II. The 3 – step hypothesis development

1. State the problem

You need to first be clear on your conversion goal, what CTA you are expecting, and what’s going wrong that prevents people from reacting to your site in a way that helps you realize your goal. You can then form a problem that you are looking to solve through testing. After you have a problem in mind, you can start to form a hypothesis. Common problems can be:

• CTA which is not clear and not visible CTA button.
• Lack of product or service descriptions.
• Miscommunicated product/ service value.
• Page copy which doesn’t speak the clients’ language.

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2. Propose Solutions

Based on your research, you should be able to come up with at least one solution about what you should change (reason can be based on customer interviews, user testing, heat map analyses, etc):

• Choose one isolated variable from the problem-stating step.
• Brainstorm several changes that can be made with that variable and analyze ways to create the best outcome.
• Double-check if your research data supports those solutions or not.

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3. Impact statement

Consider how the proposed change might impact your problem. This should take into account what you want to test and how it will affect your conversion problem.

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Conclusions

A solid hypothesis does not necessarily guarantee a win, but it will guarantee a lesson learned about your clients, no matter what the outcome. Here’s one more learning tip: categorize your results by device, browser, traffic source, and visitor type, so that you’ll have the best chance of determining a winning combination. This also supports your learning process.

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Read next: <a  href="https://www.crogurus.com/blog/the-conversion-rate-optimization-process-part-3-3" style="text-decoration: underline; color: #0288D1;" target="_blank">The Conversion Rate Optimization Process - Part 3/3</a>

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