When I first moved to Bath seven months ago, I didn’t expect to be doing anything like this.

Studying English and Drama at University, after graduation I ended up working for a Higher Education Institution in a broad Marketing and PR role. I gained some fantastic experience and was able to hone my skills by achieving my CIM Diploma in Marketing at the same time.

While I enjoyed my time there, I enjoyed the digital marketing side of my job the most, and knew I wanted to focus more on this in an agency environment. Moving to Bath felt like the perfect opportunity to start, and so I joined the SearchStar ranks to become the newest member of the small but crack-team of CRO experts.

My day is filled with a variety of exciting projects for various clients. Optimising conversion rate is a fairly long journey with many stops along the way, but overall it’s focused on improving the client’s digital presence one step at a time.

Some of my day could include using remote platforms to conduct user testing and find out how a user experiences a client’s website. This is just one of the elements we do as part of a detailed CRO review for a client, so as well as summarising the findings, I’ll also be researching competitors and their business, reviewing client’s landing pages using our unique framework, and analysing reports from Google Analytics and AdWords.

For some of our clients we may already be knee-deep in the testing stage, so I will be setting up new A/B or multivariate tests and monitoring the results of others. Testing is really important in helping companies to understand what works well on their website. While some changes might seem obvious, having a test to back this up is often useful and possibly helps answer the ‘why’ questions that come later. As well, often a test can throw a curveball, and a change that was predicted to make a positive impact doesn’t. We are regularly conducting a whole range of tests – from a simple A/B test with a more compelling and relevant headline, to comparing two different landing pages that incorporate a variety of ‘improvements’ on the page.

One of my favourite parts of my role is creating wireframes for clients (there is just something satisfying about a simple but complete sketch). As part of our consultancy, we can provide input at the design stage when creating new landing pages. Using wireframes enables us to show clients some of the recommendations for improvements, as well as gives the designers an easy template to work from. We’d always recommend you test these final designs though….you never know what the outcome could be!

As we continue to grow, our team is taking on more exciting projects and ensuring CRO is at the forefront of our clients’ digital strategies. And as I advance my career in a working environment that cares about nurturing its employees, I can go home safe in the knowledge that somewhere…out there…we’ve made a user’s journey just that little bit better on their never-ending quest for…whatever it is they want.

If you're interested in joining the team, take a look at our Careers page for more information, or contact Ryan Webb on 01225 58 38 38 or ryan@search-star.co.uk.