UX and website optimisation for growth: a conversion-first checklist

Most B2B websites are not designed for conversion. They are designed by committee — a homepage hero that pleases the founder, a features grid that pleases sales, a careers section that pleases HR, and a contact form that pleases nobody.

The result: traffic that bounces, demo requests that never come, and a quarterly debate about whether to "redesign the site again".

Before you redesign, audit. Here is the checklist we use.

1. The five-second test

A first-time visitor should be able to answer three questions in five seconds:

• What does this company do?
• Who is it for?
• What should I do next?

If your homepage hero requires scrolling, animation, or a video to answer these, you are leaking pipeline before the first scroll.

2. One primary action per page

Every page should have one — and only one — primary action. Demo requests, pricing pages, scan signups: pick the action that matters most for that page's intent and design every element to serve it. Secondary actions live in the navigation, not the hero.

3. Match copy to buyer stage

Your homepage is a problem-aware page. Your pricing page is a solution-aware page. Your case studies are decision-stage pages. Each needs different copy:

• Problem-aware: speak to the pain in the buyer's words.
• Solution-aware: show the mechanism — how you actually solve it.
• Decision-aware: prove it with named customers, numbers and risk-reversal.

4. Cut the cognitive load

The single highest-leverage change on most B2B sites: cut by half.

• Half the words on the homepage.
• Half the menu items.
• Half the form fields.
• Half the testimonials.

You are not paid by the word. You are paid by the conversion.

5. Measure what matters

The metrics that actually predict pipeline:

• Scroll depth on the homepage hero (target: 60%+ to fold two).
• Time-to-first-CTA-click on pricing pages.
• Form abandonment rate on demo requests.
• Mobile vs. desktop conversion gap (often a hidden disaster).

If you cannot answer these, install the analytics before you redesign anything.

6. Speed is a feature

Lighthouse score below 90 on mobile, and you are losing 20–40% of conversions before the page even loads. Image weight, third-party scripts and bloated frameworks are the usual suspects.

What to do next

If your site is the bottleneck, the Growth Intelligence scan will diagnose where it is leaking — and the Site Migration service is built specifically to move UK founders off Squarespace, Wix or Webflow onto a fast, owned, conversion-optimised stack with zero downtime.

Test, don't redesign

Most "redesigns" are expensive guesses. Before you commission one, run two weeks of structured tests: change one headline, one CTA, one form length at a time and measure the lift. Half the changes will do nothing. One in five will move conversion by 10–30%. That is the data you want before anyone touches Figma.

The takeaway: redesigns are a last resort, not a first instinct. The fastest path to more pipeline is usually subtraction — fewer words, fewer fields, fewer competing CTAs — applied with discipline week after week.

Build a small testing backlog and run it like a roadmap. Two tests live at a time, two weeks per test, one clear winner per cycle. In a quarter you'll have shipped twelve experiments, learned which levers actually move your buyer, and saved the cost of a redesign that would have rolled the dice on all of them at once.

Book a strategy call

If you're not sure whether to optimise or rebuild, Book a strategy call and we'll review your site live and give you the honest answer in 30 minutes.