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CRO Program : Best Practices and KPIs to Track [2024]
8 mai, par ErinDriving traffic to your website is only one part of the equation; the second part is getting those visitors to convert by completing a desired action — creating an account, signing up for a newsletter or completing a purchase.
But if you fail to optimise your website for conversions, you’ll have a hard time guiding visitors further down the funnel and turning them into customers.
That’s where a CRO program (or conversion rate optimisation) can help.
This article will cover conversion rate optimisation best practices and outline key metrics and KPIs to start tracking to see an improvement in your conversion rates.
What is a CRO program?
In the simplest terms, a CRO program — also called a CRO plan — is a digital marketing strategy. It focuses on implementing different tactics that can lead to an increase in conversion rate and maximising revenue.
One thing to remember is that the definition of “conversion” varies from business to business. The most obvious type of conversion would be a financial transaction or a completed form — but it comes down to what you consider a valuable action.
Many different actions can count as conversions, depending on your marketing goals.
Besides making a purchase, other common examples of key conversion moments include creating a new account, signing up for a free trial, booking a demo and subscribing to an email newsletter.
Another thing worth noting is that while the average conversion rate on e-commerce websites is 3.76%, it might fluctuate across different industries and device types. Case in point — desktop devices have higher conversion rates than mobile devices, clocking in at 4.79% and 3.32%, respectively.
So, in addition to defining your key conversion moments, you should also go over conversion insights relevant to your specific industry.
The importance of conversion rate optimisation
You’d be right to assume that the ultimate goal of a conversion rate optimisation process is to drive revenue through higher conversion rates — but don’t focus solely on the numbers. The core principle of a CRO program is improving the customer experience. Once you’ve achieved that, the increase in conversion rate will follow.
According to a recent report, global conversion rate optimisation (CRO) software sales are expected to reach $3.7 billion by 2032 — up from $1.1 billion in 2021.
This growth indicates the increasing interest in strategies and tools that can help optimise the conversion funnel. Businesses are looking for ways to keep potential customers engaged and improve the average conversion rate — without necessarily increasing their spending.
Here are a few reasons why a CRO program deserves a spot in your broader digital marketing strategies:
- It can lower your cost per acquisition (CPA): A CRO program is about optimising your conversion funnel by leveraging existing assets and website traffic rather than increasing your spending — which lowers the costs of acquiring new customers and, in turn, drives ROI.
- It can maximise customer lifetime value (CLV): If you can turn one-time buyers into repeat customers, you’ll be one step closer to building a loyal user base and increasing your CLV.
- It can lead to increased sales and boost your revenue: Higher conversion rates typically mean higher revenue; that’s arguably the most obvious benefit of implementing a CRO program.
- It improves the overall user experience: The goal is to make your site more accessible, easier to navigate and more engaging. Delivering the experience people want — and expect — when navigating your website is one of the core principles of a CRO program.
- It helps you to get to know your customers better: You can’t meet your customers’ needs without taking the time to know them, create user personas and understand their preferences, pain points and conversion barriers they may be facing.
Conversion optimisation gives you a competitive edge in revenue and brand reputation.
5 CRO best practices
Here are five conversion rate optimisation strategies and best practices that can make a real difference in the customer experience — and drive potential conversions.
Create a CRO roadmap in advance
First and foremost, you’ll need a well-defined “game plan” that aligns with and reflects your conversion goals.
A CRO roadmap is a detailed manual that outlines how to implement different elements of your CRO-related efforts. Marketing teams can refer to this step-by-step framework for test planning, prioritisation and resource allocation while optimising their marketing strategy.
While conversion rate optimisation can be a complex process — especially when you don’t know what to tackle first — we’ve found that there are three things you need to consider when setting the foundations of a successful CRO program:
- The “why” behind your website traffic: You’re likely using different online marketing strategies — from SEO to pay-per-click (PPC). So, it’s best to start by gathering channel-specific conversion insights through marketing attribution. Then identify which of these efforts have the biggest impact on your target audience.
- The so-called “conversion blockers” that tell you where and why visitors tend to leave without completing a desired action: Funnel analysis might reveal problematic pages — drop-off points where you tend to lose most of your visitors.
- Your “hooks”: User feedback can be of great help here; you can learn a lot by simply asking your customers to fill out a quick online survey and tell you what motivated them to take action.
Before working on that “game plan,” perform a pre-test analysis.
Matomo combines web analytics and user behaviour analytics with features like Heatmaps, Session Recordings, Form Analytics, Funnel Analytics, A/B Testing and User Flow. It can give you those initial benchmarks for measuring progress and a potential increase in conversion rate.
Validate your ideas with A/B and multivariate testing
Conversion rate optimisation is an iterative process. So, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that A/B testing variants of page layouts, CTAs, headlines, copy and other elements is a big part of it.
Multivariate and A/B testing allows you to test a wide range of elements across your site and identify what works — and, more importantly, what doesn’t — in terms of driving conversions.
On that note, Matomo’s A/B Testing feature can support your conversion rate optimisation process by identifying variants that perform better based on statistical significance.
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Get to know your website visitors
Driving conversions comes down to understanding potential customer’s pain points and needs — and delivering an experience that positions you as the solution and gets them to take action.
Here are a few things that can help you understand your website visitors better:
- Collecting customer feedback through surveys and using it to identify main areas for improvement
- Creating detailed customer personas and optimising your website design and messaging based on your target audience’s pain points, needs and wants
- Using heatmaps — colour-coded data visualisation tools that illustrate user interactions — and scroll maps to get a comprehensive overview of online sessions and identify the most engaging elements and those that stand out as potential conversion barriers
Matomo’s Heatmaps can help you identify the most-clicked elements on the page and show how far users scroll — providing powerful user insights you can use to optimise these pages.
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Get the web insights you need, without compromising data accuracy.
