CRO
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) Checklist
Pritam Joy
Introduction
You’ve created a ‘good’ landing page. You’ve worked hard on your messaging. You have listened to all do’s and don’ts on the internet, and from marketing ‘gurus.’ And yet, the conversion rates don’t move. Not an inch.
Ever wondered why? If you have, you’re not alone. Despite trying every trick in the book and implementing complex marketing (which is absolutely unnecessary at times), the reason why those conversions are not coming is because your brand ‘sucks’ when it comes to the basics.
Yup, there, we said it.
But we understand, marketing is not an easy journey—it’s challenging to get traffic, keep up with ever changing marketing trends and user preferences. But team Fibr AI has the solution for you—A CRO checklist—designed for you to get your visitors to quickly press the ‘Buy Now’ or ‘Sign Up’ button.
What’s more? Get an additional checklist on analytics and the best CRO tools to boost your conversions. Why wait? Dig right in!
If you don’t have time to read the entire blog, don’t worry. Click here to download the checklist—it’s free!
10- Step CRO checklist for your landing page/CRO audit checklist: Assessing current performance
There are innumerable elements you’ll need to work on to improve your CRO rates—content, messaging, CTAs (call to action), speed, social proof, and more. If you are looking for a quick CRO checklist, Fibr AI has curated one for you below.
Read the 10-step CRO audit checklist to build landing pages that convert second to none—
1. Nail your ‘above-the-fold’ page
Think of your ‘above the fold’ page as the first 10 seconds when pitching to an investor. 10 seconds. That’s all you’ve got to make your first impression. Make it count.
What works?
A simple, clear headline that speaks to the visitor’s biggest pain point
A small, yet concise subheading that shows what unique solution you’ve got to offer (Treat this as your differentiator from your competitors)
A superb CTA creating urgency
A ‘hero’ image or ‘video’ showing your solution in action
What kills conversions?
Loads of data and images that confuse visitors about your offerings
Not getting straight to the point
Generic images that add no value
Absence of a CTA
Cluttered navigation and messaging
Here’s a quick test for you—Show your landing page to somebody (better if they know nothing about your industry). Ask them what your product or solution does. If they cannot give a straightforward answer in 10-15 seconds, it’s time to rework the page.
2. Speed up (like really)
Speed is everything, especially in a world of impatient web surfers. And with Google using user experience as a ranking factor, you absolutely cannot sleep on this factor.
Contemplate these facts–
A one-second delay could tank your conversions by 7%
Nearly 40% of visitors abandon a site if it takes more than three seconds to load (Move the seconds up and your bounce rates will be through the roof)
If you think about these numbers and stats in the context of money, that’s a lot of business.
What works?
Fixing 404 errors and optimizing for mobile (Some websites can take about 27-30 seconds to load fully. Don’t be amongst them)
Implementing lazy loading of ads, images
Minimizing HTTP requests as they could add to the loading time of your website
Relying on a solid hosting platform as they can directly impact the speed of your website
Loading page in a maximum of two seconds
Trying image compression as they reduce size with compromising quality
What kills conversion?
Increasing redirects
Not optimizing for mobile
Unnecessary large files (video and image) that can slow down the website
Bulky coding
Pro tip: Don’t test your website speed on ordinary wifi. Use tools like GTmetrix to test speed on different broadbands and networks because not every region has access to high-speed internet.
3. Follow mobile first and not last approach
More than 2 trillion worth of sales and 60% of all eCommerce sales in 2023 happened through mobiles. This is a wake-up call—Not optimizing for mobile and smartphones, regardless of the industry, can be a grave mistake and hurt your business largely.
Follow the mobile-first, all-next approach for better conversions.
What works?
Ensuring your website design is optimized for mobile
Optimizing for speed
Ensuring links, and fields are built mobile friendly
What kills conversions?
