MindValley Labs Internet Marketing Blog

Lets face it. If you are a small business owner, you are not the worlds' best web designer or copywriter and you cannot afford to hire them. Fortunately, now that you have ClickMuse you don't need to.

I cannot tell you how many times I have stared at my own websites and wondered whether I should go with version A or B or how many days I have spent trying to come up with the "perfect landing page." Then I discovered a better, faster, simpler way. Instead of agonizing over what headline to choose or whether to go with version A or B of a page, why not just quickly split test them?

What is split testing?

Split testing is an extremely powerful online marketing method that allows you to test two versions of a web page at the same time. This is why it is also frequently called A/B testing. Whenever you are split testing a page, you have two versions:

Version A: is the control group. This is your existing web page

Version B: is the new test

Your goal in split testing is to always try to come up with a new test to beat your control group. As soon as you have created a new version to test, ClickMuse will start to serve the two versions of your page in real-time and show you which page is performing better according to your defined goals (such as sign-ups and sales).

The art of split testing

To dramatically boost the performance of your site with split testing, just keep two principles in mind.

1) Test everything

2) Never stop testing

When you are first getting started with split testing, there are a couple of obvious targets that you can immediately get started with. The obvious targets are site elements that are most likely going to have the biggest impact on your site's conversion rate. We have highlighted the top 6 targets for split testing in the image below.

Top split testing elements:

1) The top header: The top header of a website is the first element that loads on the page and the first thing that your visitors will see. Our tests have shown that simply varying the color or information that is presented as part of the top header can have a huge change in the response rate.

2) Main title: As we already covered in the first lesson, the main headline is the single most important part of your site and you should always try to come up with a better headline than the one you are currently using.

3) Sub title: Often ignored is the subtitle. However, we have had tests weree varying the subtitle alone increased our sign-up rate by over 135%!

4) Body text: It is copy not images that sell, so testing different copy ideas is absolutely critical to maximize the potential of your website. Pay special attention to the text that shows up right after your headlines since this is the text that shows up above the fold. We have learned that often listing the main benefits as bullet points can lead to superior results instead of leading in with an opening paragraph.

5) The hero shot: Every site will have at least 1-2 images on your main landing page. Often, as in the example above, the hero shot is used to call attention to the most wanted response (such as the sign-up form). Hero shots can have a major impact on your site's performance and are one site element definitely worth testing.

6) The sign-up form: If your most wanted response is to capture leads (i.e. email addresses) then you have to test different sign-up forms since that will have an immediate impact on your sign-up rate. Split testing different forms, colors, text, and positioning of your form will lead to significant improvements over time.

There are two ways to run split tests:

1) Split testing one element at a time: The easiest way to split test is to pick one element such as the headline or the sign-up form and to run and A/B test to test two different versions. As soon as you have collected enough data, you will know which versions is performing better and then you can either run another split test of the same element or move on to testing something else. This testing approach is very straight forward and effective.

2) Split testing multiple elements: Instead of testing one element at a time, you might also want to test multiple variables at the same time or test a completely new design of your site. The main advantage of this approach is that it allows you to rapidly test major changes to a website and to test multiple variables at the same time. The disadvantage is that at the end of the day you will know whether version A is better than version B but you will not be able to pin-point it to one exact data point.

At the end of the day, your goal is to continuously keep testing and to continuously run two versions so that you keep making your site better and better. I hope that the above has given you some good ideas of what main elements to start testing on your site today.

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About the Author

Prior to MindValley Media, Mike was the Head of New Ventures Strategy at eBay where he conceived of the strategies that led to the investment in Craigslist, the launch of Kijiji.com and the acquisition of Skype. Mike has an MBA from Stanford and previously worked for the Boston Consulting Group. He is also a certified Google AdWords Professional.

Check out other posts by Mike Reining

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