Daniel Scocco here, and this is the Daily Blog Tips newsletter.
Today I want to talk about the importance of split testing for any
kind of online project or business and give you some tips on how
to get started with it.
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Split testing, also called A/B testing, is a testing method where
you compare a base sample with another test sample, changing one
specific variable inside it.
For example, you could have a base landing page, and then you would
compare it against a new landing page where you changed the main
headline.
If you were selling a product on that landing page, you would then
compare the conversion results of page A against page B (by
conversion I mean the percentage of the total visitors that ended
up making a purchase).
There are other testing methods out there (like the multivariate
one), but the split tests are easy to implement, easy to interpret,
and they can be applied on a wide range of situations.
That is why you should always use them.
If you have a blog where your goal is to gain as many RSS subscribers
as possible, create split tests with the location of the RSS icon,
with the message that you use to call the attention of visitors,
with the freebies you offer in return and so on.
If you have a landing page where you promote an affiliate product,
split test with the sales copy, the headline, the testimonials
and so on.
If you use PPC to drive traffic to your website or products, split
test with different keywords and bids and always try to beat the
top performing ad group.
Here is a practical example with some numbers. Let's suppose that on
top of your sidebar you have a "Subscribe to my newsletter" section,
where visitors can put their email addresses to subscribe to your
newsletter.
First of you would need to track what is the conversion rate. Just
find out what is your weekly traffic, and how many new subscribers
you get per week. If your weekly traffic is 30,000 visitors and you
gain, on average, 50 new subscribers, then your current conversion
rate is 1,66% (50 divided by 30,000).
Now you need to change one specific element on that subscription
section, and then track the result for another week or two. Let's
suppose that you changed the background color of that section,
making it yellow to call the attention of visitors.
During the next weeks your traffic kept stable at 30,000 visitors,
but you got 65 new subscribers per week on average. This means that
your conversion rate increased to 2,16%, and you should therefore
keep the changes you made. Had the conversion rate decreased, which
is possible, you would just need to revert the changes.
This is pretty much the process you'll need to repeat over and over
again, always trying to beat the top performing combination of
factors.
Obviously you should not split test every single element on your
site, else you would not have time for anything else. But it is
very important to take the time to split test the important sections
( i.e., landing pages that sell your products, pages where your
you get email subscribers and so on).
Make sure to visit http://www.dailyblogtips.com as well, as I have
some interesting posts up this week.
Talk to you soon,
Daniel Scocco
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2972 Columbia St. Suite # 8161 - Torrance, CA 90503 - US
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