Landing pages are pages that are specifically created for advertisements. When website visitors click on the ads, they are redirected to the landing page. This is designed in such a way, among other things, that users can navigate easily through the page, find many CTA elements with calls to action, the page loads quickly and easy contact with the company is possible. This is collectively referred to as a positive user experience (UX).

Even though all of the aspects mentioned are important factors that contribute to optimizing conversions, advertisers and agencies occasionally neglect how important the role of high-quality and continuous SEO is in conversion rate optimization.

The fact that the basic quality of a site, and thus SEO, helps determine the chances of success of an advertising campaign, is evident in the allocation of advertising spaces and ad ranks. Google's own statement: “In Google Ads, the relevance and usefulness of the ad and the linked website for the respective user are also taken into account.” (Google Ads Help) This means the relevance of a page is significantly influenced by the quality of the SEO.

Thus, on the one hand, the conclusion is permissible: The basic quality of the site is a factor that already plays a role in the awarding of advertising spaces. On the other hand, purely logical considerations arise: The higher the quality of the site and thus its relevance for website visitors, the more likely it is that they will engage with the content and achieve the targeted conversions.

How can SEO influence the conversion rate?

Two important keywords: Keywords and search intent.

Keywords for advertisements should be chosen to promote the goal of the site, but also to match the interests of visitors. For example, if you sell high-quality clothing but choose keywords for your ads that appeal to a less affluent clientele, your ad is targeting the wrong keywords. The likely result is few conversions. It is therefore essential that the page content is optimized for keywords that match the target group. If the keywords in the content of a page and the keywords selected for the ad do not match, neither search engines nor users will detect content relevance. Without content relevance, conversions are highly unlikely.

In addition, it is very important to hit the search intention of users with the content on the site. The search intention (e.g., purchase intention, contact) that lies behind a keyword has to be analyzed and satisfied by the content on the site. Accordingly, it is important to choose keywords with a search intention for the ad that matches the content on the site. To give an example:

• If a site is oriented towards selling clothing, then the content of the site must address topics that appeal to visitors with a purchase intention.

• The keywords chosen for the advertisement must also have a purchase intention (for example, “buy clothing”, “clothing sale”).

• These keywords are also categorized as transactional keywords, as the goal is a transaction.

Thus, SEO influences the conversion rate in that it provides the basis on which keywords for advertisements can be selected. A website that does not have conversion-strong content will most likely not perform well in advertisements, even if it is well structured and contains many sales-promoting elements. Ultimately, the goals of organic SEO and the goals of advertising campaigns must be coordinated, in order to achieve a high conversion rate.

Whether a page actually has a high conversion rate depends on other factors, such as the technical optimization and structuring of the site. Here, the aspects of page load speed (Pagespeed), scroll depth and conversion-promoting elements (e.g., CTA buttons) play a role. If the site scores poorly in these aspects, it is very possible that the site visitors are fundamentally interested in the offer and also like the content of the site, but they still decide against the offer and are therefore not converted by the company.

What problems could potentially arise if CRO and SEO do not work hand in hand?

The influence of SEO on the conversion rate has already been explained. Accordingly, it is clear: If CRO and SEO do not go hand in hand, a page that is not optimized for the correct keywords and user search intention could result in a low conversion rate.

But conversely, attempting Conversion-Rate-Optimization without considering SEO could also lead to SEO being negatively affected If, for example, a Google Ads agency is entrusted with placing advertisements and their constant optimization, but the agency does not work closely with the SEO department, the following problem could, for example, arise: The agency decides to change or remove certain texts. In doing so, keywords and/or semantically important terms are lost, which worsens the organic ranking of the site and thus harms SEO.

Ultimately, the specialist disciplines SEO and Conversion-Rate-Optimization must be considered and handled in context. Otherwise, either SEO or the Conversion Rate – or even both aspects – will be at risk. Even Google’s RankBrain evaluates SEO and the Conversion Rate partly in relation to each other. For example, negative user experiences, which are reflected in a high bounce rate on pages, are taken into account in a negative way for SEO. This also applies to negative experiences that website visitors make in the context of advertising. Poor conversion rates in advertising campaigns can therefore have negative effects on the organic ranking of the affected page.

