Conversion Rate Optimization Services for Fewer, Pickier Visitors

Conversion rate optimization services used to be the thing you bought after SEO and ads were humming. That order has flipped. Google's AI summaries now answer a lot of questions before anyone clicks, so the visitors who do reach your site are fewer, and each one is worth more.

In a Pew Research Center study of 900 US adults, people clicked a regular search result on 8% of visits to pages with an AI summary, against 15% on pages without one. Paying for more traffic is getting harder. Losing less of the traffic you have is still cheap.

So I start with the leaks: the slow page, the form with nine fields, the phone number you can't tap, the headline that doesn't say what you do. If you'd like to know where your site is losing people, tell me about your pages and goals in the CRO questionnaire. I reply with a plan and a fixed quote within one business day.

Starting at $2,000 for a CRO audit. That buys a page-by-page conversion audit, a prioritized fix list, and a test plan.

What you get with my conversion rate optimization services

• A page-by-page conversion audit. Your homepage, main service or product pages, landing pages for ads, and the contact or booking flow. Each page is checked against the same list, so the results are comparable.
• A prioritized fix list. Every problem ranked by likely impact and effort, with the replacement copy or the exact change written out. "Improve your headline" is not a fix. A new headline is.
• A test plan. Which changes to just make, which ones to test, how to measure each, and how long to wait before judging.
• A tracking check. If I can't see what visitors do, neither can you. I confirm that calls, forms and bookings are recorded as key events in GA4 (the actions Google Analytics treats as conversions).

How it works

1. You fill in the questionnaire. Your site, the pages that matter most, where your traffic comes from, and what a good lead looks like.
2. I reply with a plan and a fixed quote within one business day. The quote lists the pages in scope.
3. Access and data. Read access to GA4 and, if you run ads, Google Ads. If you don't have a heatmap tool, I'll suggest installing Microsoft Clarity, which is free and records heatmaps and session replays.
4. The audit. Typically two to three weeks. I need some days of session data before judging, so a site that just installed tracking takes longer.
5. Walk-through and handover. You get the written audit, and I go through the top fixes with you by video call or email, whichever you prefer.

Why fixing leaks beats buying traffic right now

The click data is getting worse in both organic and paid search. Seer Interactive found that organic click-through rate on searches showing an AI Overview fell 61% between June 2024 and September 2025, and paid click-through rate on those searches fell 68%. Not every search shows an AI summary, and your local searches may be hit less than informational ones. But the direction is clear.

Meanwhile, the gap between a page that converts and one that doesn't is large. Unbounce's 2024 report, covering over 41,000 landing pages, puts the median conversion rate across industries at 6.6%. The same report found pages written at a 5th to 7th grade reading level converted at 11.1%, more than double the rate of pages written at a professional level.

That's the whole argument in two numbers. Plain words and a clear next step are cheaper than more clicks.

The leaks I find most often on small business sites

• The offer is below the fold. On a phone, the first screen shows a logo, a menu and a stock photo. What you do and where you do it should be readable in five seconds.
• The phone number isn't tappable. Or it's an image. For a contractor or a clinic, that's often the main conversion.
• The form asks too much. Name, email, phone, address, budget, how you heard about us, and a captcha. Most first contacts need three or four fields.
• The ad says one thing, the page says another. Someone clicks "emergency water heater repair" and lands on a homepage about kitchen remodels. Message match (the page repeating the promise that brought the visitor) is the cheapest fix on this list.
• No proof near the button. Reviews, licenses and guarantees sit on a separate page nobody visits.
• The page is slow on mobile. Google's guidance is a Largest Contentful Paint within 2.5 seconds (the time until the main content appears). Visitors judge faster than that.

An honest word about A/B testing

An A/B test (showing two versions of a page to different visitors and comparing results) needs traffic. A page with 400 visits and 12 leads a month can't produce a reliable winner in any reasonable time. Testing programs still get sold to sites that are too small to run them.

So for most small businesses, my test plan splits the fixes in two. Clear problems, like an untappable phone number, just get fixed. Real judgment calls, like a new headline, get a before-and-after comparison over a set period, with the caveat written down. Proper split tests are reserved for pages with enough traffic, usually paid landing pages.

Who this is for (and who it isn't)

This is a good fit if you already get steady traffic from search or ads, and:

• Traffic is flat or falling, but you need the same number of leads
• You spend on Google Ads and the cost per lead keeps creeping up
• Visitors arrive, look around, and leave without calling
• You're about to redesign and want to know what to keep

I work with contractors, clinics, law firms, local retailers and SaaS startups across the US and Canada, remotely.

It isn't for you if your tracking isn't set up yet. Without it, any audit is guesswork. Start with an analytics and tracking setup and come back in a month. It's also more than you need if your site gets only a trickle of visits. My free website check already covers conversion basics like the call button, the forms and the main call to action, and that may be enough for now.

CRO audit pricing

Prices are in USD as of October 2026, and Canadian clients can pay in CAD at the day's exchange rate. The rest of the menu is on the BigRed pricing table.

Some fixes overlap with other work. If speed is the main leak, a site speed tune-up for WordPress may be the better first spend. If most of your traffic is paid, the audit pairs well with a look at the ads themselves through Google Ads management focused on lead quality.

Why ask me to audit your conversions

I've spent 20+ years in search marketing, and CRO and landing page testing have been part of that work alongside SEO and paid ads. I've also spent over $150,000 of my own money on ads. When you pay for every click yourself, you get very interested in what happens after it.

I also do the technical side. I can read your GA4 setup, check why a form event isn't firing, and fix a slow page at the server level. So the audit doesn't stop at "the developer should look into this."

Conversion rate optimization FAQ

How much does a CRO audit cost?

At BigRed a CRO audit starts at $2,000. That covers a page-by-page conversion audit of your key pages, a prioritized fix list with the replacement copy written out, and a test plan. Larger sites, ecommerce checkouts, or many landing pages cost more, and the quote says why. Making the fixes is quoted separately after the audit, or you can hand the list to your own web person.

What is a good conversion rate for a small business website?

It depends on the page and the traffic. Unbounce's 2024 benchmark puts the median landing page conversion rate at 6.6% across industries, but a homepage, a blog post and a paid landing page convert very differently. Compare each page with its own past results, not with a global average. A rising conversion rate on your money pages is the number that matters.

Do I need A/B testing software?

Usually not at first. Small sites rarely have enough traffic for a split test to give a reliable answer quickly, so most early wins come from fixing obvious problems. Free tools like Microsoft Clarity for heatmaps and GA4 for key events are enough to start. Testing software makes sense later, on high-traffic pages such as paid landing pages.

How long does conversion rate optimization take to show results?

Simple fixes, like a tappable phone number or a shorter form, can show up within weeks once they're live. Bigger changes need longer, because you need enough visits before and after to compare fairly. For most small business sites, I'd judge a change over at least a month of normal traffic, and longer in a seasonal business.

Is CRO worth it if my traffic is dropping?

That's often when it's worth the most. If AI answers or competitors are taking some of your clicks, getting more leads from the visitors who remain is one of the few things fully in your control. That said, if traffic has dropped sharply and suddenly, find the cause first. It may be a technical problem rather than a conversion one.

Next step

If your site gets visits but not enough calls, describe your pages and goals in the CRO questionnaire. I'll reply with a plan, a fixed quote, and the pages I'd look at first.