How should a startup test and measure website copy changes to improve customer conversion?

Question

Accepted Answer

re-do the copy only if you think it will impact customer behaviour - not just based on vibes.
If you have access to real breathing humans, I wold start with a “smell test” with 5–10 people from your target audience:
	1.	Show them the page for 10 seconds
	2.	Then ask:
	•	What do we sell?
	•	Who is it for?
	•	Why is it better than alternatives?
	•	What should you do next?
	3.	If they can’t answer cleanly, the copy isn’t done.

This is brutally effective. And cheap.

To know if it's working, Define one primary metric - maybe for you it's CTA click-through: are they clicking “Get started / Buy / Book” more?

You also want to be looking at some supporting metrics - certainly Bounce rate / engagement: are people leaving instantly or sticking around?

As for how long you will need to wait, you’re not waiting for time — you’re waiting for enough data to trust the result.

If you have high traffic (thousands of visits/week): you’ll often see directional results in 7–14 days. If you have low traffic, than andy kind of a/b stuff is not going to be accurate - so plan on 4–8 weeks, and rely more on qualitative feedback + micro-conversions (CTA clicks, email captures) while you build traffic.

Here's my tough love: if you don’t have the traffic to test quickly, you should spend at least as much energy on distribution as you do on copy.