Remove friction points
As we previously discussed, identifying friction points and barriers to conversion — issues that prevent visitors from converting — is one of the crucial aspects of developing a CRO plan.
Many different “conversion blockers” are worth looking into, including:
- Lengthy or otherwise complex checkout processes
- No guest checkout feature
- Device type, browser and OS compatibility issues
- Slow site speed and other technical issues
- Lack of free shipping and limited payment methods
- Absence of social proof (customer reviews and testimonials) and trust badges
Once you’ve identified what’s slowing down or completely discouraging users from reaching key conversion moments, take the time to address it.
Switch to text-based CTAs
Calls-to-action (CTAs) play a crucial role in guiding customers from interest to action. However, sometimes they fail to do their job — encouraging website visitors to proceed to the next step — effectively.
The most obvious reason is that your CTAs aren’t visually engaging or clear enough. In that case, you can try using action-oriented language and stronger visual elements and aligning the CTA copy with the context of the page.
But more often than not, the issue comes down to a phenomenon called “banner blindness” — the tendency of website visitors to ignore (either intentionally or unintentionally) elements on a page that resemble banner ads.
And if that’s what’s preventing visitors from converting, consider switching to text-based CTAs.
Conversion rate optimisation metrics and KPIs
At this point, you should know the outcomes you hope to achieve. Your next step should be to figure out how you’re going to measure and analyse results — and identify the changes that made the most impact on your conversion funnel.
After all, your CRO action plan should be based on data — assumptions and “gut feelings” will rarely lead to a notable increase in conversion rates.
That brings us to key performance indicators (KPIs):
Tracking CRO metrics and website KPIs can help you understand the customer’s journey and path to purchase, identify opportunities for improving the user experience (UX) and determine how to optimise conversions.
That said, you shouldn’t try to track every metric in the book; think about your ultimate goal and identify the metrics and KPIs most relevant to your business.
We’ll assume that you’re already tracking macro- and micro-conversions. However, we’ve outlined a few additional key conversion rate optimisation metrics you should keep an eye on to make sure that your CRO program is performing as intended:
- Cost-per-conversion: By measuring how much you spend on each successful conversion — again, completed forms, sign-ups and sales all count as key conversion moments — you’ll be in a better position to assess the cost-effectiveness of your online marketing strategies.
- Starter rate: This metric tells you the number of people who start filling out the form, after seeing it. This metric is particularly important for companies that rely on getting leads from forms.
- Average order value (AOV): This metric is important for e-commerce sites to understand the value of their transactions. AOV calculates the average monetary value of each order.
That’s not all; you can also use a web analytics tool like Matomo to gain granular insights into visitors:
- Unique, new and returning visitors: Tracking the number of new and returning visitors your website gets within a given timeframe will help you understand your user base and determine if your content resonates with them. While you want a constant stream of new traffic, don’t overlook the importance of returning visitors; they’re the foundation of a loyal customer base.
- User flows: By analysing the user flows, you’ll have a visual representation of how visitors use your website, which will help you understand their journey and the specific path they take.
- Bounce rate: This metric tells you how many users viewed a single page on your site and ended up leaving before they took any kind of action. As such, it’s a clear indicator of how good your content, CTAs and website layout are at keeping users engaged.
- Exit rate: Another key metric to track is the exit rate — the percentage of users who drop off at a specific page. High-exit pages usually lack important information and CTAs, cause frustration or otherwise fail to meet users’ expectations. Keep in mind that there’s a difference between bounce rate and exit rate — the latter involves users who viewed at least one other page.
There are many other user engagement metrics you should keep an eye on in addition to the ones mentioned above — including time on-page, actions per visit, scroll depth and traffic source. You’ll find all this information — and more — in Matomo’s Page Analytics Report.
Conclusion
Implementing a CRO program can be a time-consuming and iterative process. However, it’s vital for guiding your marketing efforts and making data-driven decisions that’ll ultimately help you drive growth and reach your business goals.
It’s best to start by identifying where your website visitors come from and what contributes to — or prevents them from — taking further action. But that’s easier said than done. You’ll need to leverage web analytics tools like Matomo to gather powerful user insights and monitor your website’s performance.
As an all-in-one, privacy-friendly web analytics solution, Matomo combines traditional web analytics and advanced behavioural analytics — delivering a consistent experience based on 100% accurate, unsampled data.
Join the 1 million websites that have chosen Matomo as their web analytics platform. Start your 21-day free trial today — and see how Matomo can help you improve your website’s conversion rates. No credit card required.
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How (and Why) to Run a Web Accessibility Audit in 2024
7 mai, par ErinWhen most businesses design their websites, they primarily think about aesthetics, not accessibility. However, not everyone who visits your website has the same abilities or access needs. Eight percent of the US population has visual impairments.
The last thing you want is to alienate website visitors with a bad experience because your site isn’t up to accessibility standards. (And with growing international regulation, risk fines or lawsuits as a result.)
A web accessibility audit can help you identify and fix any issues for users with impaired vision, hearing or other physical disabilities. In this article, we’ll cover how to conduct such an audit efficiently for your website in 2024.
What is a web accessibility audit?
A web accessibility audit is a way to evaluate the usability of your website for users with visual, auditory or physical impairments, as well as cognitive disabilities or neurological issues. The goal is to figure out how accessible your website is to each of these affected groups and solve any issues that come up.
To complete an audit, you use digital tools and various manual accessibility testing processes to ensure your site meets modern web accessibility standards.
Why is a web accessibility audit a must in 2024?
For far too long, many businesses have not considered the experiences of those with disabilities. The growing frustrations of affected internet users have led to a new focus on web accessibility laws and enforcement.
Lawsuits related to the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) reached all-time highs in 2023 — over 4,500 digital-related lawsuits were filed. The EU has also drawn up the European Accessibility Act (EAC), which goes into effect in June 2025.
