CRO Guide: how to improve conversion rates fast

To get more conversions, you first have to get under the skin of your user’s behaviour. It’s all about spotting where the friction is and then testing smart, targeted changes to smooth things out. This isn't about guesswork; it's about digging into your data, diagnosing the real issues and making changes that are backed by evidence.

Before you even think about tweaking headlines or changing button colours, you need to lay the groundwork. You can't improve what you don't measure, right? This first phase is all about understanding where you stand right now. It means getting into your data to see how people actually use your website and finding the biggest opportunities for growth.

Think of it as creating a clear baseline. This starting point will guide every single decision you make down the line.

Without this foundational work, any effort to boost your conversion rates is just a shot in the dark. Sure, you might get lucky with a random change here or there but you won’t have a reliable process for getting consistent results. For a solid overview of strategies that really move the needle, check out this practical guide on how to increase conversion rates.

First things first: establish your baseline conversion rate. This number is your starting block, the single metric you’ll measure all your future efforts against. But don’t just stop at one big, overall figure. The real insights are found when you start slicing up the data.

Try breaking down your conversion rates by a few key segments:

• Traffic Source: Are visitors from your organic search converting better than those from paid social media campaigns?
• Device Type: How does your mobile conversion rate stack up against desktop? A big gap here is often a dead giveaway for user experience problems on smaller screens.
• New vs Returning Visitors: Are your loyal customers converting more easily than people visiting for the first time?
• Specific Pages: Pinpoint your best and worst-performing landing pages.

This kind of deep dive helps you move from knowing what is happening to understanding why. If you’ve discovered that your website just isn’t performing as it should, our guide can help you figure out the culprits and find the right fixes. Learn more about why your website isn't converting and how to fix it in our detailed article.

Once you’ve got a handle on the numbers, it's time to understand the human behaviour driving them. A user journey map is brilliant for this. It’s a visual representation of the path a visitor takes, from their very first interaction with your brand right through to the final conversion.

Mapping this out lets you step directly into your customer's shoes. You can identify crucial touchpoints, moments of frustration and places where the process could be a whole lot smoother. Are people dropping off at a certain step in your checkout? Is your navigation a bit confusing, causing them to give up?

It’s also crucial to put your numbers into context. Conversion rates vary wildly from one industry to another. Knowing the benchmarks for your sector helps you set goals that are ambitious but achievable and it shows you how you measure up against the competition.

Take a look at the table below for a snapshot of average conversion rates across various UK industries. This can help you see where your efforts might deliver the biggest returns.

A comparison of average conversion rates across different UK industries to help you benchmark your performance.

As you can see, the professional services industry in the UK leads the pack with an average conversion rate of 4.6% , which is well above the overall average of around 2.9% . On the other end of the scale, the luxury and jewellery sector often sees rates as low as 1.5% . Understanding these differences stops you from chasing unrealistic targets and helps you focus your strategy.

By taking the time to analyse your data, map the user journey and set sensible benchmarks, you create a solid foundation for everything that follows. This data-first approach ensures your efforts are focused, efficient and far more likely to deliver a real, tangible increase in conversions.

Once your website's foundation is solid, the next move is to see it through your visitors' eyes. A clunky, confusing or slow user experience (UX) is the fastest way I’ve seen to lose a potential customer. If people can't find what they're looking for almost instantly, they’ll just leave and head straight to a competitor. It’s that simple.

This is where sharpening your focus on usability and design really pays off. Small, thoughtful tweaks to how your site works and feels can have a huge impact on your bottom line. It’s all about removing friction, every step of the way—from the moment someone lands on your page to the second they click "buy now".

Here in the UK, thinking "mobile-first" isn't just a smart move; it’s absolutely non-negotiable. A massive slice of online shopping happens on smartphones, so your website has to deliver a seamless experience on that smaller screen. A site that looks beautiful on a desktop but is a nightmare to use on mobile will bleed conversions.

Prioritising mobile really boils down to a few key things:

• Responsive Design: Your site needs to automatically adjust to any screen size. Text should be easy to read and buttons simple to tap, all without anyone needing to pinch and zoom.
• Simple Navigation: Keep menus straightforward and thumb-friendly. Those complex, layered menus that work fine with a mouse become a real headache on a mobile.
• Optimised Forms: Nobody enjoys filling out long forms on their phone. Keep them as short as you possibly can, only asking for the absolute essentials.

For UK eCommerce businesses, boosting conversion rates hangs heavily on two things: mobile optimisation and A/B testing. The latter is just a methodical way of comparing different versions of a page to see which one works better. Because UK consumers are increasingly shopping on their phones, a smooth mobile experience is the most direct way to cut friction and reduce abandoned carts.