4 Tips on How SEO Can Improve the Conversion Rate

Search engine optimization measures, among other things, contribute to improving the User Experience (UX) by providing a clear structure for a site. The UX is a crucial key to increasing the conversion rate. The fact that SEO also involves technical site optimizations (keyword: Technical SEO) even has a conversion-promoting effect at the technical base of websites. Based on this information, we have compiled the 4 most important tips below on how to use SEO for conversion rate optimization.

#1 | High quality and search intention matching content

We will elaborate on the previous instructions for keywords and search intention. The basis of every webpage is high-quality content marketing. The goal should be to surpass at least the content quality of the top 5 websites that are displayed in the search engine for the respective main keyword. Therefore, visit the first five websites, read their content and create a page that covers this content as well and offers users even more added value.

CRO experts believe that it is beneficial to create a so-called friction point for a high conversion rate. Instead of giving away all information on the topic in content marketing, a part of the information on the page should be withheld - so users have a reason to convert. Whether observing this rule makes sense depends on the conversion goal. If, for example, you want users to subscribe to your newsletter, it makes sense to create such a friction point by not giving users all the information on the page, but promising them the most important information in the newsletter. In this special case, the likelihood of conversion increases through the friction point you create. For guides with a sales target, however, friction points are not helpful, as users are most likely to buy from companies that provide them with all the information important for purchasing.

When writing texts and creating pages, a sensible structuring of the content with subheadings, containing the main keyword and possibly secondary keywords, is essential. Furthermore, you should make use of lists, graphics, tables, and other loosening elements to optimize the understandability of the content and increase the dwell time of users. The good structuring of the content can, by promoting the dwell time of the users, positively contribute to the scroll depth. The scroll depth is a direct factor of CRO.

As long as the keywords for which the advertising is placed match the content of the site, the high-quality content will encourage the visitors coming to the site to stay and take conversion-promoting actions. Optimal is, on the one hand, the selection of keywords that have a commercial search intention. On the other hand, specific keywords (often: longtail keywords) are advantageous because they define the target group more narrowly and can therefore address it more precisely; moreover, less budget is usually required to assert oneself against the competition and achieve a high click rate.

Despite the recommendations to align with commercial keywords, it should not be overlooked that purely informative content is also important on individual subpages and certainly across the entire website. Informative content serves to cover other relevant keywords with a non-commercial search intention and is particularly suitable for building backlinks. In addition, search engine users who have read informative content on your site may also become aware of your products and decide to buy your products days later, thereby achieving subsequent conversions.

#2 | Technical optimization of the site

Optimizing the Pagespeed of a site is a major element of SEO. Whether for ads or organic search: Google uses the user experience with websites as a criterion for ranking. Users usually have little patience and return to the search results to visit another site if a site takes too long to load. For example, the Google algorithm regards returning quickly from sites to call up others as so-called pogo sticking and factors it negatively in the site evaluation.

So it is desirable both for the ranking given by Google and for increasing the conversion rate to have a site that loads as quickly as possible. Studies corroborate this thesis and show that as site load time increases, the bounce rate increases. Measures to improve site load speed include among others:

• Compression of images and other media to reduce file size
• Reduction of code on the website to the bare minimum
• Use a small number of plugins
• Use of browser caching to store data from the site on user devices
• Set up lazy loading so that media below the above-the-fold area is only loaded when it appears on the users' viewport
• Reduce 301 redirects

In addition to improving site load speed, mobile optimization is an aspect of technical SEO. Given the now high number of mobile search engine users, optimizing the entire website for mobile devices (e.g., smartphone, iPhone, tablet) is essential for SEO and conversion rate optimization.

