WEB& CONVERSION
Web and conversion is the discipline of designing websites that help visitors find, understand and act on what they came for, and of improving them continuously through research and experiment. It joins website design, user experience and conversion rate optimisation into one practice judged by outcomes, not appearance.
How we
see it
Most organisations still treat a website as a project: briefed, designed, built, launched and then left alone until it looks old enough to replace. We think that model is the main reason so many sites underperform. A website is closer to a product than a brochure. It is the place where every channel you pay for, from search to social to email, either turns into business or quietly leaks away. Treating it as a one-off deliverable guarantees that it is at its best on launch day and declines from there.
Our view is that design, user experience and conversion optimisation are one discipline seen from three angles. Design decides what the site says and how it feels. UX decides whether people can find, understand and use it. Conversion optimisation decides, with evidence, whether it works, and what to change next. Separate them and you get familiar failures: beautiful sites that nobody can navigate, usable sites with nothing persuasive to say, and testing programmes that tweak button colours on pages with a broken value proposition. Join them and the website becomes a system that learns.
That system rests on a few unglamorous habits. Decide what success means before anyone opens a design tool. Put real content ahead of visual polish. Protect what already works, especially search equity, during any change. Measure every important step, so that conversations about the site are about evidence rather than taste. And keep a budget and an owner for the months after launch, because that is when the real comparison happens and the compounding begins.
This library is written for the people who commission, run and are accountable for websites: founders, marketing leaders and the teams who work with them. It covers the full arc, from the design process and information architecture through landing pages, forms, calls to action and checkout, to accessibility, platform choice, cost and agency selection. Each guide aims to be specific and practical, and none relies on invented benchmarks. Where a number appears, it is either a platform fact or a clearly labelled illustration you can replace with your own figures. Read the guides in any order, or follow one of the reading paths below.
Fig. 01 · Cycle
Tap to explore
The website as a learning system
Decide
FourConvictions
- 01
Outcomes over appearance
A website is judged by what visitors achieve on it and what that is worth to the business. Agree the measure of success before design starts and judge every decision against it.
- 02
Content before pixels
Real words and a sharp value proposition shape good design. Designing around placeholder text hides the decisions that matter most and creates rework later.
- 03
Evidence over opinion
Analytics shows where visitors struggle, qualitative research explains why, and experiments prove what helps. Seniority and taste are poor substitutes for any of the three.
- 04
Launch is the beginning
Fund and staff the months after go-live. Continuous improvement compounds; periodic rebuilds reset learning and put existing equity at risk.
Improve conversion
Structure and experience
EveryGuide
- Framework8 minWebsite Design ProcessDecisions before pixelsA website design process is the ordered sequence of decisions that turns a business goal into a working site: discovery, information architecture, content, visual design, build, quality assurance and launch. Its job is to settle the expensive questions early, while they are cheap to change, so design and code only execute agreed answers.2 diagrams2 tools
- Guide8 minWebsite RedesignRebuild only what is brokenA website redesign is a planned overhaul of a site's structure, design, content or technology, usually to fix problems that incremental changes cannot. A good redesign starts by measuring what the current site does well, protects those assets, especially search rankings and converting pages, and changes only what evidence shows is holding the business back.2 diagrams2 tools
- Explainer8 minWhat Is CROMore value from visits you haveConversion rate optimisation (CRO) is the systematic practice of increasing the share of website visitors who take a valuable action, such as buying, enquiring or signing up. It combines research into why visitors hesitate with controlled experiments that test fixes, so improvements are proven rather than assumed. Done well, it raises revenue without buying more traffic.2 diagrams2 tools
- Framework8 minThe CRO ProcessResearch, rank, test, learnA CRO process is the repeatable loop a team uses to improve conversion: research where and why visitors drop out, turn findings into hypotheses, prioritise them, test or implement the strongest, and record what was learned. Its value lies in the loop rather than any single test, because each cycle sharpens understanding of customers.2 diagrams3 tools
