How to Improve Website Conversion Rate
To improve your website conversion rate, sharpen your calls to action, speed up your pages, clarify your copy and test changes one at a time. Rates vary a lot by industry and by what you count as a conversion, so measure your own baseline and improve against that.
- Updated Nov 2026 first published March 2023
What is a conversion rate?
The percentage of visitors who take a desired action: a purchase, a form sent, a newsletter sign-up.
It is calculated as (number of conversions ÷ total visitors) × 100. There is no single figure that counts as good: it depends on your industry, your traffic and what the conversion is. Before you try to improve your website conversion rate, find out what it is now: put your own numbers into our free conversion rate calculator.
Working to increase your website conversion rate is called conversion rate optimisation, or CRO. The steps below show how to optimise your website for conversion on any platform, and there’s a section on CRO for WordPress websites further down.
What a higher rate gets you
- Increases revenue without needing more traffic.
- Reduces your customer acquisition costs.
- Improves the experience for every visitor.
- Teaches you how your customers actually behave.
Measure your website conversion rate first
Changes only count if you can see what they did. Before you try to improve your website conversion rate, spend an hour on this.
- Decide what counts. Pick the actions that lead to money: form sends, quote requests, purchases, email clicks. Mark each one as a key event in Google Analytics 4. Our guide on how to set up Google Analytics 4 shows how.
- Get a baseline. Note four weeks of visitors and conversions, split by page and by device. That is the number every change is judged against.
- Find the leak. Look for pages with plenty of visits and few enquiries, a big gap between mobile and desktop, or forms that people start but do not send.
- Fix one thing, then measure again. Change one page or one element at a time. If you change five things at once, you will not know which one helped.
Eight ways to improve your website conversion rate
Eight changes that can increase website conversions on any site. Work through them in order and measure each one, so you can see what moved the number.
- Sharpen your calls to action. Say what happens when someone clicks, such as “Get my free quote” or “Check availability”, rather than “Submit”. Make the main button easy to spot, and repeat it near the top and at the end of the page.
- Speed up your pages. Slow pages cost conversions, most of all on phones. Compress your images and media, minify CSS, JavaScript and HTML, use a content delivery network and turn on browser caching. On WordPress, our guide on why a WordPress website is slow walks through the usual causes.
- Write clearer headlines and copy. Lead with benefits rather than features, address the problems your customers actually have and keep every line concise and clear.
- Improve the user experience. Keep the navigation obvious, answer questions in the order people ask them and remove any step between landing and getting in touch that does not need to be there.
- Show social proof. Put real customer reviews near your calls to action, with names where customers agree, and show examples of work you have done. Only use genuine reviews: fake ones are banned under UK consumer law and put buyers off when spotted.
- Check what each change did. On a busy page, run an A/B test: show two versions at the same time and keep the one that converts better. Most small sites are too quiet for that, so compare four weeks before and after each change instead (see below).
- Design for mobile users. Check the design, touch targets and navigation on real phones and a range of screen sizes, not just your own laptop.
- Cut your form fields. Long forms deter people. Only ask for essential information, reveal extra fields progressively and validate input as people type.
Do you have enough traffic to A/B test?
Probably not, if your site gets a few thousand visits a month. A fair A/B test needs far more visitors than most small business websites see, so CRO for a small business means fixing what the evidence shows instead.
Here is the maths, at the usual settings of 95% confidence and 80% power. To spot a lift from a 2% conversion rate to 3%, each version of the page needs about 3,800 visitors, so 7,600 in total. To spot a smaller lift, from 2% to 2.4%, each version needs about 21,000. A page with 1,000 visits a month would take eight months to finish the first test.
What to do with less traffic
- Fix what is broken first. A form that fails, a button that is hidden on phones or a page that takes ages to load needs no test.
- Watch real people use the site. Ask three to five customers or friends to find a service and send an enquiry while you watch. Note every point where they hesitate.
- Use recordings and heatmaps. Microsoft Clarity shows where visitors scroll, click and give up, even on a quiet site.
- Compare like with like. Make one change, then compare four weeks after it with four weeks before. Allow for seasons and for any change in your ads or rankings.
What to fix on each type of page
Visitors want something different on each page, so the fix that improves your website conversion rate is different too.
Home page
Say what you do, who it is for and where, in the first screen. Then give one obvious next step, such as a quote form, not five competing links.
Service pages
Answer the questions people ask before they enquire: what is included, how long it takes, what it costs or how it is priced, and what happens next.
Contact and quote forms
Ask only for what you need to reply. Say how quickly you respond and how you use their details, right next to the button.