Ever walked into a massive shop with no signs? That's what a website with poor navigation feels like. Your visitors should be able to find what they're looking for intuitively. If they have to stop and think about it, you’ve probably already lost them. Make sure your menu structure is logical and use clear, descriptive labels.

Website speed is another notorious conversion killer. In fact, research shows that even a one-second delay in page load time can cause a significant drop in conversions. People online are just not patient.

Your Call-to-Action (CTA) is arguably the single most important element on any page. It's the button that tells the user what to do next. Vague CTAs like "Submit" or "Click Here" are nowhere near as effective as specific, benefit-driven ones like "Get Your Free Quote" or "Download My Guide".

This is the perfect place to start A/B testing. By trying out different wording, colours and placements for your CTAs, you'll quickly discover what truly clicks with your audience.

The diagram below shows a basic A/B test in action—traffic is split between two versions of a page to see which one performs best.

This straightforward process is the core of data-driven optimisation. For a much deeper dive into what makes a page convert, check out our guide on the anatomy of a high-converting landing page.

Finally, remember that trust is the currency of the internet. You can build it by making sure you prominently display:

• Customer Reviews and Testimonials: Social proof is incredibly powerful. Seeing that other people have had a great experience with your business provides massive reassurance.
• Trust Badges: Secure payment logos (like Visa or PayPal) and security certificates signal that a visitor's information is safe with you.
• Clear Contact Information: Making it easy for people to get in touch shows you’re a legitimate, accessible business that isn't hiding from its customers.

Stop guessing what might improve your conversion rates and start testing. A systematic A/B testing strategy is all about replacing gut feelings with hard data, giving you a reliable programme for making genuine improvements. This is how you build a cycle of continuous optimisation, where every change is a calculated step forward—not just a random shot in the dark.

It all begins with a strong hypothesis. Instead of just saying, "I think a green button will work better," you need to ground your ideas in the user data you've gathered. For example, a much stronger hypothesis would be: "Changing the CTA button colour to a high-contrast orange will make it more visible and should increase clicks by 15% , because our heatmaps show the current button blends into the background."

A good hypothesis is the bedrock of any successful test. It needs to be clear, specific and measurable. Think of it as an educated guess but one that’s rooted in evidence from your analytics, heatmaps or direct user feedback. Without it, you're just throwing things at the wall to see what sticks.

A solid hypothesis should always contain three key parts:

1. The Proposed Change: What specific element are you planning to alter? (e.g., rewriting the headline).
2. The Expected Outcome: What metric do you predict this change will affect? (e.g., a reduction in bounce rate).
3. The Rationale: Why do you believe this change will produce the outcome? (e.g., because the new headline better reflects the user's search intent).

This disciplined approach ensures you learn something from every single test, whether it "succeeds" or "fails." A failed test that disproves your hypothesis is still incredibly valuable because it tells you what doesn't work for your audience.

Once you've got your hypothesis locked in, the next step is to pick the right testing method. While A/B testing is the most common, it’s not your only option. Understanding the different types helps you choose the right tool for the job.

• A/B Testing: The classic. You compare two versions of a page (Version A, the control, vs. Version B, the variation) to see which one performs better. It’s perfect for testing significant changes to single elements, like a headline or a call-to-action.
• Multivariate Testing (MVT): This lets you test multiple variations of several elements on a page at the same time. For instance, you could test two different headlines, three images and two button texts all at once to find the winning combination. It's powerful for optimising pages with many moving parts but be warned—it needs a lot of traffic to deliver meaningful results.
• Split URL Testing: You'll want this for more radical redesigns. Instead of changing elements on a single page, you split traffic between two entirely different URLs. It's the go-to when you want to test a completely new page layout or user flow.

Often, the best testing ideas come straight from UX optimisation efforts.

This visual guide hits on the fundamentals: a mobile-first design, a fast-loading site and clear calls-to-action are the cornerstones of a great user experience that drives conversions.

Running the test is only half the battle. The real value comes from interpreting the data correctly. One of the most important concepts to get your head around is statistical significance . This tells you whether your results are likely due to the changes you made or just random chance. Most testing tools aim for a confidence level of 95% or higher.

Be patient. Let the test run its full course, which should typically be at least one full business cycle (like a week) to account for daily fluctuations in traffic. Avoid the temptation to declare a winner after just a day or two, even if one version seems to be flying ahead.

Imagine you're testing a new checkout page. Version B might have a killer conversion rate on Monday but Version A could perform much better over the weekend. By running the test for a full seven days, you get a far more accurate picture of overall performance. It’s this patient, data-led approach that separates a successful testing programme from a series of lucky guesses—and ultimately builds a website that systematically converts.