#3 | Offering additional content and suitable products via internal links

In SEO, links are a decisive quality factor. By setting internal links to subtopics you allow users to get more detailed information about the topics on the pages. For example, you can set an internal link at important secondary keywords or semantic terms, so users can get more detailed information on another page if they wish.

• If, for example, you want to optimize the SEO and the conversion rate of a sales page, it makes sense to focus on each page on products suitable for the main keyword.
• You can link other products in suitable places and present them in more detail on the subpages.
• By reducing the sales page to the essential products, you create, on the one hand, room for internal links, after which you can present other products on the linked pages, and, on the other hand, you prevent decision difficulties among the site visitors.

To address the problem of decision-making: a large selection of products on the sales page can overwhelm users and negatively affect the conversion rate. According to a study in California from 2010 mentioned in the New York Times, many products in the offer can give users the feeling of choice, but also lead to mental exhaustion. To prevent this so-called choice paradox, we advise you to focus on the essentials with the content and offers on your site, and to refer to additional content on your subpages via internal links.

#4 | Communication between SEO and Ads department

Whether in telephone conversations, video conferences or in another way: Make sure that the SEO and the Ads department discuss changes they want to make to the site with each other before they are implemented. Otherwise, the already described case threatens, for example, that the Ads department rephrases a text or even deletes it completely, thereby removing important components of the site for SEO success.

What tools support a good interplay of SEO and CRO?

There are no tools that combine both SEO and CRO. Thus, site operators have to use several tools to ensure a good interplay between SEO and CRO. In our article about the 7 best Conversion-Optimization-Tools we introduced you to seven tools that are specifically applicable for increasing the conversion rate. Be sure to read the article as a supplement to this one. Also, check out our Comparison of Conversion-Optimization-Tools.

Conversion-Optimization-Tools like Kameleoon, Google Optimize and Heyflow offer various features to optimize conversion rates. An example is A/B tests, where a part of the target group visits two different variants of a landing page, after which the conversions on both landing page variants are compared and the better version of the landing page is chosen. The Conversion-Optimization-Tools Google Optimize and Heyflow even offer the option to connect to Google Analytics from the Google Search Console. This allows SEO and CRO tools to be linked, promoting the interplay of SEO and CRO. Nevertheless, SEO and CRO remain two different disciplines that require the use of different tools.

Therefore, after reference to CRO tools, we now come to some recommendations for SEO-Tools. The following SEO-Tools offer you, among other things, functions for analyzing keywords and analyzing search intentions, as well as features for linkbuilding and competitive analysis:

Seobility

Sistrix

Semrush

Ahrefs

SE Ranking

When you use the SEO and Conversion-Optimization tools, you should always stick to our 4 tips from the penultimate section. This promotes SEO's ability to improve your conversion rate and allows SEO and CRO to work hand in hand.

In case you are looking for Conversion-Optimization tools that help you calculate the conversion rates, we have the following tip: Use the Conversion-Rate calculator from converlytics or from keyperformance. In both Conversion-Rate calculators you enter the number of website visitors as well as the number of conversions, after which you'll get the result displayed. This will help you determine your organic conversion rate.

To calculate conversion rates for advertisements, SEA-Tools are helpful. In these cases, the conversion rates are often listed in real time, so that you can immediately evaluate the advertising effectiveness and draw conclusions from it. For example, the tool Channel Pilot Pro even gives you the option to group products or pages with particularly high conversion rates into separate groups, in order to promote them more intensively.

Conclusion

The connection between SEO and CRO is immense. Various measures such as changes of texts or restructuring of websites influence both marketing specialized fields. In order to generate traffic and convert it according to your goals, companies and other site operators should therefore closely coordinate SEO and CRO. Optimizations of the UX also have a strong influence in this context. Our recommendations in this blog post thus go far beyond SEO and CRO. We advise for the maximum success in online marketing to look at and plan the entire marketing holistically.

Every SEO and CRO measure should be evaluated in terms of the interaction with other marketing areas before making decisions that do not have a detrimental effect on other areas. Following our 4 tips for the cooperation of SEO and CRO and using SEO and CRO tools is helpful.