Having recently returned from a wonderful four weeks of paternity leave, I’ve been reflecting on the parallels between my new role as a parent and my professional world of CRO (Conversion Rate Optimisation). Sleep deprivation tends to bring clarity in unexpected ways!
Caring for a baby and CRO have surprising similarities – stay with me.
If your baby isn’t sleeping, neither are you. You’ll try anything to help them sleep better. But where do you start? Naturally, our modern ‘go to’ is a broad Google search for ‘tips to help your baby sleep’ which did indeed yield some useful articles, like this helpful article from NCT.
But the questions remain – is it the room temperature, their clothing, the lighting, or the bed they’re sleeping in? The list of potential variables is endless.
Sound familiar?
Much like CRO, when faced with endless variables, the key is to test.
You make small adjustments from night to night and observe the results. Did that change improve their sleep? Great, stick with it. If not then try something else. But just like in CRO, you can’t change too many things at once or you’ll never know what actually worked.
One night, as I sat rocking my newborn daughter at 3 a.m., it hit me: my life as a parent is one giant series of experiments, just like CRO. Most of life, really, is about small, controlled (well, semi-controlled) tests to optimise and improve how we live.
Here are some everyday examples:
- If your train makes you late for work—you test taking a different train.
- If you’re hungry before lunch—you test eating a different breakfast.
- If your grocery bill is rising—you test shopping at a different supermarket.
- If your curry was too spicy—you test using less chili next time.
- If you had bad service with a company—you test a competitor.
Many of these seem like ‘no-brainers’. But until you make the change and see the results, you can’t be sure. And often, you’ll need to iterate, continually making adjustments until you find the right solution.
It’s the same with your website.
If your website isn’t working as you’d like or failing to hit its KPIs, why would it be any different? Testing, tweaking, and refining – bit by bit, step by step – is how you improve performance. It’s no different from rocking a baby at 3 a.m., hoping you’ve finally cracked the code to a better night’s sleep.
And if you’re still struggling? Just like hiring a sleep consultant for your baby (trust me, it works), you might need an optimisation expert to help your website thrive.
At Conversio, we’re your website’s sleep consultant. If you’re unsure where to start or aren’t getting the results you want, give us a call. Let’s make your site ‘sleep through the night’ or, more importantly, hit your targets.
If you want to find out more, take a look at How we Work or drop us a quick message here for a chat.