Trying to improve your conversion rates without the right tools is like navigating blind. You’re left relying on guesswork and hunches instead of hard evidence, which is a fast track to wasted time and money. The right software stack doesn’t just show you what your users are doing; it helps you uncover why they’re doing it.

Building a solid, cost-effective toolkit isn’t about splashing out on the most expensive platforms. It's about picking smart tools that work together, giving you a complete picture of user behaviour. These are the insights that lead to strong hypotheses and tests that actually move the needle.

Every good CRO toolkit starts with a powerful analytics platform. This is your source of truth for the numbers, showing you exactly how people find your site, the pages they visit and, most importantly, where they decide to leave. For most businesses, Google Analytics is the natural starting point, and for good reason.

It lets you track the metrics that really matter:

• Bounce Rate: The percentage of people who land on a page and leave without clicking anywhere else.
• Exit Pages: The last pages users see before they disappear, often pointing directly to problem areas.
• Conversion Goals: The custom actions you define as a win, whether it's a form submission, a download or a sale.

Diving into these reports helps you spot the low-hanging fruit. A landing page with tons of traffic but a terrible conversion rate? That's your prime candidate for an A/B test.

Once analytics has shown you where the problems are, A/B testing software helps you figure out the solution. These platforms let you pit different versions of a page against each other to see which one performs best. Heavy hitters in this space include platforms like Optimizely and VWO.

These tools handle the entire process for you. They’ll split traffic between your original page (the control) and your new version (the variation), track the results and tell you when you have a statistically significant winner. This data-first approach takes ego and personal opinion out of the equation, ensuring the changes you make are genuinely improving your conversion rates.

Conversion rate optimisation (CRO) tools are becoming a must-have for UK businesses looking to get ahead. Platforms such as Optimizely and Omniconvert are some of the most powerful solutions available, offering everything from A/B and multivariate testing to user segmentation and direct feedback. Omniconvert, for example, lets businesses survey users who’ve abandoned their shopping carts and then immediately test targeted changes based on what they learn. You can discover more about the top conversion rate optimisation tools for UK businesses.

To get a clearer picture, it helps to see how the different types of tools fit together. Each category serves a distinct purpose in your optimisation strategy.

This combination of tools provides both the "what" (from analytics) and the "why" (from feedback and recordings), giving you everything you need to create meaningful tests.

The numbers from your analytics tell a story but they don't give you the full plot. To really get inside your users' heads, you need qualitative tools that reveal the 'why' behind their clicks. This is where feedback, heatmap and session recording tools are absolute game-changers.

• Feedback and Survey Tools: Platforms like Hotjar or Qualaroo let you ask visitors direct questions with simple on-page surveys. You can ask why they’re about to leave or what stopped them from buying. The feedback is direct, honest and incredibly powerful.
• Heatmap Tools: These tools give you a visual map of where users click, move their mouse and how far they bother to scroll. A heatmap might show you that everyone is trying to click on an image that isn't a link, instantly highlighting a point of frustration.
• Session Recording Tools: Think of these as a screen recording of a user's entire journey on your site. You can watch exactly how they move, where they pause and where they get stuck. The insights are unbelievably specific and actionable.

By weaving these different tools together, you build a deep, three-dimensional understanding of your users. That knowledge is the bedrock of any successful optimisation strategy that delivers real, consistent results.

Launching a test is just the beginning. The real work—and the real learning—starts when the data comes rolling in. The true value isn't just seeing which version won but digging into why it won. This is where you turn a simple experiment into a powerful business insight you can scale across the entire company.

Forget the simple win-or-lose mindset. A test that doesn't deliver an uplift isn't a failure; it’s a lesson in disguise. By properly dissecting the results, you refine your gut feeling about user behaviour and build a bank of knowledge that will fuel smarter decisions for years to come.

It’s tempting to fixate on the main conversion goal, like ‘completed purchases’ for an e-commerce store. While that’s obviously critical, you need to look at the secondary metrics to grasp the full story. A small tweak might not have lifted sales but it could have created other significant ripple effects.

To get the complete picture, keep an eye on these numbers:

• Average Order Value (AOV): Did the winning version encourage people to spend more, even if the total number of transactions didn't change?
• Add-to-Cart Rate: Did more users add products to their basket? This is a huge signal of increased interest, even if they didn't all make it through checkout.
• Bounce Rate on Subsequent Pages: Did your change encourage visitors to explore deeper into your site or did it make them leave faster from the next page in the funnel?

Tracking these wider impacts tells a much richer story. It helps you see if you've improved one part of the user journey at the expense of another. For a deeper dive into which numbers truly matter, our guide on mastering marketing performance metrics is a great place to start.