But at the end of the day, it’s not about accessibility legislation. It’s about doing right by people.
This video by voice actor, YouTuber, and surfer Pete Gustin demonstrates why accessibility measures are so important. If buttons, navigation and content sections aren’t properly labelled, sight-impaired people who rely on speech-to-text to browse the web can’t comfortably interact with your site.
And you’re worse off for it. You can lose some of your best customers and advocates this way.
With stronger enforcement of accessibility regulations in the US and new regulations coming into effect in the EU in 2025, the time to act is now. It’s not enough to “keep accessibility in mind” — you must take concrete steps to improve it.
Who should lead a web accessibility audit?
Ideally, you want to hire a third-party web accessibility expert to lead the audit. They can guide you through multiple stages of manual accessibility testing to ensure your site meets regulations and user needs.
Experienced accessibility auditors are familiar with common pitfalls and can help you avoid them. They ensure you meet the legal requirements with proper solutions, not quick fixes.
If this isn’t an option, find someone with relevant experience within your company. And involve someone with “skin in the game” in the process. Hire someone with visual impairments to usability test your site. Don’t just do automated tests or “put yourself in their shoes.” Make sure the affected users can use your site without issues.
Automated vs. manual audits and the danger of shortcuts
While there are automated audits, they only check for the bare minimum:
- Do your images have alt tags? (They don’t check if the alt tag is descriptive or just SEO junk text.)
- Are clickable buttons identified with text for visually impaired users?
- Is your text size adjustable?
- Are your background and foreground colours accessible for colour-blind users? Is there a sufficient contrast ratio?
They don’t dive into the user journey (and typically can’t access login-locked parts of your site). They can be a good starting point, but it’s a bad idea to rely completely on automated audits.
They’ll miss more complex issues like:
- Dynamic content and animated elements or videos that could put people with epilepsy at risk of seizures
- A navigational flow that is unnecessarily challenging for users with impairments
- Video elements without proper captions
So, don’t rely too much on automated tests and audits. Many lawsuits for ADA infractions are against companies that think they’ve already solved the problem. For example, 30% of 2023 lawsuits were against sites that used accessibility overlays.
Key elements of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)
The international standard for web accessibility is the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). In the most recent version, WCAG 2.2, there are new requirements for visual elements and focus and other updates.
Here’s a quick overview of the key priorities of WCAG:
Perceivable: Any user can read or listen to your site’s content
The first priority is for any user to be able to perceive the actual content on your site. To be compliant, you need to make these adjustments and more:
- Use text that scales with browser settings.
- Avoid relying on colour contrasts to communicate something.
- Ensure visual elements are explained in text.
- Offer audio alternatives for things like CAPTCHA.
- Form fields and interactive elements are properly named.
Operable: Any user can navigate the site and complete tasks without issue
The second priority is for users to navigate your website and complete tasks. Here are some of the main considerations for this section:
- Navigation is possible through keyboard and text-to-speech interfaces.
- You offer navigation tools to bypass repeated blocks of content.
- Buttons are properly titled and named.
- You give impaired users enough time to finish processes without timing out.
- You allow users to turn off unnecessary animations (and ensure none include three flashes or more within one second).
- Links have a clear purpose from their alt text (and context).
Understandable: Any user can read and understand the content
The third priority is making the content understandable. You need to communicate as simply and as clearly as possible. Here are a few key points:
- Software can determine the default language of each page.
- You use a consistent method to explain jargon or difficult terms.
- You introduce the meaning of unfamiliar abbreviations and acronyms.
- You offer tools to help users double-check and correct input.
- The reading grade is not higher than grade 9. If it is, you must offer an alternative text with a lower grade.
- Use consistent and predictable formatting and navigation.
This intro to accessibility guidelines should help you see the wide range of potential accessibility issues. Accessibility is not just about screen readers — it’s about ensuring a good user experience for users with a wide range of disabilities.
Note: If you’re not hiring a third-party expert for the manual accessibility audit, this introduction isn’t enough. You need to familiarise yourself with all 50 success criteria in WCAG 2.2.
How to do your first web accessibility audit
Ready to find and fix the accessibility issues across your website? Follow the steps outlined below to do a successful accessibility audit.
Start with an automated accessibility test
To point you in the right direction, start with a digital accessibility checker. There are many free alternatives, including:
- Accessibility Checker
- Silktide accessibility checker
- AAArdvark
When choosing a tool, check it’s up-to-date with the newest accessibility guidelines. Many accessibility evaluation tools are still based on the WCAG 2.1 version rather than WCAG 2.2.
The tool will give you a basic evaluation of the accessibility level of your site. A free report can quickly identify common issues with navigation, labelling, colour choices and more.
But this is only good as a starting point. Remember that even paid versions of these testing tools are limited and cannot replace a manual audit.
Look for common issues
The next step is to manually look for common issues that impact your site’s level of accessibility:
- Undescriptive alt text
- Colour combinations (and lack of ability to change background and foreground colours)
- Unscalable text
- Different site content sections that are not properly labelled
The software you use to create your site can lead to many of these issues. Is your content management system (CMS) compliant with ADA or WCAG? If not, you may want to move to a CMS before continuing the audit.
Pinpoint customer journeys and test them for accessibility
After you’ve fixed common issues, it’s essential to put the actual customer journey to the test. Explore your most important journeys with behavioural analytics tools like session recordings and funnel analysis.
Analysing funnel reports lets you quickly identify each page that usually contributes to a sale. You will also have an overview of the most popular funnels to evaluate for accessibility.
If your current web analytics platform doesn’t offer behavioural reports like these, Matomo can help. Our privacy-friendly web analytics solution includes funnel reports, session recordings, A/B testing, form analytics, heatmaps and more.
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Get the web insights you need, without compromising data accuracy.
If you don’t have the budget to test every page individually, this is the perfect place to start. You want to ensure that users with disabilities have no issues completing the main tasks on your site.