- Guide9 minA/B TestingProof, not preferenceA/B testing is a controlled experiment in which visitors are randomly split between two or more versions of a page or experience, and their behaviour is compared to see which performs better on a pre-agreed metric. Randomisation is what makes it powerful: it isolates the effect of the change from everything else happening at the same time.2 diagrams2 tools
- Guide9 minLanding Page DesignOne page, one promise, one actionLanding page design is the craft of building a page with a single purpose: turning visitors from a specific source into one specific action. The best landing pages keep the promise that brought the visitor, state the value plainly, prove it, remove distractions and make the next step obvious. Length and detail should match how ready the visitor already is.2 diagrams2 tools
- Framework8 minValue PropositionWhy you, why nowA value proposition is a clear statement of the specific outcome a customer gets from choosing you, for whom it is meant, and why it is better than the alternatives, including doing nothing. It is not a slogan or a mission statement. On a website it should be understood within seconds and supported by evidence the visitor can check.2 diagrams2 tools
- Guide8 minUX for MarketersAttention earned, not takenUX for marketers means applying user-experience principles, such as clarity, findability, low cognitive load and honest interaction, to marketing pages and journeys. It matters because most conversion losses are usability failures: people cannot find, understand or complete what they came for. Marketers who learn basic UX research and design heuristics make better briefs, pages and campaigns.2 diagrams2 tools
- How-to9 minWebsite SpeedFast is a featureWebsite speed optimisation is the work of reducing how long pages take to show useful content and respond to input, measured with real-user data such as Google's Core Web Vitals. Most gains come from a few causes: oversized images, excess JavaScript, third-party scripts, render-blocking resources and slow servers. Fix them by impact, then budget to stay fast.2 diagrams2 tools
- Explainer8 minMobile-First DesignStart small, decide earlyMobile-first design is an approach in which a website is designed for the smallest common screen first, then progressively enhanced for larger screens. It is less a layout technique than a prioritisation discipline: a small screen forces decisions about what matters most. Because many visitors and search engines now experience sites primarily on mobile, it should be the default.2 diagrams2 tools
- Explainer9 minInformation ArchitectureThe shape of what you knowInformation architecture (IA) is the practice of organising, structuring and labelling a website's content so people can find what they need and understand where they are. It covers how content is grouped, what things are called, how navigation connects them and how search supports them. Good IA is invisible; poor IA shows up as confusion, dead ends and lost conversions.2 diagrams2 tools
- How-to8 minWebsite NavigationFewer choices, clearer pathsWebsite navigation is the set of menus, links and wayfinding cues that let visitors move through a site and know where they are. Good navigation reflects how visitors think about their needs, uses labels they recognise, keeps the most important routes visible and works equally well on phones. It should be designed from evidence about visitor tasks, not internal priorities.2 diagrams2 tools
- How-to9 minForm OptimisationEvery field is a question of trustForm optimisation is the work of making web forms easier, faster and more reassuring to complete without lowering the quality of what is submitted. It covers which fields to ask for, their order and wording, layout, input types, validation, error messages and privacy reassurance. Because forms sit at the moment of conversion, small frictions there carry a large cost.2 diagrams2 tools
- How-to8 minCall-to-Action DesignAsk clearly, at the right momentCall-to-action design is the practice of shaping the buttons and links that ask visitors to take the next step: what they say, how they look, where they appear and how much commitment they request. An effective CTA states a clear outcome, matches visitor readiness, stands out as the primary choice and reassures at the moment of hesitation.2 diagrams3 tools
- Guide8 minTrust SignalsProof that is hard to fakeTrust signals are the elements on a website that give visitors reasons to believe a business is real, competent and safe to deal with: reviews, verifiable credentials, transparent policies, secure payment, real contact details and specific evidence of results. The strongest signals are specific, verifiable and costly to fake, and they work best placed where doubt arises.2 diagrams2 tools
- Guide9 minWeb AccessibilityBuilt for everyone, by defaultWeb accessibility means designing and building websites that people with disabilities can perceive, understand, navigate and use, including people who rely on screen readers, keyboards, captions or magnification. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are the international reference standard, organised around four principles and three conformance levels, with level AA the usual target.2 diagrams2 tools