Not treating mobile optimization as important as desktop optimization
Poor layouts and pop-ups crowding the screen
Also read: Top 7 Web Optimization Tools for 2025
4. Curate an unforgettable CTA
‘Submit’, ‘Learn More’, ‘Join Us’, ‘Apply Now’ —What’s the common factor you observe amongst these CTA?
Boring. They all are boring.
Such CTAs don’t push the user to further action, nor do they create a sense of urgency or FOMO. Remember, your CTAs are not decorative elements—they are arguably the first step in the traffic conversion process.
CTAs you design should be a perfect blend of human psychology, and design.
What works?
Using action-oriented verbs— ‘Start’, ‘Build’ ‘Invest’, and more
Having a clear value proposition— ‘Start Your Free Trial’ or such
Creating a sense of urgency—‘Only 2 seats left—but without sounding desperate
Size, font, and color that actually commands attention without screaming
Placement at the right eye level, and also ‘above the fold’ of the page
What kills conversions?
Generic CTAs that add no value
Not A/B testing variations
Placements at the wrong place and in the wrong size
FunFact: Bing conducts more than 1000 A/B tests monthly!
5. Study your content and messaging
Your content strategy could drive users away—Are you addressing the user pain point? Is the text relevant? Is your social proof well framed? If the answer to any one question is ‘no’, you have your answer.
What works?
Creating a microcopy that pushes for action—button text, error messages, progression indicators, and labels
Building trust elements with clear policies and value propositions
Avoiding complex wordings and monotonous tones
What kills conversions?
Complex and vague messaging
Not showing relevance
Overloading text
6. Don’t forget social proof
Social proof is just not about slapping random testimonials or excessively boasting about your brand. It is about strategically placing trust signals for your visitors when they are facing a doubt.
What works?
Trying real-time purchase notifications like for instance ‘Jessica from New York purchased…’
Case studies highlighting how user pain points were solved
Video testimonials and trusted badgers
Number proof like ‘4k user bought this’
What kills conversions?
Generic testimonials without any context
Inconsistent formatting
Overloading information or testimonials
7. Keep lead forms sharp and to the point
Brevity is the key when dealing with any kind of form, especially lead forms. Lengthy forms can push away users and increase drop-off.
What works?
Being concise and absolutely to the point
Showing ‘error message’ to record accurate details
Have clean formatting
What kills conversions?
Long forms asking for excessive details
Excessive fields
Mislabeling of fields
8. Work on the hierarchy of your page
CRO principles emphasize following a tried and tested hierarchy to help users browse through the page without missing any elements or getting confused.
Typically, this could be starting with a headline, subtitle, clear value proposition, CTA, features and benefits, second CTA, and social proof.
What works?
Ensuring the right hierarchy
Logical and cohort presentation
What kills conversions?
Unclear messaging
Burying CTAs and action text
Overloading information
9. Conversion funnels
As you employ different marketing funnels to boost your growth and visibility, don’t forget each funnel would need to be optimized, separately.
Is organic traffic getting you more leads than other channels? Are you spending more on one funnel? Ask these questions to better understand where to push more and where to pull back from.
What works?
Customizing strategy for each channel
Understanding user behavior and preference of each channel
What kills conversions?
Slapping one strategy on all conversion funnels
Abrupt transitions from one channel to another
10. Test, measure, and repeat
You have to understand one thing—CRO does not work singularly. There are multiple elements involved. Even if you work on 100 elements and leave one out, that ‘one’ could create trouble.
What’s the way out? Test, Test, and Test.
What works?
A/B testing different elements of the page–Title, subtitle, CTA, social proofs, images, videos, microcopy, and more
Measuring and recording results, optimizing accordingly
What kills conversion?
Avoid testing everything at once
Testing only a selected few parameters
Not having a testing strategy in place
Not testing regularly
Also read: Best A/B Testing Tools And Techniques For Marketers In 2025
eCommerce conversion checklist for maximizing sales
Different industries have different average conversion rates. Most enjoy a conversion rate of 1-3%. But the eCommerce industry plays in an entirely different league.
