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Written by Gijs de Rooij, 17 November 2021

Conversion optimization in 2022: focus here

For a high-traffic website, every percentage point can make a huge difference. And that is conversion optimization: a numbers’ game in which the smallest wins count. You have to be working on this almost constantly because the competition is not sitting still either.

Every year there are new topics in conversion optimization. Often these have to do with new technology or Google updates. But major events like a pandemic can also have an impact, of course. Let’s see what the expected areas of focus for the new year, 2022, are and what you can do to optimize your conversion rate.

User experience (UX)

First of all, you want to make the customer experience as good as possible. Because if the user experience (UX) is not good, there is little to optimize. Therefore, put the visitor first. Run A/B tests, create polls and study heatmaps to see what your visitors respond best to. Keep testing, because what works in 2022 may not necessarily still be successful in 2025. This is especially true when your target audience changes.

By the way, not only visitors are helped by a clear, well-designed site. Google also gives “points” for UX. The search engine giant includes (what they call) Page Experience in its ranking factors. For example, pages must be mobile-friendly, an SSL certificate is a must, and pop-ups are out of the question.

Fast, faster, fastest

Load speed and latency should be as low as possible. Visitors are generally impatient and click away if a page loads too slowly. A recent study by Akamai and Soasta expressed this in numbers. For example, a 0.1-second delay in load time would reduce conversion by as much as 7%. A whole second of delay can result in a drop in conversion of up to 22%. Two seconds amounts to a maximum of 36.5%.

Other findings of this study are that on computers, pages that load in 1.8 seconds achieve the highest conversion rate (12.8%). On mobile, it is 2.7 seconds (3.3% conversion).

You can test your Web site speed with Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool. In addition to a site score with a variety of indicators, you’ll get recommendations on key issues to address.

Social proof generated by customers

No matter how hard you try to point out benefits, create reciprocity and demonstrate your authority, there is one persuasion or influence technique that works better than any other in this era: social proof.

Because if you see that other customers are users with your services or products, you are more likely to tie the knot. Especially when real reviews are involved.

You would therefore do well to highlight individual reviews in addition to a Trustpilot or Kiyoh score. What can also be done is to post tweets or Instagram posts that talk positively about your company. With this kind of user-generated content (UGC), you exude authenticity and come across as trustworthy.

Mobile-first

This trend has been in play for several years but will continue into 2022: building websites with a focus on mobile users. Depending on your industry and your target audience, you’ll find that about 50-80% of your visitors call up your website from a mobile device.

Smaller screens and the (often) slower mobile connections require a responsive website without the bells and whistles. Such a site automatically adjusts its layout and font size when someone loads it from a smartphone or tablet. Apply lazy loading to avoid loading a long page in its entirety.

To provide the most pleasant mobile user experience possible, you want to avoid the use of pop-ups. In fact, Google’s Page Experience update, which we talked about earlier, penalizes you for using pop-ups. So there are many more tools to optimize your website.