How many times have you racked your brain to find additional sales from somewhere…anywhere…please!? You know they’re out there, but how do you get at them?
If you currently have a click-to-registration rate of 10%, everyone will tell you that’s a good conversion rate (which it is). But looking at the flipside for a minute, it still means that for every 10 new registrations you’re generating, 90 visitors are deciding your site is not for them. When you’re up to generating 200 registrations a day, it means a whopping 1800 new visitors are leaving, every day, (possibly) never to return.

So how do you make the most of the traffic you’re already generating?

Now look at your website’s homepage and (if you have them…?) landing pages. How long did you agonise over the colour schemes, the copy, the colour of the buttons (and should that button go there or here, should it be more prominent?). If you’re a part of a company rather than a sole entrepreneur, you probably still spend time round a meeting table discussing the merits of one design over another. You will get the advice from designers, copywriters, investors, partners, family members and the guy down the pub on what should go where and how the whole thing should look, feel and work – everyone you speak to will have an opinion.
…But here’s the thing. None of them really has the faintest clue which variation of your site will perform the best. Most of those conversations – while reassuring and sometimes more than a little frustrating – are guesswork and won’t take your business forwards.

Your visitors are the people you really need to be listening to.

Your visitors are the only ones who will help you find those additional sales. The best way to increase your conversion rates is by testing different variations of your landing pages, and seeing which one your visitors prefer. And the simplest way to start that is by using Google’s Website Optimiser Tool. It has everything you really need, and it’s free (always a bonus).
With Website Optimiser, there are two types of testing you can carry out:

A/B Testing

This method compares the performance of entirely different versions of a page. Use it if:

  • You are able to publish a new page to test against an existing page
  • You want to test a new layout or overall look of a page

Multivariate Testing

This method compares the performance of content variations in multiple locations on the same page. Use it if:

  • You have a higher traffic site
  • You want to try multiple content changes in different parts of the page simultaneously

For the purposes of this article, we’ll deal with the simpler A/B testing. If you have lower traffic volumes, this will provide you with more reliable results from the outset.

Carrying out an A/B Test

First, decide on the page you’d like to test. If you’re running PPC campaigns and have a specific landing page for those ads, that’s probably a good place to start. Look at your landing page, and think of the different elements you’d like to test. Elements might include site copy, layout of the page, size of buttons or different images.
Once you’ve decided, create the new variations of the landing page (eg ppcv2.html, ppcv3.html) that you want to test against the original.
Website Optimiser
For a quick tutorial on how to use Website Optimiser, here’s a five minute video.

Once you’ve set up an account, the process is very simple:

  • Choose a name for the A/B experiment you want to undertake
  • Enter the url of the original landing page
  • Enter the url(s) of each variation page you want to test against the original
  • Enter the url of the Goal page – in this case it will be the Registration Thankyou page. (each time your visitor reaches this page, Website Optimiser will track it as a “Goal”)
  • Next, you will need to add three different types of tracking code to the pages you want to test. Website Optimiser takes you through these steps, so if you have a little html experience, it’s pretty simple to do. Also, the guys are on hand at the Dating Factory to help you through if need be.

Once all this is in place, you can launch the experiment, and Website Optimiser will start serving up your different landing page variations to your visitors. Depending on the amount of traffic you send through, you will start to see results in less than 24 hours.
The Website Optimiser will tell you when it has enough data to declare an outright winner. Once you have this verdict, you have the option of running a follow-up test, to confirm the results (I’d recommend you do this).
Now, within 24 hours, you have a new landing page which converts better than the old one! And you achieved it by listening to your visitors and removing all the guesswork. But don’t stop there. Get working on your next landing page variation as soon as you can.
No matter how good your conversion rates are, they can always be better. If you would like to learn more about improving your conversions or on A/B and Multivariate testing in general, please contact timtaylor@t3active.co.uk.