Don’t focus solely on your web pages
Accessibility barriers can also exist outside of your standard web pages. So ensure that other file formats like PDFs and videos are also accessible.
Remember that downloadable materials are also part of your digital experience. Always consider the needs of individuals with disabilities when accessing things like case studies or video tutorials.
Highlight high-priority issues in a detailed report
To complete the audit, you need to summarise and highlight high-priority issues. In a larger company, this will be in the form of a report. W3’s Web Accessibility Initiative offers a free accessibility report template and an online tool to generate a report.
For smaller teams, it may make sense to input issues directly into the product backlog or a task list. Then, you can tackle the issues, starting with high-priority pages identified earlier in this process.
Avoid quick fixes and focus on sustainable improvement
As mentioned, AI-powered overlay solutions aren’t compliant and put you at risk for lawsuits. It’s not enough to install a quick accessibility tool and pat yourself on the back.
And it’s not just about accessibility compliance. These solutions provide a disjointed experience that alienates potential users.
The point of a digital accessibility audit is to identify issues and provide a better experience to all your users. So don’t try to cut corners. Do the work required to implement solutions that work seamlessly for everyone. Invest in a long-term accessibility remediation process.
Deliver a frictionless experience while gaining insight into your users
An accessibility audit is crucial to ensure an inclusive experience — that a wide variety of users can read and interact with your site.
But what about the basic usability of your website? Are you sure the experience is without friction? Matomo’s behavioural analytics tools can show how users interact with your website.
For example, heatmaps can show you where users are clicking — which can help you identify a pattern, like many users mistaking a visual element for a button.
Plus, our privacy-friendly web analytics are compliant with GDPR, CCPA and other data privacy regulations. That helps protect you against privacy-related lawsuits, just as an accessibility audit protects you against ADA lawsuits.
And it never hurts that your users know you respect their privacy. Try Matomo free for 21-days. No credit card required.
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Accessibility Testing : Why It Matters and How to Get Started
7 mai, par ErinNearly 96% of website homepages had failures with meeting web accessibility criteria in 2024. Aside from not complying with web accessibility laws and regulations, companies are failing a growing number of users with accessibility needs.
With disabilities, chronic illnesses and ageing populations all rising, brands need to take accessibility more seriously.
In this article, we explain why accessibility testing is so important and how you can get started today.
What is accessibility testing?
Accessibility testing optimises digital experiences to make them accessible for users with a range of disabilities and impairments. This includes users with vision impairments, hearing loss, neurodivergence, motor disabilities and cognitive conditions.
The goal is to create inclusive experiences for everyone by implementing UX principles that address the usability needs of diverse audiences.
To help developers create accessible experiences, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) created the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). The international WCAG standards define the Four Principles of Accessibility:
- Perceivable: Information and user interface components must be presentable to users in ways they perceive.
- Operable: User interface components and navigation must be operable.
- Understandable: Information and the operation of user interfaces must be understandable.
- Robust: Content must be robust enough to be interpreted reliably by various user agents, including assistive technologies.
The current version of WCAG (2.2) contains 86 success criteria with three grades representing conformance levels:
- Level A is the minimum conformance rating, indicating that web content is accessible to most users.
- Level AA is the recommended conformance level to make content accessible to almost everyone, including users with severe disabilities.
- Level AAA is the highest conformance rating, making content accessible to everyone, regardless of disability.
Why is accessibility testing important?
With record numbers of lawsuits over online accessibility cases, it’s clear that companies underestimate the importance of accessibility testing. Here are seven key reasons you should pay more attention to it:
- Create inclusive experiences: Above all, accessibility testing creates inclusive experiences for all users.
- Adhere to accessibility regulations: Accessibility laws in most major markets — including the EU web accessibility policy — make it illegal for companies to discriminate against users with disabilities.
- Social responsibility: Companies have an ethical responsibility to cater to all users and consumers. 57% say they’re more loyal to brands that commit to addressing social inequities.
- Accessibility needs are growing: 16% of the world’s population (1 in 6) experience significant disability and the number will continue to grow as ageing populations rise.
- Improve experiences for everyone: Accessibility improves experiences for all users — for example, 80% of UK viewers aged 18-25 (2021) watch content with subtitles enabled.
- Maximise marketing reach: Platforms like Google prioritise accessibility yearly, making accessible content and experiences more visible.
- Accessibility is profitable: Inclusive companies earn 1.6x more revenue, 2.6x more net income and 2x more profit, according to Accenture (PDF).
Who needs inclusive UX?
Accessibility testing starts with understanding the usability needs of audiences with disabilities and impairments. Here’s a quick summary of the most common impairments and some of the needs they have in common:
- Visual impairments: Users may rely on screen readers, magnification software, braille displays, etc. or require certain levels of contrast, text sizes and colour combinations to aid visibility.
- Hearing impairments: Users may rely on closed captions and subtitles for video content, transcripts for multimedia content and visual alerts/notifications for updates.
- Motor or mobility impairments: Users might rely on adaptive keyboards, voice recognition and other assistive devices.
- Cognitive and neurological impairments: Users may rely on technologies like text-to-speech software or require simplified user interfaces, contrast designs, etc., to aid comprehension.
- Speech impairments: Users may rely on speech recognition and dictation software for any interaction that requires them to speak (e.g., automated customer service machines).
While accessibility tools can alleviate certain accessibility challenges, inclusive design can remove much of the burden from users. This can involve using plenty of contrast, careful font selection, increasing whitespace and plenty of other design choices.
Refer to the latest version of the WCAG for further guidance.
How to run accessibility testing
Now that we’ve emphasised the importance of accessibility, let’s explain how you can implement your own accessibility testing strategy.
