Clone & Optimise: Generate High-Converting Test Variants Without a Design Team
A methodology for going from research insight to multiple polished, on-brand test variants in a single session — no design team, no starting from scratch.
Most CRO projects stall in the same place: the design bottleneck.
You've done the research. You know why users are dropping off. You have clear hypotheses. But turning those insights into testable variants means raising a ticket, waiting on a designer, and going through feedback rounds. By the time anything's ready, the momentum's gone.
Clone & Optimise breaks that cycle.
It's a methodology I use with clients to go from research insight to multiple polished, on-brand variants in a single session. No design team. No starting from scratch. Just fast, consistent experimentation that actually ships.
Here's how to set it up.
What Is Clone & Optimise?
Instead of designing test variants from a blank canvas, you clone your existing website and use it as the foundation. Pair that with a design system that captures your site's visual language, feed in your research findings, then ask Claude to generate as many variants as you need.
Every variant looks like it belongs to your brand: same fonts, same colours, same spacing, while testing completely different conversion ideas. It's the difference between a scrappy prototype and something you can actually put in front of users.
The Setup: 5 Steps to Your First Variant
Install the Website Cloner Skill
Everything starts here. Install the AI Website Cloner template into your Claude Code environment. Follow the installation instructions in the repo. Once it's installed, you'll see the /clone command available in Claude Code, and you're ready to move on.
github.com/jcodesmore/ai-website-cloner-templateClone Your Target Page (or Flow)
Run the clone command with the URL of the page you want to optimise. If you're working on a multi-step flow like checkout or onboarding, provide all the URLs together so the clone covers the full journey. Cloning takes 20 to 30 minutes, depending on the page. Don't just wait around, though. That time is perfect for Step 3.
/clone [your website URL]Pick Your Design System
While the clone runs in the background, head to the Awesome Design MD library. Browse it and pick a design system that matches your site's visual style. Download the design.md file and drop it into your project folder. This file becomes the foundation for everything that follows. It defines the spacing, layout, and visual structure that every variant inherits, which is what keeps them looking like they belong to your brand instead of something thrown together in isolation.
github.com/VoltAgent/awesome-design-mdFeed In Your Research
This is what separates decent variants from genuinely useful ones. Before asking Claude to generate anything, give it the full picture of what you know. Drop in whatever research you have: CRO audit documents, customer interview notes, support tickets, sales call summaries, 1 to 3 star reviews (real language from real frustrated users is gold here), heatmap observations, anything relevant. The more context Claude has, the more targeted the output becomes. You're not asking for a different layout. You're asking for a layout that solves the specific friction points your research uncovered. That's a completely different brief, and it shows in the results.
Generate Your Variants
Now you're set: website cloned, design system loaded, research in context. Ask Claude to generate variants of whatever you want to test: a hero section, a product page, a pricing layout, a checkout step. Ask for as many as you want. Three, five, ten variants. The cost of exploring an idea is now just the time it takes Claude to generate it. Every variant matches your existing fonts and colour palette, follows the spacing logic from your design system, and is grounded in what your research actually found. No design handoff needed before you can test.
Why This Changes Things for CRO
The traditional workflow makes every test dependent on a designer's time. Even on strong teams, that dependency means fewer tests get shipped, because each one waits on a full design cycle.
Clone & Optimise puts the ideation back in the hands of the person closest to the data. The CRO specialist drives the exploration. Designers stay involved where they add the most value: refining winning variants, building production assets, maintaining the design system, but the ideas phase no longer waits on them.
And because every variant is built on a cloned foundation with a shared design system, nothing looks out of place. The brand integrity is there from the start.
Questions about applying this to your site? Get in touch.
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