- Explainer8 minHeadless CMSContent without a fixed front endA headless CMS is a content management system that stores and manages content but does not control how it is displayed. Content is delivered through an API to any front end: a website, app, kiosk or another system. It offers flexibility, performance and multi-channel reuse, at the cost of more development effort and less out-of-the-box editing convenience.2 diagrams2 tools
- Comparison9 minChoosing a CMSFit the team, not the trendChoosing a CMS means matching a content management platform to your content, team, channels and budget over several years, not picking the most popular or newest option. The right choice depends on who edits content, how often layouts change, how many channels you publish to, your integration needs and the development capacity you can sustain after launch.2 diagrams2 tools
- Explainer8 minWhat Drives Website CostScope, risk and the years afterWebsite cost is driven less by the number of pages than by the number of distinct page types, the depth of integrations, the amount of original content and design, the quality standards required (accessibility, performance, security) and the cost of owning the site after launch. Understanding these drivers lets you compare quotes on substance and spend where value is created.2 diagrams2 tools
- How-to8 minHeatmaps and RecordingsWatching behaviour, carefullyHeatmaps and session recordings are behavioural analytics tools that show how visitors interact with web pages. Heatmaps aggregate clicks, taps, scrolling and movement into visual overlays; recordings replay individual anonymised sessions. Used with clear questions, they explain why visitors struggle where analytics shows drop-off. Used without questions, they produce hours of footage and few decisions.2 diagrams2 tools
- How-to9 minCheckout OptimisationThe last hundred metresCheckout optimisation is the work of making the steps between 'add to cart' and 'order confirmed' as clear, fast and reassuring as possible. The biggest gains usually come from showing total costs early, allowing guest checkout, offering the payment methods customers trust, simplifying address and delivery entry, and removing surprises. Every step should be measured as its own funnel.2 diagrams3 tools
- Guide9 minB2B Website DesignBuilt for committees, not clicksB2B website design is the practice of building websites that help business buyers research, evaluate and justify a purchase, usually as part of a group and over weeks or months. Effective B2B sites explain the offer plainly, serve different roles in the buying committee, provide proof and pricing clarity, and offer conversion paths for every stage, not just 'contact sales'.2 diagrams2 tools
- Checklist9 minWebsite Launch ChecklistNothing left to luckA website launch checklist is a structured set of checks confirming that a site is complete, functional, measurable, findable and safe before and after go-live. The essentials are redirects and SEO settings, working forms and tracking, performance and accessibility, security and legal requirements, a rollback plan and a monitored first month.2 diagrams2 tools
- How-to8 minChoosing a Web AgencyJudge the thinking, not the portfolioChoosing a web design agency means finding a partner whose process, skills and working style fit your goals, not simply the best-looking portfolio. Start with a clear brief, shortlist on relevant experience, judge how each agency thinks about your problem, meet the people who will do the work, and compare proposals on scope and assumptions.2 diagrams2 tools
WebQuestions
- What is the difference between web design and conversion rate optimisation?
- Web design shapes how a site is structured, what it says and how it looks and feels. Conversion rate optimisation uses research and experiments to increase the share of visitors who take valuable actions. In practice they work best as one discipline: design creates the site, and optimisation continuously improves it with evidence.
- When should a business redesign its website?
- When structural problems block the business: an outdated or insecure platform, an offer or audience that has changed, architecture that cannot hold new content, or editing that requires developers. If the site mainly looks dated but still ranks and converts, a refresh or continuous optimisation is usually the lower-risk route.
- How do I know if my website is working?
- Agree a primary outcome, such as qualified enquiries or online revenue, and measure it per visitor over time, segmented by device and traffic source. Map the key journeys as funnels to see where visitors drop out, and add qualitative research such as surveys and session recordings to understand why.
- Do small websites need conversion optimisation?
- Yes, though the methods differ. Low-traffic sites cannot run many reliable A/B tests, so they rely more on customer research, usability testing, analytics review and fixing obvious friction. These methods often reveal problems that cost far more than the effort to fix them, regardless of site size.