Conversion Rate Optimisation: A Testing Framework for Small Sites

Conversion rate optimisation (CRO) is the practice of increasing the share of visitors who take a desired action, such as sending an enquiry, booking a call or buying. Small sites can benefit too, if they focus on the right things.

Step 1: Define the goal

Choose one primary conversion per page, for example form submissions on the contact page, and make sure you track it accurately.

Step 2: Find the friction

• Look at analytics for pages where many visitors leave.
• Watch session recordings or heatmaps, respecting privacy rules.
• Ask customers what nearly stopped them from contacting you.
• Test your site on a phone and complete the process yourself.

Step 3: Form a hypothesis

Write it as: “Because we saw X, we believe changing Y will improve Z.” For example, “Because visitors do not scroll to the form, moving it higher will increase enquiries.”

Step 4: Test one change at a time

Start with high-impact items: headline, main call to action, form length, proof and page speed. With low traffic, formal A/B tests take a long time, so it can be better to make well-reasoned improvements and compare before-and-after results over enough weeks.

Step 5: Measure fairly

Run tests long enough to cover normal weekly variation and avoid stopping the moment a result looks good.

Step 6: Keep a log

Record what you changed, why and what happened, including failures. Over time, this becomes your most valuable marketing knowledge.