If you feel like a total noob at conversion optimization, don’t beat yourself up. We’ve all been there, done that.

In fact, everybody in CRO feels like they don’t know what they’re doing at one time or another.

Why is this?

Because CRO is a recent invention.

Copywriting has been around for a while. Email marketing has been around for a while. SEO is an old familiar.

But conversion rate optimization? CRO is only now becoming a mainstream digital marketing method. It only became a thing in 2010, and didn’t start catching on via Moz and other digital marketing leaders until early 2014.

At the beginning of 2015, here’s what I predicted for the coming year:

We’ll see a demand in conversion optimization...It’s a unique skill set, but you’ll see a lot more people learning it over the next few years. Why? Because companies are willing to pay a lot of money to boost their conversion rates.

2015 has come and gone, and the demand for conversion rate optimization has skyrocketed. A quick glance at Google Trends shows you the sudden birth and rise of conversion rate optimization.

This brings us back to the whole point of feeling like a noob.

No conversion rate optimizer is more than five years old. But today, those who are seeking conversion rate optimizers want someone who knows what they’re doing.

If you want to impress your clients, your company, or your friends with your CRO skills, you must avoid the noob mistakes.

So, without further ado, here are the mistakes you should avoid.

1. You don’t know your target audience.

This is a particular risk for CRO consultants — those who work with a variety of businesses and industries.

The in-house CRO has an advantage. She understands the business, the personas, customer segmentation, and all the other variables that go into marketing.

The conversion rate consultant is at a disadvantage. She has to learn the business, learn the persona, learn the audience, and understand how the business is positioned within the niche.

Understanding the target audience is vastly more important than any conversion rate tip or hack you could ever come up with.

Before you touch a single split test, headline, or CTA button, do this: Get in the mind of your target customer.

Know their demographics.

Know their psychographic characteristics.

Know what type of buyer they are.

If you are not familiar with your target audience, then you won’t be able to optimize for them, and that’s a major noob mistake.

2. You don’t know how to explain conversion rate optimization.

One of the hardest things about being a conversion rate optimizer doesn’t have anything to do with conversion rate optimization at all.

It’s the soft skills that are required of you.

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You might be down with the hard skills like split testing, data analysis, and copy optimization. Good for you.

But if you can’t explain, educate, and inspire other people regarding your cause, then you’ll struggle.

According to HR analysts, success at your job depends on these soft skills.

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You need these soft skills:

• Explain what conversion optimization is. Some people, even a lot of smart people, don’t know. You’ll need to explain it to SEOs, c-level executives, copywriters, designers, and developers.
• Inspire people to take action. A conversion rate optimizer is like an orchestra conductor. He has to coordinate all these individual roles to make some music. For example, you’ll need to tell the designer to make certain changes, the developer to implement certain capabilities, and the copywriter to produce several variations, etc. The better you are at managing all these roles, the better you will be at conversion optimization.

People are going to ask you, “What do you do?” or “What is conversion rate optimization?”

To avoid stuttering like a noob, here’s what you can say:

• What do you do? I improve websites so they will turn more visitors into customers.
• What is conversion rate optimization? It’s the process of turning website visitors into customers.

You can get a little more in-depth with advanced, techy explanations. If you really want to look smart, though, keep it simple.

As one smart person wrote, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

3. You only use one method for conversion rate optimization (and it’s probably A/B testing).

I want to make two points here:

1. Split testing should be your main method for conversion rate optimization.
2. Split testing should not be your only method for conversion rate optimization.

Simple enough?

Now, let me explain.

Conversion rate optimization is more than just split testing!

Obviously, CRO doesn’t exactly exist without split testing. You should relentlessly test everything, everything, everything in order to maximize your conversion rates.

But depending on split testing alone is like depending on a vehicle’s navigation system to help you drive to your mom’s house. The navigation system doesn’t take you there. You have to start the darn car, press the pedals, and move.

So it is with split testing. You can split test the heck out of every element on your website, but unless you’re strategically implementing changes, identifying usability issues, overhauling checkout processes, segmenting customers, and analyzing your customer journey, you’ll look like a noob.

Let me make a quick point about this, though.

Split testing isn’t just a tactic or a method. It’s a process that you should implement with every optimization that you make. For example, if you introduce checkout optimization as one of your CRO methods, you should also be split testing these changes to ensure that they are indeed improving your conversion rates.

If you’re hung up on split testing alone as the cure-all of conversion rate optimization, here are some additional methods to use (and test):

• Multivariate testing
• Customer journey analysis
• CTA optimization
• Copy optimization
• Persona analysis
• Segmentation optimization
• Multiple landing page creation
• Heat map/click map analysis
• Analytics optimization
• Headline optimization
• Online surveys
• Usability testing
• Customer feedback
• Shopping cart abandonment analysis
• Checkout optimization
• Mobile conversion rate analysis and optimization
• Retargeting/remarketing optimization

Split testing is the primary method of improving conversion rates, and it should be.

However, it’s time to start identifying other areas of conversion improvement. Conversion rate optimization is like an umbrella, and there is more than split testing underneath it.

Relying on a single tactic or method is always a mistake.

Be sure to check out the list from Backlinko that explains specific CRO tactics that you can implement.

4. You focus solely on landing pages.

When CRO first broke onto the scene, it focused only on paid search landing pages.

It was a great start. Landing pages need to be optimized to the hilt in order to squeeze every last penny out of those paid searches.

As recently as April 2015, researchers found that 93% of marketers declared that increasing conversion rates was the most important objective of their landing page optimization strategy.

Keep in mind, however, that landing page optimization is only one slice of the broad field of conversion rate optimization.

Testing landing pages will get results. The more you analyze, tweak, test, and improve the pages, the more your conversion rates will rise.

If you work within a company or for a business that spends huge amounts of the marketing budget on paid search, then you should devote your time to landing page optimization.

BUT!

You should look at other things, too.

Website traffic — potential buyers — comes from a variety of sources. These potential customers come via paid search, yes, but also via social media, organic search, referring links, and email marketing.

All of these visitors need conversion rate optimization, too!

There are all kinds of things to focus on with conversion rate optimization. Look at every phase of the customer journey, and identify improvement areas.

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The broader your CRO scope, the better results you’ll get.

5. You don’t understand statistical significance.

Many CROs come from data-heavy backgrounds. You’ve got mad Google Analytics skills, can run Excel like a pro, and can crunch data with the best of them.

But some CROs aren’t quite so tuned into the fine points of data.

Both groups — the data know-it-alls and the data virgins — should know something about statistical significance.

Let me explain it without geeking out over specific numbers and chi-squared calculations.

Statistical significance is the degree of confidence you have that your split (or multivariate) test is accurate and reliable.

Using your test data, you should crunch the numbers to see if your test reaches the statistically significant threshold (usually 95-99%).

How do you crunch those numbers? You can use any number of free tools, plug in the numbers, and voila — you get your statistical significance percentage.

Beware, however. Statistical significance does not mean that your test is valid.

In addition to achieving a healthy statistical validity percentage, you should also run your test long enough to obtain sufficient conversions and understand how segmentation may alter your statistical significance.

Conclusion

If you feel like a conversion noob, it’s fine.

There is a lot to learn in conversion rate optimization. Things are always changing in the field. You’ll be learning as long as you’re practicing your trade.

There are some things, however, that you need to shore up on. By advancing beyond these newbie mistakes, you’ll be well on your way to looking like a pro.

What CRO noob mistakes do you often see?