Product pages and checkout
Show the full price, delivery cost and returns policy before the basket. Surprise costs at checkout are a common reason people leave.
Thank-you page
Confirm the enquiry arrived and say when you will reply. It is also a simple place to count each enquiry as a conversion in Google Analytics.
How to improve conversion rate on a WordPress website
WordPress runs a large share of small business websites, so WordPress conversion optimisation usually comes down to the same few fixes.
- Test every form. Send a test enquiry from each form after every plugin update. A form that stops sending emails turns your conversion rate to zero without any warning.
- Count form sends properly. Use Google Tag Manager to send each successful form send to GA4 as a key event, so you can see which pages bring enquiries.
- Keep the plugin list short. Popups, chat widgets and sliders add weight and pull attention away from the one thing you want people to do.
- Cache pages and resize images. Start a slow WordPress page with a caching plugin and properly sized images, then check for a heavy page builder theme.
- Give every service page one clear next step. Put the same call to action near the top and again at the end, and send it to a short form.
Want this done for you? We do WordPress conversion optimisation on the pages you already have, and our website speed optimisation service fixes slow WordPress sites, both at a flat £30 an hour.
Tools and metrics
You cannot improve what you do not measure. These tools and numbers tell you where visitors give up.
Useful tools
- Google Analytics for traffic and conversion tracking.
- Hotjar for heatmaps and recordings of real visits.
- Microsoft Clarity, a free alternative for heatmaps and recordings.
- Optimizely for A/B testing, once a page has the traffic for it.
- Unbounce for building landing pages.
Metrics to watch
- Conversion rate by page and by device.
- Engagement rate in GA4 (bounce rate is its opposite).
- Average engagement time per page.
- Conversion funnel analysis, to see where people drop out.
- User flow patterns through the site.
Mistakes that hold conversion rates back
Three common habits, and what to do instead.
Changing everything at once
A new design, new copy and a new form in the same week leave you guessing which one helped or hurt. Change one thing, measure it for four weeks, then move to the next.
Ignoring user feedback
Asking the people who almost enquired what stopped them is one of the cheapest ways to find conversion barriers.
Overcomplicating the process
Each extra step, field or clever interaction is one more place to give up. Keep it short and plain.
Conversion rate questions
Want the bigger picture first? See all our website guides.
What is a good website conversion rate?
There is no single answer. What counts as good depends on your industry and what the conversion is: a free enquiry converts at a higher rate than a £5,000 purchase. Measure your own baseline first, then improve against it.
How do I calculate my conversion rate?
Divide the number of conversions by the total number of visitors and multiply by 100. For example, 20 enquiries from 1,000 visitors is a 2% conversion rate. Google Analytics can do this automatically once you have marked the actions that count as conversions, or our free conversion rate calculator does the sum for you.
What usually has the biggest impact on conversions?
It depends where your site loses people. Clear calls to action, fast pages and benefit-led copy are good first fixes, then social proof, mobile-friendly design and shorter forms. Test one change at a time, because the only way to know what works on your site is to measure it.
Can I increase sales without getting more traffic?
Yes, that is the whole point of trying to improve your website conversion rate. If 1,000 visitors currently produce 20 enquiries, lifting the rate from 2% to 3% produces 10 more enquiries from exactly the same traffic, and it can cost less than buying more visitors.
How can I increase my website conversion rate quickly?
Start with the fixes that need no testing. Check that every form sends, make the main call to action clear on each page, cut form fields you do not need and try the site on your own phone. Broken or awkward steps cost the most enquiries and are the quickest to fix.
Does page speed affect conversion rate?
Yes. The longer a page takes to load, the more people leave before they see your offer, and slow mobile connections make it worse. Google’s ranking systems also reward a good page experience, though relevance matters far more.
How many visitors do I need to run an A/B test?
More than most small sites get. At 95% confidence and 80% power, spotting a lift from a 2% to a 3% conversion rate takes about 3,800 visitors per version, or 7,600 in total. Smaller lifts need far more. With less traffic, fix the clear problems first and compare four weeks before and after each change.
What should a service business fix first?
The route to an enquiry. Send a test from every form, check the call to action is easy to see on a phone, and make sure each service page says what is included and what happens next. Those fixes cost little and nothing else works until they are right.
How long does it take to improve a conversion rate?
It depends on the fix. Mending a broken form or a hidden button can show in your enquiries within weeks. Smaller changes take longer to judge: on a small site you compare four weeks before and after each one, so working through several takes a few months. Busier sites can test faster.
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