grow-website

# Grow a Website

Take a site that already has traffic and under-monetizes it, and turn it into a research-driven growth engine: more leads captured, more buyers persuaded, a sharper offer, and visitors who bring more visitors. This journey runs eight phases — the agent asks before it decides at every fork, and all state lives in `docs/` so you can stop and resume across sessions. It sequences the work; it does not redesign the site on a hunch.

## Core Principle

**Most traffic problems are conversion problems in costume: capture and convert the visitors you have before buying more.** This skill sequences the phases, asks the decision questions, and records every choice in `docs/`. The constituent skills carry the method — invoke them rather than improvising their frameworks. Research comes before optimization, and the offer comes before the page polish, always.

## Journey Map

| Phase | Skill | Question it answers | Artifact |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Discover why visitors leave | cro-methodology | Why do visitors not convert, and what is worth testing? | Extends docs/WEBSITE.md, docs/METRICS.md, docs/EXPERIMENTS.md |
| 2. Capture the not-ready 97% | scorecard-marketing | How do we keep the leads who aren't ready to buy? | Extends docs/WEBSITE.md, docs/MARKETING.md |
| 3. Clarify the message | storybrand-messaging | Can a stranger tell what we do in five seconds? | Extends docs/POSITIONING.md |
| 4. Make the message stick | made-to-stick | Will they remember it when they are ready to buy? | Extends docs/POSITIONING.md, docs/WEBSITE.md |
| 5. Add proof and triggers | influence-psychology | Why should they believe us, and act now? | Extends docs/WEBSITE.md |
| 6. Rebuild the offer | hundred-million-offers | Is the thing we sell irresistible? | Extends docs/OFFER.md, docs/EXPERIMENTS.md |
| 7. Engineer shareability | contagious | Will visitors bring us more visitors? | Extends docs/MARKETING.md, docs/WEBSITE.md |
| 8. Connect the lifecycle | one-page-marketing | Do the wins link into one compounding engine? | Extends docs/MARKETING.md, docs/METRICS.md |

## Operating Rules

1. **Resume first.** Before anything else, read `docs/GROW-WEBSITE-PLAN.md` and every artifact in the Journey Map. If the tracker exists, summarize the journey state in 3-5 lines and ask which phase to enter. Done when the user has confirmed an entry point. A journey with a tracker is resumed, never restarted.
2. **Intake on first run only.** No tracker: run the Intake below, then create `docs/GROW-WEBSITE-PLAN.md` with every phase statused `pending | in-progress | awaiting-evidence | done | deferred: reason | skipped: reason`. Done when the tracker exists and the user has confirmed the phase plan.
3. **Phase entry.** Announce: what the phase does, the decision it forces, the artifact it produces, rough effort. Offer proceed / skip / defer — phases marked GATE may be deferred, never skipped. Mark the phase `in-progress` on proceed. Done when the user chose.
4. **Skill invocation and fallback.** Load the phase's skill and use it: each phase's Invoke line names the skill by slug — use that skill to run the phase. If it is not available, offer: `npx skills add wondelai/skills/<slug> --global`. If the user declines, run the phase from its Brief — the minimum viable method. State which mode you are in.
5. **In-phase decisions.** Ask every question under "Decide with the user" — with concrete options and your recommendation. Record the choice in the tracker's Key Decisions. A decision made silently is a defect.
6. **Phase exit.** Present the draft artifact content for sign-off before writing. On approval: write or extend the docs/ files, update the tracker (status, Key Decisions, Next Actions). Done when the files are written and the phase row shows `done`.
7. **Artifact discipline.** Read before writing; create a file only if missing, otherwise extend — add or update your sections, preserve everyone else's. Files are UPPERCASE in `docs/`. Every recommendation lands as a checkbox or a table row with owner and priority. See [references/artifact-templates.md](references/artifact-templates.md) when creating a docs/ file for the first time — create it from the full skeleton (all section headings), then fill the sections your phase names.
8. **Every scarcity claim, testimonial, and share incentive must be true.** When a persuasion tactic needs inventing evidence, replace it with a tactic that uses evidence you have. A countdown that resets, a "only 2 left" that never changes, or a fabricated review poisons every honest claim that follows it.

## Intake

Ask these before creating the tracker:

1. What is the site, and what is its primary conversion action — signup, purchase, booking, lead form? (Anchors every phase and defines where the funnel ends.)
2. What traffic and conversion numbers do you have — sessions, bounce rate, conversion rate, worst-performing high-traffic page? (Gates Phase 1's funnel map and whether A/B testing can reach significance.)
3. What visitor research already exists — exit surveys, support tickets, chat logs, reviews? (Raw material for the O/CO table; if none, Phase 1 starts by gathering it.)
4. Do you already capture leads (list, lead magnet), and how well does it convert? (Gates Phase 2.)
5. What are you selling, at what price, and do visitors call it "too expensive"? (Gates Phase 6's offer rebuild.)
6. Is there existing positioning or messaging — a POSITIONING.md, a brand script, a one-liner? (Gates Phases 3-4; reuse rather than redo.)
7. What is your monthly traffic volume? (Decides Phase 1's testing approach: enough for bold A/B tests to reach significance, or lean on qualitative research and reason from principles.)

Skip heuristics: skip Phase 2 when a lead-capture funnel already converts well; skip Phases 3-4 when a stranger already passes the five-second test on the message; skip Phase 6 when the offer converts and price is not an objection; skip Phase 7 when there is no naturally shareable asset