Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is getting more of the visitors a website already has to call, book or buy. I'm Cevan Long, a web designer and CRO specialist in Lisbon, Connecticut.
For small businesses in New London County and across the state, I measure what visitors do on the site, find the step where they leave, and fix that first, instead of redesigning everything or paying for more traffic.
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5.0 stars from 11 Google reviewsUpdated November 7, 2026
The math
A worked example, not a client result: a service business site with 1,000 visits a month.
| Before | After | |
|---|---|---|
| Visits a month | 1,000 | 1,000 |
| Calls and form sends | 20 | 35 |
| Conversion rate | 2.0% | 3.5% |
15 more calls a month from the same visitors. That is the whole idea: the site works harder before anyone spends more on ads.
For most small businesses a conversion is a phone call, a form sent, a booking made or an order placed. A few more count depending on the business: a tap on the directions link, a menu opened, a quote request started.
Whatever it is, it is the moment a visitor becomes a customer or a lead, and it is the one number a website exists to move.
Conversion rate is conversions divided by visitors. If 1,000 people visit a site in a month and 20 of them call or send the form, the conversion rate is 2 percent.
A difference of a point or two sounds small until you do the math on a year of visitors, and the difference is usually not the business. It is the website: how fast it loads on a phone, whether the phone number is one tap away, whether the reviews are there, whether the next step is obvious.
That is why I measure before I change anything. Google Analytics with call and form tracking tells me where visitors come from, which pages they read, and where they leave. Those numbers, not a hunch about the home page, decide what gets fixed first.
6 things I find on small business websites again and again. Each one costs customers, and each one is fixable.
A page that takes 6 seconds to show anything on a phone loses people before it loads. Desktop-sized images and a dozen plugins are the usual cause.
On a service business site, the call is the conversion. If the number is not on the first screen and tappable, the easiest conversion on the site is hidden.
Every field is a reason to stop. A 12-question quote form gets a fraction of the sends a 4-field form does on a phone. Ask the rest on the call.
People pick the business that looks trustworthy. Google reviews with names, real photos of the crew and the work, and a clear service area do that job.
A visitor from Groton who cannot tell within a few seconds whether you work in Groton leaves. The service and the towns belong in the headline, not the footer.
A page with 5 equal buttons has none. Give it one main action, worded as what happens next, like "Get a quote", and repeat it at the bottom.
The same loop every month, on every site I manage. It is steady work, not a switch, and it compounds.
Google Analytics with call and form tracking, set up so each conversion is counted and attributed to the page and the source it came from. For a store, the checkout funnel step by step. Without this, CRO is guessing.
Where do visitors leave? Which pages get traffic and no calls? Where in the form or the checkout do people stop? On a small site the numbers point at one page or one step with the biggest drop.
One change at a time, biggest leak first: a faster page, a shorter form, the number on the first screen, reviews where the doubt is, clearer copy on the step people abandon. Small sites rarely need a redesign. They need the right fix in the right place.
Before and after, over enough weeks to mean something. Most small business sites don't have the traffic for a true A/B test, and I'm honest about that: the method is one change, a fair measurement window, then the next change. On a site with real volume, a split test.
Every month, as part of the managed service: review the numbers, pick the next leak, fix it, measure. A site that improves a little every month ends the year somewhere very different from where it started.
Tap-to-call on every screen, a short form, your reviews on the page, hours and service area where people look for them, and a page for each town you serve. Then tracking on calls and forms, so the monthly numbers are real.
Product pages that answer the questions before the cart (sizing, shipping, returns, what is in it), photos that show the thing, trust where the doubt is, a checkout with nothing in the way, and the funnel measured step by step, so the leak is a number, not a feeling.
SEO brings people to the site. CRO decides what happens when they get there. The number a business actually feels, customers from the website, is the two multiplied together, so improving either one improves it, and improving both compounds.
They also share the work. A page that names your town and your service clearly, loads fast, shows your reviews and makes the next step obvious ranks better and converts better. That is why every site I build does both from day one, rather than treating CRO as something to add later.
On a site I build, CRO is part of the plan from the kickoff call: the tracking is set up before launch, and the monthly improvements after launch are where the conversion rate climbs.
If your site was built by someone else, start with a Pre-flight Check. Send me the address and I'll go through it by hand, on a phone, the way a customer would, and send you what I'd fix first.
Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is getting more of the visitors you already have to call, book or buy. I find the step where people drop off, test why, and fix that first, instead of redesigning everything or buying more traffic.
No. A small site with a few hundred visits a month can't run a true A/B test, but it can still be measured and improved. The method changes: one fix at a time, a fair measurement window, then the next.
The leaks on small sites are usually big and obvious once the numbers are in, like a form nobody finishes.
By the numbers before and after. Calls, form sends, bookings or orders are tracked and attributed to their page and source, and I compare a fair window on each side of the change, not a day or two.
If the number didn't move, the change comes out and the next idea goes in.
Weeks to a few months, depending on your traffic. Some fixes show up in the first month, like putting the phone number on the first screen or shortening a form. Others take a few cycles of measure, fix and check. It's steady work, not a switch.
Start with a Pre-flight Check. Send me the address and I'll go through it by hand, on a phone, the way a customer would, and tell you what I'd fix first.
From there we can talk about what makes sense: improving the site you have, or building one that's set up for this from the start.
Launch is the start, not the finish line. You'll have a dedicated, long-term website partner: send me content updates and changes whenever you need them, and I take care of them.
I also keep the site updated and monitored, send monthly reports, and make improvements based on what visitors actually do.
Tell me about your business and what the site needs to do. I'll reply personally with where I'd look first.
5.0 stars from 11 Google reviews
Cevan LongWeb designer and CRO specialist in Lisbon, CT