Create your accessibility testing plan
Careful planning is crucial for making accessibility testing affordable and profitable. This starts with identifying the assets you need to test and optimise. This may include:
- Website or web app
- Mobile app
- Videos
- Podcasts and audio
- PDFs
- Marketing emails
Map out all the assets your target audience interacts with and bring them into your accessibility testing plan. Optimising your website for screen readers is great, but you don’t want to forget your marketing emails and exclude vision-impaired users.
Once you’ve got a complete list of assets, identify the elements and interactions with each one that require accessibility testing. For example, on your website, you should optimise navigation, user interfaces, layouts, web forms, etc.
You also need to consider the impact of device types. For example, how touchscreens change the experience for motor impairments.
Now that you know the scope of your testing strategy, it’s time to define your accessibility standards. Use external frameworks like WCAG guidelines and relevant legal requirements to create an internal set of standards.
Once your accessibility standards are complete, train your staff at every level. This includes designers, developers, and content creators — everyone who works on assets is included in your accessibility testing strategy.
Implement your accessibility standards throughout the design and development phases. Aim to create the most inclusive experiences possible before the accessibility testing stage.
Implement accessibility practices at every level
Treating accessibility as an afterthought is the biggest mistake you can make. Aside from neglecting the importance of accessibility, it’s simply not affordable to create assets and then optimise them for accessibility.
Instead, you need to implement accessibility standards in every design and development stage. This way, you create inclusive assets from the beginning, and accessibility testing flags minor fixes rather than overhauls.
By extension, you can take lessons from accessibility tests and update your accessibility standards to improve the quality of future assets.
Set clear specifications in your accessibility standards for everyone to follow. For example, content publishers should be responsible for adding alt-text to all images. Make designers responsible for following contrast guidelines when optimising elements like CTA buttons.
Next, managers can review assets and check for accessibility standards before anything is signed off. This way, you achieve higher test accessibility scores, and most fixes should be minor.
This is the key to making accessibility testing manageable and profitable.
Automate accessibility testing
Automation is the other big factor in making accessibility efficient. With the right tools, you can run tests periodically without any manual workload, collecting data and flagging potential issues at almost no cost.
For example, you can run automated accessibility tests on your website every month to check for common issues. This might flag up pages without alt-text for images, colour issues on a new batch of landing pages or a sudden drop in mobile loading times.
Every automated test you can run reduces the manual workload of optimising accessibility. This frees up more time for the manual tests that require the attention of accessibility experts.
- Free up time for accessibility tasks that require manual testing
- Identify issues with new content, assets, code, etc. faster
- Run automated accessibility testing on new CRO changes
Schedule manual accessibility reviews
While it’s important to automate as much accessibility testing as possible, most accessibility standards require some form of manual testing. If we use the WCAG standards as a guideline, more than 70% of success require manual review and verification, including:
- Testing websites with a screen reader
- Navigating apps by only using a keyword
- Quality assessing closed captions and subtitles
- Testing web forms for people using speech input
- Checking conversion actions for users with mobility issues (CTAs, forms, payments, etc.)
Yes, you can automatically check all images for alt-text, but simply providing alt-text isn’t enough. You also have to review alt-text to make sure they’re descriptive, accurate and informative about the experience.
Once again, the best way to minimise your time spent on manual testing is to implement accessibility standards throughout design and development. Train your content publishers to create alt-text that meets your criteria and editors to review them before pieces are signed off.
This way, you should always have the required alt-text before the content reaches the accessibility testing stage. The same applies to video transcriptions, web forms, website navigation, etc.
Building a culture of accessibility makes the testing process as efficient as possible.
What tools do you need for accessibility testing?
Now that we’ve covered the key essentials of accessibility testing, let’s look at some of the best accessibility testing tools to help you implement your strategy.
accessiBe: AI-powered accessibility testing automation
accessiBe is an accessibility testing automation and management system. It incorporates two core products: accessWidget for automating UI accessibility and accessFlow as an all-in-one solution for developers.
Key features:
- Automated accessibility testing
- Accessibility widget for easy optimisation
- Product accessibility for web, mobile and native apps
- AI-powered accessibility insights
- Compliance with WCAG, EAA and more
As explained earlier, automation is crucial for making accessibility testing efficient and profitable. With accessiBe, you can automate the first line of accessibility checks so testers only need to get involved when manual action is necessary.
Maze: Intelligent usability testing software
Maze is a usability testing system that uses AI and automation to enhance traditional qualitative testing. You can run automated tests on live websites, capture survey feedback and recruit users to test experiences with real people.
Key features:
- Live website testing
- Feedback surveys
- Usability interviews
- Test recruitment
- Automated analysis
While traditional usability interviews can provide in-depth insights, they’re expensive, time-consuming and difficult to run at scale. Maze’s solution is a hybrid testing system that automates data capture and analysis while supporting real user testing in one system.
Matomo: Empowering people with ethical web analytics
Matomo is a web analytics solution that gives you 100% data ownership while respecting user privacy. Think of this as a Google Analytics alternative that doesn’t use your visitors’ data for advertising purposes.
Key features:
- Privacy-friendly and GDPR-compliant tracking
- Conversion rate optimisation features like heatmaps, session recordings, A/B testing and more
- Accurate, unsampled data – see 40-60% more data than other analytics tools that sample data
- Open-source
Accessibility starts with creating quality experiences for everyone. Matomo reliably captures 100% of the data you need to optimise experiences without losing their trust. Instead of handing their personal info to Google or other tech giants, you retain full data ownership — fully compliant with GDPR, CCPA, etc.
Try Matomo free for 21-days (no credit card required), or speak to our sales team for more info on how Matomo can enhance your site’s user experience and support your accessibility testing strategy.
Try Matomo for Free
Get the web insights you need, without compromising data accuracy.
UserTesting: Video-based user testing software
UserTesting is the more traditional system for running usability tests with real people. The platform helps you recruit users and manage usability tests with a series of sessions and video interviews.
