For testing purposes and the examples we give, were going to be using Googles website Analyzer which is a part of Google Analytics. Why? Well, for one, because its free and therefore accessible to everybody ; and secondly, because its a darn good testing platform free or not.
Googles Website Optimizer is free, powerful, convenient. What else could you want? It permits you to perform A / B and multivariate testing.
Why is it free?
Because Google knows that if you improve your conversion rates, youare more likely to speculate in more advertising campaigns, users are cheerful because theyre happier with the sites that they find through searches. Fundamentally, everyone seems to be happy and Google makes more money.
Makes sense when you put it that way, does not it?
There are more, paid services that you may use to further your testing, measuring, and enhancing practices. But this series is all about making the most out of what you can get for very little money spent, by focussing on the purchaser and conducting your communications strategy in a totally different way. Because of this, with reference to practical applications for testing that’ll be covered in this part of the series, well be concentrating on how best to utilize the free Google tools.
The most important thing to bear in mind about the Google website Optimizer is that it’s a tool. It only provides the metrics, it cant tell you what changes to make. You have to infer that for yourself. If you want the tests you run to be meaningful and give you the feedback you need to boost your site, then you want to be certain you are going about it the right way, and making the best of the free tools that Google gives you.
Later in the series, well be going through exactly what you should be doing to get you started with testing. Where you take it from thereis up to you.
Before we dig into the nuts and bolts of essentially running a test, there are some things you want to remember for any test you run, whether its 1 or 1001 :
- Always start the test with a goal in mind. Know what you are expecting the result to be ( though you may be wrong extremely wrong ; thats what youare testing. ) In scientific tests, this is known as the hypothesis. Your goal is the basis and the reason for the entire test.
- Work out what you metric of success will be before you start the test. How much better is sufficiently good to be considered a success? 5%? Ten percent 50%? Only you can decide that.
- Remember not to muddy the waters. If you are testing the color of the checkout button, dont also change the shape or the font or where it would appear on the site. You might get a fantastic result, but you wont know what variable was in charge of the change. Be especially aware of this when testing copy ; any other changes you make, even coincidentally, to the layout or the font or any other aspect of the display will totally cancel the validity of the test on the content.
- Remember that youmostly need a control. Even if youare dong multivariate testing, youstill need to use the original version of the page to act as a control, something to compare the test results to.
- Use descriptive names for your tests. You may be able to maintain a tally of the proven fact that Tests 1-10 were about buttons and Tests 11-15 were about news, but what about when you are at Test 345? If you give your tests clear, detailed names, itll be simpler for you to find the information and results when you want to refer back to them to plan more tests.
- The tests mean nothing if you dont learn anything from them. Your test isnt actually done ( or of any use to you ) unless youve researched the results and applied the learnings to your site. You then use that information youve gained as the basis for the next test, because
- And finally, youare never done testing. There will never be a time when you are able to say Thats it, its perfect, Im done. Even if your internet site is ideal and performing at its utmost capacity at that moment, the Net is a fluid, changing thing, and you need to make sure ( thru testing ) that you are keeping up with the changes and keeping you and your website applicable and maintain your presence on the web as a Trusted Expert.
( This post is a continuation of the series of turning into a Trusted Expert. You can read the previous posts at Become a Trusted Expert Online )
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