Google has unveiled a new scheme designed to help businesses better optimise their sites to enhance conversions.

The Google Conversion Professionals (GCP) programme will see website conversion specialists able to sign up to receive accreditation from the search engine as experts in the area of boosting online sales.

Businesses in the UK, Germany and the Netherlands can use the scheme to find website conversion experts to help them with their own sites if they are unable to use tools such as Google Analytics and Website Optimiser themselves, Evelyn O'Keeffe of Google said.

Services offered by GCP-accredited professionals include analytics and site optimisation tool implementation, enhancement of marketing effectiveness, website testing and analysis, and product and service proposition tailoring.

"Google Conversion Professionals are Google accredited specialists that examine your marketing effectiveness, website usability and product/service offering, in order to find areas of improvement," Ms O'Keeffe remarked on the Google Conversion Room blog.

The search engine worked with retailers such as Debenhams and Next ahead of the launch of the GCP scheme to demonstrate how businesses can recoup lost revenue by optimising their websites more effectively.

For example, Debenhams increased its email sign-ups by 89 per cent after working with Google to test the positioning of banners asking consumers to sign up to its newsletter on its site.