7 Things to Know to Successful Split Testing Sorta Technical Stuff
For testing purposes and the examples we give, were going to be using Googles Website Analyzer which is part of Google Analytics. Why? Well, for one, because its free and so accessible to everybody ; and secondly, because its a darn good testing platform free or not.
Googles Website Optimizer is free, forceful, fast and easy. What more could you want? It permits you to perform A / B and multivariate testing.
Why is it free?
Because Google knows that if you enhance your conversion rates, youare more likely to take a position in more advertising campaigns, users are cheerful because theyre happier with the sites that they find thru searches. Essentially, everyone is cheerful and Google makes more money.
Makes sense when you put it that way, doesn’t it?
There are other, 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 little or no money spent, by focusing on the purchaser and conducting your communications strategy in a totally different way. For that reason, with regard to practical applications for testing thatwill be covered in this part of the series, well be focussing on how best to use the free Google tools.
The main 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’d like the tests you run to be meaningful and give you the feedback you want to enhance your site, then you want to be certain youre going about it the correct way, and making the best of the free tools that Google gives you.
Later on in the series, well be going thru exactly what you should be doing to get you going with testing. Where you take it from thereis up to you.
Before we delve into the nuts and bolts of essentially running a test, there are some things you want to recollect for any test you run, whether its 1 or 1001 :
- Always start the test with a goal in mind. Know what you expect the end result to be ( although you could be wrong very wrong ; thats what youare testing. ) In scientific tests, this is called the conjecture. Your goal is the basis and the cause of the entire test.
- Work out what you metric of success will be before you start the test. How much better is good enough to be considered a success? 5%? Ten percent 50%? Only you can decide that.
- Remember not to muddy the waters. If youre testing the color of the checkout button, dont also change the shape or the font or where it seems on the site. You could get asuperb result, but you wont know what variable was responsible for the change. Be particularly aware of this when testing copy ; any other changes you make, even inadvertently, to the layout or the font or any other side of the display will totally annul the validity of the test on the content.
- Remember that you always need a control. Even if youare dong multivariate testing, you continue to need to use the original version of the page to act as a control, something to compare the test results to.
- Use detailed names for your tests. You could be able to maintain a tally of the proven fact that Tests 1-10 were about buttons and Tests 11-15 were about headlines, but what about when youre at Test 345? If you give your tests clear, descriptive names, itll be less complicated for you to find the info and results when you want to refer back to them to plan more tests.
- The tests mean nothing if you donot learn anything from them. Your test isnt actually done ( or of any use to you ) unless youve investigated 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 eventually, youare never done testing. There won’t ever be a time when you can say Thats it, its perfect, Im done. Even if your site is perfect and performing at its uttermost capacity at that moment, the internet is a fluid, changing thing, and you want to make sure ( thru testing ) that youre keeping up with the changes and keeping you and your internet site relevant and maintain your presence online as a Trusted Expert.
( This post is a continuation of the series of turning into a Trusted Expert. You can read the prior posts at Become a Trusted Expert Online )
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