Archive for the "Tips" Category
Why aren’t Apple’s error messages written by marketers?
This morning as I was updating my iPhone, I received the following error message in iTunes:
User Interface design, like website optimization, is all about removing friction for your end users, and I was offended by a number of Apple’s choices on this screen: Read the rest of this entry »
How to track conversions without a “conversion page” in Google Optimizer
When you set up an AB Experiment through Google Website Optimizer, it expects you to have a few separate pages:
- The Control Page
- The Variant Pages
- The Conversion Page
For most websites this isn’t a problem, but what if you’re unique? What if you don’t have a typical conversion page to thank the user?
Don’t fret – we’ll show you how to trigger that conversion script if your end goal is a download, redirect, or something else non-standard. You can even use these techniques to confirm your visitors are actually reading your copy.
Increase conversion rate by making your site ugly. . .
Over the years many have contemplated the counter-intuitive ability of “ugly” sites to win huge market share – think eBay.com, Amazon.com, DrudgeReport.com, PlentyofFish.com, CraigsList.org, MySpace.com, or usability expert Jakob Nielsen’s Useit.com.
In our adventures in website optimization we’ve developed our own grand unified theory of why ugly web design works: Read the rest of this entry »
Test your horizontal layout to maximize conversion rate (with our free tool):
User-interface guru Jackob Nielsen’s concludes that “Web users spend 69% of their time viewing the left half of the page and 30% viewing the right half. A conventional layout is thus more likely [to improve website conversion rate].”
On the FutureNow blog, Brendan Regan suggests developing an infographic to let you lay Nielsen’s findings over your own website.
We’ve taken this one step further and created a tool that you can download today to do your own tests,
What is Landing Page or Website Optimization? The Basics. And why it’s important, nay, CRITICAL!
Website optimization (or Landing Page Optimization) is the process of testing different variations of your web page to find the best converting website. In figure 1, you see an example site as the starting test page, then with many different types of tests, conversions are tracked, statistics are analyzed, and a winning page is selected.
- fig 1. Process of Landing Page Optimization
Although there are many types of testing, the two basic testing processes are A/B Testing (or split testing) and multivariate testing.
See our post on the difference between A/B testing and multivariate testing.
The whole goal of landing page optimization, is increasing the action or value of actions from your site’s visitors.
fig 2. Before Landing Page Optimization
In fig. 2 you have your current site producing a number of sales or leads per site visitor, your conversion rate. Whether you are trying to get your visitors to purchase a product or fill out a lead form, your goal is to get as many qualified visitors to complete an action as possible.
fig 3. Increased Sales After Optimization
Of course it stands, in fig. 3, that if you can increase the number of visitors that complete that action, without having increase that actual number of visitors coming to your site, then you have increased the value of each visitor. That increases your profits. BAM! Now we’re talking. Now you’ve got more people taking action on your page, making you more profits! Ah, the sweet life…
Here’s an example without your pages being optimized:
For example, you spend $1,000 per day through PPC (pay per click advertising) for 4,000 visitors and sell 100 widgets at a advertising CPS (cost per sale) of $10/widget. You make a profit of $3 per widget so your daily profit is $300. 30% ROI on your marketing dollar.
- Cost Per Click: $0.25
- Total Visitors: 120,000 visitors a month
- # of Widgets Sold : 3,000 widgets a month
- Profit: $9,000 a month
Now, with landing page optimization, let’s say you increase your sites performance by 20%:
Assume you start testing and making changes to your pages, and produce a result of 20% increase in conversions. (That is a modest increase, 21% is the lowest increase we’ve achieved after 4 months with new clients.)
Before, you made 100 sales per day at a cost of $10 per sale and a profit of $3 per sale, but after:
- Additional “Optimized Sales”: 20 widgets a day (20% times 100)
- Total Visitors: Still same 120,000 visitors a month
- # of “Optimized” Widgets Sold : 600 widgets a month
- Additional Profit: $7,800 a month (600 times $13, you aren’t paying for extra traffic)
- Increase in Profits: 86% increase
Ok, just in case you missed that, a 20% Increase in conversion yields 86% Increase in Profits! That’s $93,600 per Year Increase for this example.
Holy Shenanigans Batman, that is incredible! Seriously, why are you still reading this, when you can be making your site more money by doing testing?!?!??
I understand it’s difficult to get started, and unfortunately, sometimes it ain’t as easy as it seems. That’s why Conversion Voodoo offers landing page optimization services. We get the ROI faster, and we help stop the lost revenue that is bleeding from your website right now. Whether you use a company like Conversion Voodoo, or do it yourself, bottom line get started today!
The difference between A/B Testing (or split testing) and Multivariate Testing
There are two main types of landing optimization testing methodologies: A/B Tests (Split tests) and multivariate tests.
Here are the basics for the two main types of landing page optimization methodologies:
A/B Testing (or split testing), is the direct testing and statistical comparison between 2 or more pages. In A/B split testing, you are not testing basic elements on a page, you are actually testing the different between the performance of separate pages. In figure 1, this is an example of a test between two different pages. After a statistically significant amount of traffic is sent sent to these 2 pages over time, you will be able to determine which page performed better, and use that page as the main page for the pages you were testing. A/B testing can be done between 2 or more pages at a time, depending on the amount of traffic you have.
figure 1. A/B Split Test Example