Improve Your Website With These Split Testing Tips

Written by Jim Stone, Ph.D.

Friday, 06 June 2008 17:05

When I first started split testing things on my landing pages to get more sales, I wasn't sure where to begin. I often tested things that didn't make much difference. Here are some ideas with an indication of how important it is to test each one.

1. Adding An Audio Greeting: Audio greetings are like video. They can help or hurt depending on the quality of the audio. Audio greetings aren't as popular anymore, now that video has become so prevalent, but it's still often a nice touch. Something to test is whether to have the audio start immediately, or wait until the user presses "play". You can get some users angry if you start the message automatically, so you might use that approach only if it converts significantly better. If it only wins by a little bit, I'd advise you to wait for the visitor to start the audio. (important)

2. A Magazine-Style Drop Cap: This is fairly important for the size of the change being made. It "almost" never hurts, and often gives 30% boosts. The drop cap draws the visitor's eye into the copy after reading the headline. If you search Google for "magazine style drop caps" you will see some tutorials for doing these with span tags. You can get really creative with these. (medium importance)

3. The Layout: Do you have one column or three? Do you have a long sales letter, or a short fact sheet. The general approach you take on your page can make a big difference. This might even be the most important choice to make. Unfortunately, when using multivariate testing software, it's often difficult to test this factor with other factors, because it pervades so much of the page. You can either test this factor separately, or run your multivariate test from a spreadsheet. Or, with a server-side PHP-based software program, you can test it with other factors with some clever work, though it will probably be much easier just to run a simple split test for this factor alone. (important).

4. Color Of Headline: When Taguchi testing of landing pages first hit the scene hard in 2004, one of the examples people used most was of testing the color of the headline. Red was the best, it was said. But then there was a debate about whether a bright red (like hex #ff0000) was best, or a deeper red (like hex #cc0000) was better. Since then, I've tested red, blue, black, mixed red and black, green, and others, and I've found that the headline color isn't all that important. You can test it, but I wouldn't expect much. (not so important)

5. Your Price: Should you try to sell more copies at $19.95, or fewer copies at $37.95? You might even sell more copies at $37.95. You won't know unless you test. Price is a tricky thing to test, though. You have to make sure you present a consistent price throughout your process to each individual visitor. It can be tricky, but it can also add a lot of money to your bottom line. (important)

6. Referring To Where They Came From: So the visitor clicks on a Google ad, and they come to your site, and it says: "Congratulations for clicking on my Google ad. You have just taken the first step toward . . ." This can have a powerful influence on the user, because it keeps them in their flow of consciousness that started at Google. You can try all kinds of things along this line. (important)

Those are just 6 ideas of many. Please test everything you can think of, but keep track of which things make the most difference for you.

About the Author:

Jim Stone, Ph.D. Created the Split Test Accelerator, and is an expert at using Taguchi Testing to improve web pages. Visit STA to learn more, and get Landing Page Software.

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