The best-performing eCommerce stores could hit 2x-3x average conversion rates, and some even hit 5x. Here’s something for perspective: If an eCommerce site does business of $200,000 at 2% conversion, doubling that conversion rate to 4% could bring in additional business of $200,000—without any increase in traffic.
That’s the power of conversion, especially in eCommerce.
Now, the eCommerce CRO checklist will include all the elements of the general CRO checklist we covered above—CTAs, social proof, and such. But there are some pointers that eCommerce store owners must be aware of, or ask themselves.
Let’s do this in the question and answer form—
Product discovery and presentation
1. How intuitive is your product categorization from a first-time visitor's perspective?
If your product categorization is confusing, you are leaving money on the table. Your category should be clearly labeled, with proper subcategory labeling, to help your visitors find items quickly.
2. Does your site search anticipate user intent and common misspellings?
Users can misspell when searching. Your site must be able to predict user intent with auto-suggestions and accuracy to improve search results. For instance, if a user is searching for shampoo and makes a typo— ‘shhampoo’, your site should be able to understand the context and display the product.
3. How effectively do your product images convey size, scale, and usage?
Adding single, non-optimized images can hurt your conversion rates more than you can think. Your product images must be clear, offer multiple views, and should be optimized for size, and scale.
4. Are your product videos demonstrating key benefits or just features?
A video that only speaks of benefits and not features could be rejected for being overly promotional. Product videos work best when they balance context, features, benefits, and the what and hows of the product in perfect balance.
5. How does your zoom functionality perform across different devices?
The appearance of your marketing material across devices (desktop, mobile)—whether image or video—is paramount to boost traffic and get conversion. The zoom functionality must be smooth, providing a detailed view of different products and descriptions without pixelation or lag.
Pricing and value proposition
6. Is your pricing psychology aligned with your target market?
The difference between $9.5 and $10 is not much. However, from an eCommerce POA, it can hit conversions. Why? —Human psyche. Your pricing strategy must be formulated keeping in mind your target audience and their buying behavior.
7. How transparent are your total costs throughout the buying journey?
All costs related to the product, right from purchase, to taxes and shipping must be clearly communicated to the buyer. An honest breakdown of costs can increase trust and reduce card abandonment.
8. Do your bundle offers make mathematical and logical sense?
If you are offering bundle deals, the pricing difference and savings should be clearly highlighted. Confused bundle pricing can sway away customers and hurt your conversion.
9. How do you display social proof near pricing elements?
The closer you place reviews, ratings, and social proof to the price, the greater your chance to convince and convert a visitor. Try not to place it at the bottom of your page.
10. Are your discount strategies creating urgency or skepticism?
Vague and very high discount rates can create a sense of skepticism about the product’s quality. It’s best to create discount strategies that create genuine urgency and use clear and limited offers to entice visitors.
Cart and checkout experience
11. Is your guest checkout truly frictionless?
Guest checkout must be frictionless, with minimum redirect and clear pathways, encouraging visitors to purchase without creating an account.
12. How do you handle payment failures without losing the sale?
During payment failure, you can be a differentiator by offering user-friendly trigger messages with immediate retry or alternative options to keep the sale intact.
13. Are your cart abandonment triggers personalized?
Try and personalize your card abandonment trigger messages. The content must be read soft, and persuade the user again.
14. How seamless is your mobile checkout process?
Not optimizing for mobile checkouts can be a huge mistake. Secure mobile payments, fast loading and more should be top factors you must consider when selling online through a website or eCommerce.
These are some basic questions that can help you understand where you stand from a CRO perspective and where you can start optimizing for better growth.
Let’s now quickly move to data analysis and what CRO tools you can use to scale your business.
Analytics and data tracking checklist
If the essence of CRO were to be captured in one sentence, it would be this—What can’t be measured, cannot be optimized. Data, in the same context, is the basis of your CRO strategy, no matter what industry you belong to.