Key features:
- Usability testing
- Test recruitment
- Live interviews
- AI-powered insights
- Usability services
UserTesting is a slower, more expensive approach to testing experiences, but its video-based interviews allow you to have meaningful conversations with real users.
Siteimprove: WCAG compliance testing
Siteimprove automates website testing, accessibility and optimisation. It includes dedicated tools for checking WCAG and DCI compliance with an automated scoring system. This helps you keep track of scores and identify any accessibility and usability issues faster.
Key features:
- Automated accessibility checks
- Inclusivity scores
- Accessibility recommendations
- Accessibility tracking
- Marketing and revenue attribution
- Usability insights
Siteimprove provides a first line of accessibility testing with automated checks and practical recommendations. It also tracks accessibility scores, including ratings for all three WCAG compliance levels (A, AA and AAA).
Find the value in accessibility testing
Accessibility testing isn’t only a moral obligation; it’s good business. Aside from avoiding fines and lawsuits, inclusive experiences are increasingly profitable. User bases with accessibility needs are only growing while non-disabled audiences are using accessibility resources like subtitles and transcripts in greater numbers.
Accessibility improves everyone’s experiences, and this only does good things for conversion rates, revenue and profit.
Start building your datasets for accessibility testing today with a Matomo 21-day free trial — no credit card required. Gain 100% ownership over your analytics data while complying with GDPR and other data privacy regulations.
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21 day free trial. No credit card required.
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Consent Mode v2 : Everything You Need to Know
7 mai, par Alex — Analytics TipsConfused about Consent Mode v2 and its impact on your website analytics? You’re not the only one.
Google’s latest update has left many scratching their heads about data privacy and tracking.
In this blog, we’re getting straight to the point. We’ll break down what Consent Mode v2 is, how it works, and the impact it has.
What is Consent Mode?
What exaclty is Google Consent Mode and why is there so much buzz surrounding it? This question has been frustrating analysts and marketers worldwide since the beginning of this year.
Consent Mode is the solution from Google designed to manage data collection on websites in accordance with user privacy requirements.
This mode enables website owners to customise how Google tags respond to users’ consent status for cookie usage. At its core, Consent Mode adheres to privacy regulations such as GDPR in Europe and CCPA in California, without significant loss of analytical data.
How does Consent Mode work?
Consent Mode operates by adjusting the behaviour of tags on a website depending on whether consent for cookie usage is provided or not. If a user does not consent to the use of analytical or advertising cookies, Google tags automatically switch to collecting a limited amount of data, ensuring privacy compliance.
This approach allows for continued valuable insights into website traffic and user behavior, even if users opt out of most tracking cookies.
What types of consent are available in Consent Mode?
As of 6 March 2024, Consent Mode v2 has become the current standard (and in terms of utilising Google Advertising Services, practically mandatory), indicating the incorporation of four consent types:
- ad_storage: allows for the collection and storage of data necessary for delivering personalised ads based on user actions.
- ad_user_data: pertains to the collection and usage of data that can be associated with the user for ad customisation and optimisation.
- ad_personalization: permits the use of user data for ad personalisation and providing more relevant content.
- analytics_storage: relates to the collection and storage of data for analytics, enabling websites to analyse user behaviour and enhance user experience.
Additionally, in Consent Mode v2, there are two modes:
- Basic Consent Mode: in which Google tags are not used for personalised advertising and measurements if consent is not obtained.
- Advanced Consent Mode: allows Google tags to utilise anonymised data for personalised advertising campaigns and measurements, even if consent is not obtained.
What is Consent Mode v2? (And how does it differ from Consent Mode v1?)
Consent Mode v2 is an improved version of the original Consent Mode, offering enhanced customisation capabilities and better compliance with privacy requirements.
The new version introduces additional consent configuration parameters, allowing for even more precise control over which data is collected and how it’s used. The key difference between Consent Mode v2 and Consent Mode v1 lies in more granular consent management, making this tool even more flexible and powerful in safeguarding personal data.
In Consent Mode v2, the existing markers (ad_storage and analytics_storage) are accompanied by two new markers:
- ad_user_data – does the user agree to their personal data being utilized for advertising purposes?
- ad_personalization – does the user agree to their data being employed for remarketing?
In contrast to ad_storage and analytics_storage, these markers don’t directly affect how the tags operate on the site itself.
They serve as additional directives sent alongside the pings to Google services, indicating how user data can be utilised for advertising purposes.
While ad_storage and analytics_storage serve as upstream qualifiers for data (determining which identifiers are sent with the pings), ad_user_data and ad_personalization serve as downstream instructions for Google services regarding data processing.
How is the implementation of Consent Mode v2 going?
The implementation of Consent Mode v2 is encountering some issues and bugs (as expected). The most important thing to understand:
- Advanced Consent Mode v2 is essential if you have traffic and campaigns with Google Ads in the European Union.
- If you don’t have substantially large traffic, enabling Advanced Consent Mode v2 will likely result in a traffic drop in GA4 – because this version of consent mode (unlike the basic one) applies behavioural modelling to users who haven’t accepted the use of cookies. And modelling the behaviour requires time.
The aspect of behavioural modelling in Consent Mode v2 implies the following: the data of users who have declined tracking options begin to be modelled using machine learning.
However, training the model requires a suitable data volume. As the Google’s documentation states:
The property should collect at least 1,000 events per day with analytics_storage=’denied’ for at least 7 days. The property should have at least 1,000 daily users submitting events with analytics_storage=’granted’ for at least 7 of the previous 28 days.
Largely due to this, the market’s response to the Consent Mode v2 implementation was mixed: many reported a significant drop in traffic in their GA4 and Google Ads reports upon enabling the Advanced mode. Essentially, a portion of the data was lost because Google’s models lacked enough data for training.
