When it comes to digital marketing, one of the most valuable metrics is your conversion rate.
For the uninitiated, conversion rate is the number of leads that convert to customers.
For example, if you have 100 leads and a conversion rate of five percent, five of those leads will become paying customers.
Ideally, you’ll be able to improve your rate incrementally until you can determine how many leads will become customers with pinpoint accuracy.
That’s where conversion rate optimization comes in.
In this article, we’ll break down this metric and show you 10 free conversion rate optimization tools that you can use to boost your rate.
What is Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)?
At its core, CRO is designed for a singular purpose: to raise your conversion rate.
However, most businesses will utilize CRO tactics as part of a larger overall digital marketing strategy.
Ultimately, CRO is part of a broader three-step system:
- Lead Generation: finding new leads who may be interested in what you have to offer.
- Lead Nurturing: qualifying your leads so that your sales team can focus on the ones with the most value.
- Lead Conversion: converting a lead to a customer.
So, if your lead gen and nurturing methods are underdeveloped, you can only go so far with high-quality CRO.
It’s better to take a comprehensive view of your business instead of focusing on one component at a time.
Why Should Your Business Care About CRO?
Overall, you can boost your bottom line quickly by improving your conversion rate.
So, CRO is highly valuable because it helps you pay closer attention to the tactics that matter most.
Too many businesses waste time on marketing methods or strategies that don’t work.
CRO ensures that your marketing and sales teams work together to convert as many leads as possible.
So, with the right CRO plan, you can:
- Increase profits.
- Align your company.
- Build a bigger audience.
- Raise brand awareness.
The 10 Best Free Conversion Rate Optimization Tools
Before getting into this list, keep in mind that these tools will not improve your bottom line magically.
Instead, each product listed is one small piece of a larger puzzle.
Once you have a cohesive plan of action, you can figure out where to deploy each tool to be most effective.
To help you out, we’ll let you know which element of conversion each tool focuses on.
▷ Research Tools
1. Answer the Public
If you want to make your SEO and other digital marketing materials stand out, you need to know how your audience thinks.
Answer the Public is a free tool that provides insight into specific search queries.
For example, if you sell a mobile game app, you can look up keywords like “mobile games” and “free mobile games”.
From there, you can see which search queries come up the most.
Even better, Answer the Public allows you to search by country, which is perfect for brands that have international offices.
2. Land-Book
Landing pages are your bread and butter for digital marketing.
A captivating landing page can make or break your messaging and help you convert more leads.
Unfortunately, not everyone is design-oriented, and smaller companies can’t afford to pay top-tier website builders for each page.
Thankfully, Land-Book allows you to browse through hundreds of landing page templates to see what works best.
Browsing is free, but you will have to pay for the template if you like it.
That said, you can get a better sense of the best-converting landing pages and let them be an inspiration for your business.
3. Survey Monkey
The basic plan is free, but you will likely want to pay for an upgraded version once you see how the program works.
Surveys are an excellent way to get into the minds of your audience, whether they’re still leads or paying customers.
You can customize your surveys to research different questions.
For example, one survey may be about the onboarding process, while another is meant for new customers after they’ve purchased something.
Getting this kind of feedback enables you to optimize every aspect of your marketing and sales funnels.
▷ Website Design
4. Heatmap
To build a more effective website, you need to know how your current audience is using it.
Heat maps show you the most popular areas of each page so that you can plan accordingly.
Typically, users will pay the most attention to the upper left corner of your site, but not always.
Tools like Heatmap may show some surprising results that can help you optimize your pages.
For example, perhaps some buttons get more traffic than others.
From there, you can determine why those buttons are so enticing and use the same strategies across the entire page.
5. Hotjar
While heat maps are valuable, they only tell you part of the story.
Hotjar goes a few steps further with additional analytical tools such as:
- Recordings: capture everything a person does when visiting your website and see their actions.
- Surveys: gather feedback from users to see which elements they like most and which ones they don’t.
- Incoming feedback: get real-time results as users browse through multiple pages.
Overall, by getting all of these details, you can figure out how to make your website work more efficiently.
Then, you should notice an increase in your conversion rate.
6. Crazy Egg
This conversion rate optimization tool offers a free 30-day trial.
Like Hotjar, you get access to a wide array of website analytical tools to help you figure out what’s working and what isn’t.
Crazy Egg also allows you to perform A/B tests once you make changes.
After a few rounds of A/B testing, you should be able to dial in each page so that they convert a lot.
▷ Analytics
7. Google Analytics
Since Google is the premier search engine, it knows a thing or two about what users want.
Even better, the company has access to tons of data that can help you improve your digital marketing and conversion rate.
A word of warning, though.
Since Google has so much information, these reports can be a bit overwhelming.
To help you out, here are some tips that every marketing professional needs to know about Analytics.
8. Hubspot Website Grader
Hubspot is one of the leading companies for digital marketing and analytics.
Part of the reason why Hubspot is so popular is that it provides free resources, including this website grader.
All you have to do is enter your URL, and the grader will do the rest.
Best of all, you’ll get detailed reports that provide insight and recommendations on how to fix any problems.
If you’re unsure whether your website is working hard enough, Hubspot is an excellent place to start.
▷ Communication Tools
9. MobileMonkey
These days, consumers want businesses to have an omnichannel presence online.
It’s no longer enough to have email and a phone number — now users want live chat, instant messaging and constant access to brands.
MobileMonkey offers a live chat option for companies of all sizes. And its chatbot can be automated for a better user experience.
Even if your customer support team is offline, the chatbot can answer basic questions and provide details instantly.
This tool ensures that all leads get nurtured and that none fall through the cracks.
10. Really Good Emails
Last but not least, here we have a free email library.
This tool works the same way as Land-Book, meaning that you can browse a vast selection of top-tier email templates.
Email marketing is a valuable tool for conversion rate optimization because most leads need to be nurtured for a while before converting.
However, it doesn’t help to send a bunch of bland or rambling emails. Doing so will actually lower your conversion rate.
With Really Good Emails, you can see what design templates work the best and pick the ones you like.
They’re organized by industry and type to make it as easy to browse as possible.
Wrap Up: Paving the Way to Success with Conversion Rate Optimization Tools
They are simple to use and pretty efficient for marketing professionals.
Conversion rate optimization tools can save you time and money while guaranteeing that your lead conversion tactics are running smoothly.
If you want to dive even deeper into this universe, check our ebook with proven tactics to increase conversions!
