Whether you’re starting conversion work or restarting it, the order is the same: learn what your traffic can support, learn what’s wrong from the people who shop, fix what’s broken, and only then spend traffic on a test.

1. Week one: the numbersFour weeks of visitors, conversion and orders for your top three pages, by device, placed in the traffic table (front). The funnel by device (chapter 7). Buy from your own store on a phone and time it. Add the post-purchase question. If you have a testing tool, start a two-week A/A test on your busiest page (chapter 5).
2. Week two: the customersFive sessions on a phone, starting at your biggest funnel drop. A competitor teardown. Read the pre-purchase questions in support tickets and your 3-star reviews. End the week with one ranked problem list.
3. Week three: the fixesShip the top fixes from the list, each logged with its date (chapter 8). The pages you fixed now need two to three weeks to settle into a new baseline.
4. Week four: one test and the logPick one bold change for a page that can carry it and that you didn’t fix this month, or wait until a fixed page has two weeks of new baseline. Run the planner, write the brief (chapter 14) and launch once the A/A test is clean. Start the log. Re-score the audit.

At day thirty you’ll have fewer tests running than most teams, and more reason to believe the ones you have. The fixes will already be live and logged. And the ranked problem list will keep you busy for a quarter.

Research first, fixes second, tests third. Most teams run it backwards.

Do this

• Put the four weeks on the calendar today, with an owner for each line, and book the five sessions before you close this page.