And from the very beginning of implementation, users regularly report about a few examples of that scenario. If your website doesn’t have enough traffic for behaviour modelling, after Consent Mode v2 switching you will face significant drop in your traffic in Google Ads and GA4 reports. There are a lot of cases of observing 90-95% drop in metrics of users and sessions.
In a nutshell, you should be prepared for significant data losses if you are planning to switch to Google Consent Mode v2.
How does Consent Mode v2 impact web analytics?
The transition to Consent Mode v2 alters the methods of user data collection and processing. The main concerns arise from the potential loss of accuracy and completeness of analytical data due to restrictions on the use of cookies and other identifiers when user consent is absent.
With Google Consent Mode v2, the data of visitors who have not agreed to tracking will be modelled and may not accurately reflect your actual visitors’ behaviours and actions. So as an analyst or marketer, you will not have true insights into these visitors and the data acquired will be more generalised and less accurate.
Google Consent Mode v2 appears to be a kind of compromise band-aid solution.
It tries to solve these issues by using data modelling and anonymised data collection. However, it’s critical to note that there are specific limitations inherent to the modelling mechanism.
This complicates the analysis of visitor behavior, advertising campaigns, and website optimisation, ultimately impacting decision-making and resulting in poor website performance and marketing outcomes.
Wrap up
Consent Mode v2 is a mechanism of managing Google tag operations based on user consent settings.
It’s mandatory if you’re using Google’s advertising services, and optional (at least for Advanced mode) if you don’t advertise on Google Ads.
There are particular indications that this technology is unreliable from a GDPR perspective.
Using Google Consent Mode will inevitably lead to data losses and inaccuracies in its analysis.
In other words, it in some sense jeopardises your business.
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What Is Ethical SEO & Why Does It Matter ?
7 mai, par ErinDo you want to generate more revenue?
Then, you need to ensure you have a steady stream of traffic flowing to your site.
Search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo are powerful mediums you can use to scale your business.
Search engine optimisation (SEO) is the process of creating search engine-friendly content to draw in traffic to your website. But, if you aren’t careful, you could be crossing the line of ethical SEO into unethical SEO.
In this article, we break down what ethical SEO is, why it’s important in business and how you can implement effective SEO into your business while remaining ethical.
Let’s begin.
What is ethical SEO?
Since the early days of the internet and search engines, business owners and marketers have tried using all kinds of SEO tactics to rank atop the search engines for relevant keywords.
The problem?
Some of these practices are ethical, while others aren’t.
What exactly is ethical SEO?
It’s the practice of optimising your website’s rankings in search engines by following search engine guidelines and prioritising user experience.
Ethical SEO is also referred to as “white hat SEO.”
On the other hand, businesses that break search engine rules and guidelines to “hack” their way to the top with faulty and questionable practices use unethical SEO, or “black hat SEO.”
Ethical SEO aims to achieve higher rankings in search engines through sustainable, legitimate and fair methods.
Black hat, or unethical SEO, aims to manipulate or “game” the system with deceptive strategies to bypass the search engine’s guidelines to rank higher.
The two core branches of ethical SEO include:
- Strategies that align with search engine guidelines.
- Accessibility to broad audiences.
Some examples of ethical SEO principles include:
- Natural link building
- Compliance with search engine guidelines
- Establishing great user experiences
- Creating reader-focused content
By sticking to the right guidelines and implementing proper SEO practices, businesses can establish ethical SEO to generate more traffic and grow their brands.
8 ethical SEO practices to implement
If you want to grow your organic search traffic, then there’s no doubt you’ll need to have some SEO knowledge.
While there are dozens of ways to “game” SEO, it’s best to stick to proven, ethical SEO techniques to improve your rankings.
Stick to these best practices to increase your rankings in the search engine results pages (SERPs), increase organic traffic and improve your website conversions.
1. Crafting high-quality content
The most important piece of any ethical SEO strategy is content.
Forget about rankings, keywords and links for a second.
Step back and think about why people go to Google, Bing and Yahoo in the first place.
They’re there looking for information. They have a question they need answered. That’s where you can come in and give them the answer they want.
How? In the form of content.
The best long-term ethical SEO strategy is to create the highest-quality content possible. Crafting high-quality content should be where you focus 90% of your SEO efforts.
2. Following search engine guidelines
Once you’ve got a solid content creation strategy, where you’re producing in-depth, quality content, you need to ensure you’re following the guidelines and rules put in place by the major search engines.
This means you need to stay compliant with the best practices and guidelines laid out by the top search engines.
If you fail to follow these rules, you could be penalised, your content could be downgraded or removed from search engines, and you could even have your entire website flagged, impacting your entire organic search traffic from your site.
You need to ensure you align with the guidelines so you’re set up for long-term success with your SEO.
3. Conducting keyword research and optimisation
Now that we’ve covered content and guidelines, let’s talk about the technical stuff, starting with keywords.
In the early days of SEO (late 90s), just about anyone could rank a web page high by stuffing keywords all over the page.
While those black hat techniques used to work to “game” the system, it doesn’t work like that anymore. Google and other major search engines have much more advanced algorithms that can detect keyword stuffing and manipulation.
Keywords are still a major part of a successful SEO strategy. You can ethically incorporate keywords into your content (and you should) if you want to rank higher.
Your main goal with your content is to match it with the search intent. So, incorporating keywords should come naturally throughout your content. If you try to stuff in unnecessary keywords or use spammy techniques, you may not even rank at all and could harm your website’s rankings.
4. Incorporating natural link building
After you’ve covered content and keywords, it’s time to dive into links. Backlinks are any links that point back to your website from another website.
These are a crucial part of the SEO pie. Without them, it’s hard to rank high on Google. They work well because they tell Google your web page or website has authority on a subject matter.
But you could be penalised if you try to manipulate backlinks by purchasing them or spamming them from other websites.
Instead, you should aim to draw in natural backlinks by creating content that attracts them.