But, how do you measure this data, what metrics matter, and where to even begin? Don’t worry, we have also covered analytics and data tracking checklists so you don’t have to read and look for other guides—this blog is truly your one-stop super CRO checklist.
Now first, let’s get to the data and analytics part of things—
Establish a solid measurement foundation
To move forward in your CRO journey, you need to get your basics right and establish a solid base. How to do this? Follow the following metrics—
1. Heat-mapping
Heat mapping shows areas frequented by users on a page through clicks, mouse movements, and more. You can optimize the same to ensure more conversions. For instance, if the area frequented by users has a non-reactive element, you can consider turning it interactive.
2. Comprehensive tagging
This involves placing tracking codes on the website to monitor actions like clicks, page views, and submissions. This helps you measure the performance of your site and adjust your strategy for optimization.
For instance, you can track the CTA buttons of a landing page to understand which ones are converting better.
3. Accurate traffic segmentation
Traffic segmentation is a simple categorization of different lead funnels. For instance, you can segment traffic from organic traffic, ads, and more separately to better understand which one is performing better. You can further observe the behavior of users from different channels and optimize accordingly.
4. Enhanced eCommerce tracking
Enhanced eCommerce tracking allows for tracking data beyond the basics—impressions per click, clicks, card abandonment, and more. For instance, if a product is repeatedly abandoned, the brand can take a relook and understand what needs to be optimized further.
5. Cross-device tracking
This type of tracking allows you to track transitions from mobile to desktop and vice versa (even across other devices). With such tracking, you can understand user preferences better and optimize in the same zone.
Also read: 10 best CRO experts to follow in 2024
Track the right conversion metrics
Besides tracking the CRO rates, focus on other metrics that bring value to the business like —
1. Revenue per visitor
This is the website’ earning per user visit. For instance, if a website generates $1000, for 200 visitors, its RPV is 5%. This is purely a game of traffic. Optimize for the same. Remember—conversions can happen only when there are visitors to convert.
2. Cart abandonment rate
This metric, specific to eCommerce, measures the percentage of visitors who add items to their cart but abandon it later. This could be attributed to many factors such as pricing, shopping costs, and more. Try and identify where users are dropping out of the purchase to reduce this rate.
3. Checkout abandonment rate
Checkout abandonment occurs when users drop out during the final stage of the buying process. Again more applicable to eCommerce, the checkout abandonment rate points to friction in the last stage. Sp, ensure your CAR rate is below the industry average because losing customers at this point could be more of a technical issue as the customer is already deep into your marketing funnel.
4. Customer lifetime value (CLV)
CLV estimates the amount of business a business can expect from a customer over their lifetime. A higher CLV indicates higher profitability and businesses must focus on maximizing CLV.
5. Repeat purchase rate
You can measure loyalty and the perception of your brand through repeat purchase rate—which measures the percentage of customers who have returned to purchase again. The higher your RPR, the more your convert.
6. Revenue attribution
This is a very interesting metric. Revenue attribution, as the name suggests, connects various data points to analyze which marketing funnel is bringing in the maximum ROI–paid ads, organic traffic, and such. This metric can be an excellent starting point for optimization—spending more on marketing channels that are bringing in more revenue and working on channels that aren’t.
Leverage advanced analytics techniques
Don’t just stick to the basics. Charge your CRO with advanced analytical techniques with—
1. A/B testing
If you’re running A/B tests, ensure you test variation to see which works the best. You can sign up with Fibr AI to test and create personalized landing pages, ad copy, and more. Don’t forget to track the metrics of different elements you test.
2. Predictive modeling
Employ predictive modeling, machine learning, AI, and LLMs to forecast customer churn, and probability and formulate future strategies.
3. Data visualization
Convert data, numbers, and rates into proper actionable dashboards that convey the full story of a visitor journey—From start to end.
Troubleshooting: why is your CRO going down?
