Website optimisation

Website Optimisation complements Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and is about maximising the performance of your site by increasing metrics such as sales, conversion rates (percentage of visitors who take a desired action, eg opt in to receive your newsletter), time spent on your site etc. 

We can help you with Website Optimisation, whether we’re developing your site or not. 

We work through the following process:

1. Understanding objectives and their measurement
We identify what you want your website to achieve from a business and project-specific perspective. We then choose tests to measure this, eg conversion rates, linked enquiries, time on site.

2. Target audience personas and user stories
We also need to know who will be using your website – your target audiences. Once you have provided us with this information we create personas which are brief descriptions of each type of user, eg Jane the housing trust tenant, single working mother with children, lives in trust housing, moderate internet literacy.

User stories are then crafted for each persona, explaining what that person wants to achieve on your website, written using language they would. They should follow the syntax: As <persona title> I want to <activity> so I can <goal>
 Eg, As housing trust tenant Jane I want to find out if my rent will increase so I can take action if I need to.

3. Reviewing data
Any existing data on website usage is reviewed, including, statistics like Google Analytics, survey results, outcomes from previous testing and direct feedback.

This helps to show how the website is currently performing and whether it is successfully achieving your objectives. It can also reveal more about your target audiences.

4. User Experience (UX) design
Using all the information gathered, we then audit the current site, suggest improvements, produce a wireframe (blueprint), mock up design concepts and deploy new interfaces for testing if required.

5. Testing
We then choose appropriate tests. Test types include the following:

  • A/B testing - an existing page is used as a control sample and compared against one or more single-variable alternatives. A pre-defined set of measurements is then used to gauge which variations produce the best outcomes.
  • Mutlivariate testing (MVT) -  this differs to A/B testing because you can have several variations to the same page being tested at the same time.  A pre-defined set of measurements is then used to gauge which produce the best outcomes.
  • Task-based testing with video analysis - test users try to complete key tasks. Their interaction and comments are recorded as they do this.
  • Information architecture testing (IA) testing – we look at the way information on the site has been grouped and structured, including the primary navigation, site maps and persona-based navigation. We then test this, using tools such as card sorting and tree testing.

6. Analysis and reporting
We collate the results, analyse them against your objectives and measurements and document the findings, including suggestions for next steps.

What we offer