Aggregate data can be a liar. A test might show ‘no significant difference’ on the surface but once you start slicing up the data, you might find one version was a runaway success with a specific audience. This is where the real gold is usually hiding.

Segmenting your results shows you exactly how different groups of users reacted to your changes. It's the key to personalising experiences and figuring out how to lift conversion rates for your most important customer profiles.

Drilling down into segments like these can uncover some powerful truths:

• New vs Returning Visitors: Newcomers often respond better to crystal-clear value propositions, while returning users might just want shortcuts and familiar layouts.
• Device Type: A design that works wonders on a desktop could be a complete disaster on a mobile screen.
• Traffic Source: Someone clicking from a social media ad has a completely different mindset than someone who arrived from a specific search query.

Imagine a test on a product page shows a 2% lift overall. Decent, but not earth-shattering. But after segmenting, you discover it actually drove a 15% lift for mobile users coming from TikTok, while causing a 5% drop for desktop users arriving from Google. Now you have a real insight: this change is perfect for your social commerce crowd but needs a rethink for your search traffic.

Every single test you run—win or lose—is a priceless piece of customer research. The biggest mistake you can make is to run a test, pick a winner and immediately forget everything you just learned. You need to build a centralised knowledge base, a 'learning library' if you will.

This library should document every experiment, including:

• The Hypothesis: What did you think would happen and why?
• The Results: Note the primary and secondary metrics and, crucially, the performance of key segments.
• The Insights: What did this test really teach you about your customers?
• Next Steps: How will these findings shape your next tests or even site-wide rollouts?

Documenting your findings ensures that these hard-won insights aren't lost to the sands of time. It stops the team from repeating old mistakes and gets new hires up to speed fast. This is how you turn one-off A/B tests into a continuous engine for sustainable growth. And as you get better at understanding your audience, you can apply those insights to new channels; for instance, you could use them to inform practical strategies for selling products on TikTok and expand your reach.

Getting started with conversion rate optimisation (CRO) can feel like opening a can of worms. It’s a field full of jargon and nuance but a few core principles can clear up most of the confusion. Let’s tackle some of the most common questions that pop up when you're trying to turn more visitors into customers.

This is all about taking the mystery out of the process, giving you the confidence to make smart, data-backed decisions.

This is the million-pound question but the honest answer is: it completely depends. A "good" conversion rate is tied to your industry, your business model and where your traffic is coming from. A high-end B2B service selling complex solutions might be thrilled with 0.5% , while a fast-moving e-commerce store could be aiming for 4% or more.

Instead of chasing some universal magic number, you should focus on two things:

1. Your Industry's Benchmark: Look at data, like the table we shared earlier, to see how you measure up against your direct competitors. This gives you vital context.
2. Your Own Performance: Honestly, the most important benchmark is your own history. Your real goal should be consistent, incremental improvement , month after month.

Seeing a 20% increase on your own baseline is a much bigger win than just hitting an arbitrary industry average.

Patience is everything in conversion optimisation. While you might get lucky with a quick win from an obvious fix, real, meaningful results from a structured testing programme take time. You should expect to wait at least a few weeks, sometimes a month, to get reliable data from a single A/B test.

Why the long wait? It's all about collecting enough data to reach statistical significance —usually a 95% confidence level. This is your proof that the results aren't just a random fluke. Calling a test too early is one of the biggest mistakes you can make; you risk making decisions based on misleading information.

Plenty of businesses stumble on their CRO journey by making a few classic errors. Just being aware of these pitfalls is the first step to avoiding them and making sure your hard work actually pays off.

Here are some of the most frequent missteps I see time and time again:

• Guessing Instead of Researching: Launching tests based on a gut feeling or simply copying what a competitor is doing. Your own user data should always be the starting point.
• Testing Too Many Things at Once: It’s tempting to do a radical redesign but if your conversion rate changes, you'll have no idea which specific element was responsible.
• Ignoring Statistical Significance: Calling a test a winner after just a day or two because one version is slightly ahead. This is a classic recipe for a false positive.
• Forgetting About Mobile: You can design the most brilliant desktop experience in the world but if it's a nightmare to use on a smaller screen, you’re throwing conversions away.
• Not Learning from 'Failed' Tests: If a test doesn't lift conversions, it’s not a failure. It’s actually a valuable lesson in what your audience doesn't want. Embrace the insight.

By steering clear of these common traps, you’ll build a much stronger, more effective optimisation programme that delivers real, measurable results.

At Superhub , we specialise in creating data-driven marketing strategies that turn visitors into loyal customers. If you're ready to move beyond guesswork and start systematically improving your website's performance, we can help.

Discover how our expert team can elevate your conversion rates today.