CRO & SEO Is a Powerful Combo!

In this post, I would like to bring up such an important topic as the collaborative work of CRO and SEO specialists on product sites. Let’s start with who is responsible for what.

An SEO specialist is responsible for effective site promotion in search engines. They make sure the site is ranked high by using both internal and external optimization.

A CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization) specialist is responsible for site conversion and performs actions to improve it. For example, they deal with A/B testing, heuristic analysis, and heat map analysis, as well as generate hypotheses and test them.

There are frequent conflicts in companies when the SEOs’ recommendations are not taken into account or, vice versa, when SEOs do not observe the recommendations of CROs. Usually, SEOs say, “Oh, those marketers are a real pain in the ass. They haven’t been able to change a keyword in H1 for a week yet manage to hold a rally about it.”

Well, let’s start with the fact that an SEO person is also a marketer specializing in organic search promotion. The problem is that our SEOs often do not fully understand all their possibilities and roles. Therefore, they do not know whether they are considered IT specialists or someone else.

Regarding the change of the H1 keyword, yes, it can really affect conversion very much. As a rule, such a change is usually performed with an A/B test or metric measurement. What if the H1 contains a USP and cannot be rewritten with a new keyword?

In turn, CROs complain that SEOs insert their keywords everywhere. They want a lot of text content, and their approach is somehow not user-friendly. So, why tinker with the work people won’t like?

Ummm…Google is not a human being. If it does not like a landing page, there will be no high positions and no traffic, and you as a CRO will not be needed in principle. So, you should make Google happy first.

Everyone does something on those websites. They constantly add and delete something, but there is no unity. Instead, there are many conflicts and miscommunications.

However, this article is not about problems but about a solution.

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How to Bring CRO & SEO Together

I made the following pyramid to explain this point. Please, look from the bottom up. In this post, I am going to reveal each point in detail. There are no processes like website coding or design drawing in the pyramid since it is not a complete description of landing page creation. This pyramid is about what CRO and SEO specialists should do to make a website page successful. They should perform some actions simultaneously, while others — in sequence.

1. Topic & Keyword Research (CRO&SEO). It is a niche page topic research and keyword analysis. Both CRO and SEO should research what the landing page will be about. Everyone should understand what you will sell and promote. SEO specialists perform keyword analysis. Their task is to collect and select keywords for promotion. CRO specialists can simply check out how people search.
2. Competitors Research (CRO&SEO). It is an analysis of competitors performed by both CROs and SEOs yet by handling separate tasks. The CRO specialist deals with content, usability, design, positioning, CTA, structure, and other things. The SEO person looks at word count, content, keyword usage, and heading structure.
3. OnPage SEO Requirements (SEO). The SEOs send their page or site requirements and recommendations to the CROs. For example, it can be a required number of words, a list of keywords and places where to use them, and recommendations on specific things to be described.
4. Design Prototyping (CRO). It is about creating a landing page prototype. I know that everyone has their own understanding of prototyping. Some call it designs, while others call it mockups. Let me explain what I mean. For me, prototyping is a set of various works, including analysis, mockup preparation, wireframe creation, and prototype development with either a template text or final text. That is, it’s when the prototype of a page is created from the header to the footer. You can find an example in the screenshot below.

CROs do not have to wait for requirements and recommendations from SEOs. They can create a prototype without this because these specialists can more or less understand what SEO may need just by checking out competitors. 

However, the key difference is that if SEOs create the structure and prototype of a web page, they look ONLY at competitors in 98% of cases since it is the golden rule to check out how the rivals made it and do the same or better. And a good CRO specialist uses competitors as references and copies their ideas only when even commonplace things are implemented poorly on the target website. Therefore, a prototype should be created by a person interested primarily in conversion, not in Google.

1. Technical Task for a Copywriter (CRO). After the CROs get the requirements and recommendations from the SEOs, they should create a technical task for a copywriter. Why CRO? Again, content and its quality affect conversion. SEOs often want lots of text everywhere, creating landing pages that are impossible to use because you have to insert an abundance of keywords. You have to find a middle ground here. However, SEOs often simply don’t allow you to remove an extra piece of text because there is another golden rule in SEO – if it works, don’t touch it!
2. Indexing (SEO). Here I mean that the SEOs should monitor the indexing of a site or page and request changes to the CROs, if necessary.
3. Off-Page (SEO). It is a page or site promotion and link building. Of course, SEO is responsible for this.
4. Conversion Optimization (CRO). When and if the page reaches TOP indicators and the traffic flow increases, the CROs should work on its conversion through the funnel by using A/B tests and changes to the landing page.

Everything is simple in the picture, but it is more complicated in real life. However, the main things are desire and perseverance. If an SEO specialist enhances site positions, you will get traffic. If a CRO specialist raises conversions, you will get more money. It is as plain as two and two make four. 

What CROs and SEOs Need to Know About Each Other’s Work

CRO specialists must understand that if there are no positions, there will be no traffic, and there will be nothing to optimize in search engines. Hence, it is important to give credence to SEO specialists and arrange an easy and fast process to help SEOs create a site or a page quickly. If they succeed, the CRO staff will start working on it. That is, they should ensure it has the main important things expected from every landing page, especially with modern CMS capabilities.

In general, I want to have CRO specialists on our team. However, they have grown into such product marketers who see CRO as just one of their workflows while their main goal is to improve site monetization, find new markets, etc.

In my opinion, a product marketer is a specialist who says what to promote and when to promote for the business’ benefit. So, they cooperate closely with a product team but stay in marketing.

At the same time, SEOs have to deal with search engine optimization. Their main goal is to run a war with Google, perform growth points search, and deal with link building. SEOs should have time to generate new growth hacking ideas to improve a site’s ranking.

It is a complex process. We at Develux are moving towards this and changing gradually. 

If you are a cool SEO, CRO, or such a product marketer as I need, and you are looking for a decent place to work with interesting projects, please write to recruiting@develux.com or me personally on Telegram: @georgeseo.