How? There are several options:
- Content marketing
- Email outreach
- Brand mentions
- Public relations
- Ethical guest posting
Get involved in other people’s communities. Get on podcasts. Write guest posts. Connect with other brands. Provide value in your niche and create content worth linking to.
5. Respecting the intellectual property of other brands
Content creation is moving at lightspeed in the creator economy and social media era. For better or for worse, content is going viral every day. People share content, place their spin on it, revise it, optimise it, and spread it around the internet.
Unfortunately, this means the content is sometimes shared without the owner’s permission. Content is one form of intellectual property (IP).
If you share copyrighted material, you could face legal consequences.
6. Ensuring transparency
Transparency is one of the pillars of ethical marketing.
If you’re running the SEO in your company or an agency, you should always explain the SEO strategies and tactics you’re implementing to your stakeholders.
It’s best to lean on transparency and honesty to ensure your team knows you’re running operations ethically.
7. Implementing a great user experience
The final pillar of ethical SEO practices is offering a great user experience on your website.
Major search engines like Google are favouring user experience more and more every year. This means knowing how to track and analyse website metrics like page load times, time on page, pageviews, media plays and event tracking.
8. Use an ethical web analytics solution
Last but certainly not least. Tracking your website visitors ethically is key to maintaining SEO ethics.
You can do this by using an ethical web analytics solution like Matomo, Plausible or Fathom. All three are committed to respecting user privacy and offer ethical tracking of visitors.
We’re a bit biassed towards Matomo, of course, but for good reasons.
Matomo offers accurate, unsampled data along with advanced features like heatmaps, session recording, and A/B testing. These features enhance user experience and support ethical SEO practices by providing insights into user behaviour, helping optimise content.
Try Matomo for Free
Get the web insights you need, without compromising data accuracy.
6 unethical SEO practices to avoid
Now that we’ve covered the ethical SEO best practices let’s talk about what kind of unethical SEO practices you want to avoid.
Remember, SEO isn’t as easy to manipulate as it once was 20 years ago.
Algorithms are much more sophisticated now, and search engines are getting better at detecting fraudulent, scammy or unethical SEO practices every year.
Avoid these eight unethical SEO practices to ensure you can rank high in the long term:
1. Keyword stuffing
Keyword stuffing is probably the most common unethical SEO practice. This is where someone deliberately stuffs keywords onto a page to manipulate the search engines to rank a web page higher.
Where this is unethical isn’t always easy to detect, but in some cases, it is. It comes down to whether it’s relevant and natural or intentionally stuffing.
2. Cloaking
Cloaking is another unethical SEO practice where someone manipulates the information search engines see on their website.
For example, someone may show search engines one web page on their website, but when someone clicks on it in Google, they can direct someone to a completely different page. They do this by detecting the incoming request from the user agent and presenting different content.
3. Deceiving functionality
Another way companies are unethically implementing SEO tactics is by deceiving people with misleading information. For example, a website may claim to provide a free resource or directory but may intentionally lead visitors to paid products.
4. Fraudulent redirects
Another way to deceive or mislead searchers is by creating fraudulent redirects. A redirect is a way to take someone to a different web page when they click on another one. Redirects can be useful if a page is broken or outdated. However, they can be used to deceptively take someone to a website they didn’t intend to view.
5. Negative SEO
Negative SEO is the intentional attempt to harm a competitor’s search engine rankings through unethical tactics.
These tactics include duplicating their content or generating spammy links by creating low quality or irrelevant backlinks to their site.
6. Hidden text
Placing hidden text on a website typically has one purpose: keyword stuffing.
Instead of making it visible to users reading the content, websites will place invisible text or text that’s hard to read on a website to try to rank the content higher and manipulate the search engines.
3 reasons you need to implement ethical SEO
So, why should you ensure you only implement ethical SEO in your organic traffic strategy?
It’s not just about what’s morally right or wrong. Implementing ethical SEO is the smartest long-term marketing strategy:
1. Better long-term SEO
Search engine optimisation is about implementing the “right” tactics to get your website to rank higher.
The funny thing is many people are trying to get quick fixes by manipulating search engines to see results now.
However, the ones who implement shady tactics and “hacks” to game the system almost always end up losing their rankings in the long term.
The best long-term SEO strategy is to do things ethically. Create content that helps people. Make higher quality content than your competitors. If you do those two things right, you’ll have better search traffic for years.
2. Great brand reputation
Not only is ethical SEO a great way to get long-term results, but it’s also a good way to maintain a solid brand reputation.
Reputation management is a crucial aspect of SEO. All it takes is one bad incident, and your SEO could be negatively impacted.
3. Lower chance of penalties
If you play by the rules, you have a lower risk of being penalised by Google.
The reality is that Google owns the search engine, not you. While we can benefit from the traffic generation of major search engines, you could lose all your rankings if you break their guidelines.
Track SEO data ethically with Matomo
Ethical SEO is all about:
- Serving your audience
- Getting better traffic in the long run
If you fail to follow ethical SEO practices, you could be de-ranked or have your reputation on the line.
However, if you implement ethical SEO, you could reap the rewards of a sustainable marketing strategy that helps you grow your traffic correctly and increase conversions in the long term.
If you’re ready to start implementing ethical SEO, you need to ensure you depend on an ethical web analytics solution like Matomo.
Unlike other web analytics solutions, Matomo prioritises user privacy, maintains transparent, ethical data collection practices, and does not sell user data to advertisers. Matomo provides 100% data ownership, ensuring that your data remains yours to own and control.
As the leading privacy-friendly web analytics solution globally, trusted by over 1 million websites, Matomo ensures:
- Accurate data without data sampling for confident insights and better results
- Privacy-friendly and GDPR-compliant web analytics
- Open-source access for transparency and creating a custom solution tailored to your needs
Try Matomo free for 21-days. No credit card required.
Try Matomo for Free
21 day free trial. No credit card required.