Sometimes, despite the best efforts, your conversion rates could dive down. You may be ticking off all points in your CRO checklist, and yet the conversions could be slow.
Let’s explore some lesser-spoken details that can break your conversions and are beyond the obvious ‘slow website’ issue that everybody talks about!
Have you ever thought about these issues? If ‘no’ it’s time to retest and recheck these aspects of your website to ensure your hard work to convert leads does not go in vain.
The complexity of CRO has been majorly reduced, thanks to advanced tech and tools that make lead conversion slightly less stressful.
Wondering what those tools are? Continue reading.
Tools to streamline your CRO checklist
To streamline your CRO processes further, here’s a checklist of tools you can implement to track conversions and create strategies—
1. Fibr AI
Fibr AI is your ultimate marketing and CRO partner—with services like AI-CRO, landing page design, and CRO audits—you no longer have to worry about conversion rates. Fibr AI understands your business needs and tailors customized strategies to ensure consistent traffic and conversions.
Reduce your CACs and scale your business with personalized marketing. To read more, click here.
2. Google Analytics
Arguably the most important CRO tool (that most experts also would agree to), is the Google Analytics tool. It is treated as the gold standard when it comes to tracking user behavior, real-time data, segmentations, content metrics, bounce rates, and more.
3. Adobe Analytics
Adobe Analytics is another popular CRO tool, designed to help CROs with different KPIs, and metrics, predictive analysis, across different channels.
4. HubSpot
Hubspot is a must-have if you are working in any department associated with CRO. Like Fibr AI, Hubspot is an all-in-one CRO platform helping businesses connect with users and data better with A/B testing, email automation, landing page building, and much more.
5. Survey Monkey
To optimize your feedback processes, Survey Monkey is an excellent choice. You can collect feedback through surveys, forms, and more, and get insights on customer satisfaction.
6. Heap
Heap is a digital platform designed to track different CRO metrics, and customer interactions to help companies retain and grow traffic and have better conversion rates.
7. Wisepops
Businesses can use Wisepops to conduct deep A/B tests, increase average order value, track metrics like card abandonment, collect feedback through forms, and increase their reach amongst the target audience through advanced funnel marketing.
8. FullStory
FullStory is a behavioral data platform, created to track clicks and conversions through different sets of data—Demographic data, system data, transactional data, and more. It also builds AI models and offers superior personalization to win customers.
9. Instapage
Instapage lets you create personalized campaigns, landing pages, ads, and more to offer an all-in-one platform for all CRO needs. Experiment, create, and test, all without missing out on clicks!
Conclusion: Implement this CRO checklist for sustained growth
CRO is like gardening—you plant the seeds, water and watch them grow. But, don’t make the mistake of treating it as a one-time activity or deal.
CRO is an ongoing process of small wins that together make a big win.
Try to implement the above CRO checklist to further your conversions seamlessly; you can also customize it to your industry.
And, if you are looking for additional help or a partner, Fibr AI is right here to help. Say goodbye to high bounce rates and low ROIs.
With Fibr AI, perform in-depth CRO audits, analyze different funnels, A/B test your content, and create data-driven strategies, all with expert guidance.
Best part? Lower your ad spend, and time spent on mundane CRO activities, as team Fibr takes care of the same.
Don’t waste the potential of your traffic.
Get started with Fibr AI today!
To know more, visit us at —https://fibr.ai/
FAQs
1. What is a CRO checklist?
A conversion rate optimization checklist is a guide created to help brands and companies instantly view the most important elements to optimize for to increase their conversions. The guide generally can be applied to most industries and be customized per requirement.
2. What is included in CRO?
Audience analysis, content and messaging, UI/UX, design, and many such factors are included in a CRO analysis and audit.
3. What is CRO assessment?
CRO assessment is an in-depth analysis of a website’s performance on different conversion factors like CTA, speed, and more to help understand areas of improvement and bring in more conversions.
