Saturday, April 26, 2008

Better Website Performance With Split Testing

By Jason Pearson

If you have ever wondered whether or not your website could be improved, split testing may benefit you. A business looking to boost online sales or a test out a new ad can use split testing, for example. There are a few different options to weigh when considering split testing.

Split testing is very simply posting two incarnations of the same information on the web. You then measure which of the two pages receives more traffic or has a higher conversion rate. You can vary any part of the website you want between the two pages.

To get more in-depth you will need to decide exactly which elements you will vary on the two pages. That way you will know if it is the difference in graphics, colors, or text that sparked the better sales on one page or the other. You may also want to simply reposition certain pieces of your page to see which alignment produces more sales.

Whichever combination of variables you choose to test, you will have a goal in mind of how much you want to enhance your site and in what ways. Most businesses want their homepage to simply have a higher conversion rate. Other companies are just interested in generating more overall website traffic or eliminating flaws in their marketing campaigns.

Depending on the goals you have for improving your landing page, you may decide to slowly test one variable at a time. This requires less complicated analysis of data. You may also need some quick answers and are willing to change several variables at once.

To actually accomplish split testing you can do the work yourself if you have the time and knowledge. You will need to have experience designing web pages and looking at server statistics. Additionally, you will need to know how to interpret those statistics to tell you which variables are producing better results.

While this will require a financial investment on your part, you may save yourself a lot of time trying to figure out how to analyze data. They can also suggest changes that you had not previously considered. Coming from experience they may be able to pinpoint problematic parts of your homepage without even doing any data analysis.

When you research companies to help you through this process make sure you know what types of testing they offer. Some can help make it go faster by testing up to almost a dozen variables at once. Choose the best route for you to invest in so that you can optimize your website.

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