There is a turf war raging between search engine optimization and conversion rate optimization. Experts on both sides are struggling to make the two disciplines work together.

SEO focuses on making a site accessible to search engines for the purpose of improved rankings. CRO is the art of improving the user experience to get higher conversions. One discipline is geared towards search engines while the other is focused on users.

Very few sites can successfully combine both to create a stellar site that provides a great user experience and also ranks highly on search engines. The secret is using SEO tactics to improve your conversion rate and to make your site searchable. But how do you use SEO to increase conversions?

Here are the latest strategies that will bring your conversions to the next level.

1. Use dynamic content.

Dynamic content is when the content that’s displayed on your site changes based on who the visitor is. Usually, it’s based on geography. For example, if someone is visiting from the U.S. during a national holiday, then your homepage would display products/services that relate to that holiday or would display a simple holiday greeting.

A perfect example would be TripAdvisor. They display the name of the city, region or state on their homepage. For instance, their Restaurants tab displays the city that you are currently in and offers you the best restaurants in that city. The result is that the visitor identifies with the content more, has a better user experience and is more likely to buy your product if you’re using dynamic content,

Dynamic content helps you use SEO in an organic way to enhance the user experience. Instead of spammy looking search terms and lists of locations in your footer, use dynamic content to make the user feel welcome and enhance their experience on your site.

2. Use neurodesign to improve user experience.

Neurodesign is a term that was coined in 2012. It describes a way to design things that make sense to your mind. It’s a way to improve your customer’s experience, which can improve your conversions, all based on aesthetics.

Improving the user experience using neurodesign helps you improve three metrics. You increase the visitor time spent on your site, you increase repeat visits and reduce the bounce rate. All of these things help improve your site’s rank.

Also, make sure that your page titles are written for users. Don’t just write them for search engines. If you improve your titles, add keywords in an organic way and add emotionally stimulating words that will catch the eye, you will see a huge boost in conversions.

3. Use video and visual elements to increase visit duration.

The duration of each visitor’s stay on your website is also extremely critical for your site’s success. The longer your visitors stay on your site, the higher its rank on search engines.

So, what’s a decent visit duration?

• Anything over two minutes is excellent.

• Between 30 seconds and two minutes is good.

• Under 30 seconds is very poor.

Doing a proper evaluation and conducting site changes to increase user’s visit duration requires a lot of A/B testing and time. One easy hack to quickly increase that dwell time is by adding visual elements to the site.

One great example of this is the Chrome extension Zest. Their entire homepage moves and changes with every scroll, creatively showing you how to use their product. No wonder their average visit duration is a whopping 2 minutes and 23 seconds. And for a site whose whole purpose is to direct you to their Chrome extension page, that’s an incredible achievement.

4. Improve page loading time.

The loading time of your site is one of the most critical — and at the same time, overlooked — elements of any SEO strategy. Loading time is a heavy contributor to page and site abandonment. When a site takes too long to load, people are very likely to abandon it.

How long is too long? According to Google, the time it takes to fully load a page on mobile has dropped to 15 seconds from 22. Unfortunately, that’s still too long a time considering 53% of mobile site visitors leave if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. It’s imperative, then, that you check how your site is performing and is there a way you can improve. A great tool to use here is Google’s PageSpeed Insights.

Google started ranking sites for load time because it plays such a vital role in the user’s experience of the site. To rise up to the top of search results, optimize your site to decrease load time. Optimize all of your images, use smaller images for the home page and eliminate sluggish widgets.

5. Use long-tail keywords.

Users are searching for specific things, and they usually write a few words. You need to use long-tail keywords in order to offer the users what they are looking for and improve your rankings at the same time.

For example, if you are a pet shop, you’re not going to start by targeting the keyword “pet food.” That short-tail keyword is way too broad and highly competitive. Instead, target something like “organic pet food in Albany.” That’s way more specific.

You can use a keyword tool like Wordtracker to find long-tail keywords and free tools like Pro Rank Tracker and Tiny Ranker to monitor keywords for your website. Using long-tail phrases or addressing users’ queries with long-tail keywords will help you boost brand loyalty over a period of time and thus can increase conversions.

It’s never been easier to use SEO to boost the conversion rate of your website. You have a variety of tools and strategies at your disposal.

Use these strategies to stay ahead of your competitors, and up to date with all of the latest conversion strategies.