I would love to see a test of this and find out how much this second option actually reduced list unsubscriptions.

The companies making it through the economic crisis are going to be more efficient and more streamlined as they have learned to do more with much less, to squeeze more out of areas that they did not focus on before. Corporate resources are called upon to deliver more and work harder.

Budgets have been cut back and marketing spend has been reduced, so savvy companies are learning that their websites need to deliver the goods. It used to be that if you wanted more leads or sales, you just turn up the dial on the adspend and get more.

Now there are ways to increase leads and sales from your website even amidst the budget crunch and ad spend cutbacks.

1. A/B and Multivariate Testing – If you have not done this, then you are not putting your best foot forward or at least you are not putting your best website forward. Why settle for a poor performing website when you can tweak it for maximum performance.

2. Segment optimization- Not every visitor to your site is the same. There are questions you should be asking yourself about your visitors. Where do they come from? What keyword brought them in? What time of day do they visit the site? Are they coming from your advertising? Once you know this information, you can take action that will increase the performance of your website. Find the right combinations that work for everyone coming from Google for example. Closely related to Personalization below.

3.Personalization- Almost all websites are showing one message for every visitor. But what if you could show the right message for every visitor? Blue widgets for the people who found the site through a blue widget keyword, red widgets for the red, North American widgets for those who came in from Seattle and glow in the dark widgets for those who came to the site in the middle of the night. Well you can and you should, this increases conversion rates above and beyond what testing can do.

Living through the furnace of economic trials will make stronger companies who are smarter with what they have. Don’t be surprised if your competition has a website that doesn’t seem to rank well or they don’t spend much to promote it, but it seems to be kicking your butt. They’ve probably figured out how to make the site work for them.

If one thing was made apparent by the WhichTestWon testing awards this year, its that most web marketers are toting around a shutgun, rather than a sniper rifle when it comes to testing. Very few of the entries provided meaningful learnings, beyond “one page is better than the other.”  If we had asked people WHY Recipe C beat the control, not many would have had a definitive answer.

So I implore you to stop testing lots of things at the same time (shotgun approach) and instead, pick and isolate variables carefully and deliberately (sniper rifle.)  When the test is done, you’ll be able to proudly say, Recipe C beat the control, and the reason WHY is that a medium button that is red and includes the word FREE gets more clicks.

Why does this matter?  Because you can take this learning and apply to your next test-

2. Test, Learn, Change, Test, Learn, Change, Test Learn… Iterate More!

Iteration is the secret to delivering the best possible product.  Picture what it would be like if car manufacturers did not iterate on their designs?  We would all be driving around in clunkers that were no more reliable than they were in the early 1900s.  Luckily, this is not the case!

The same is true with testing your sites, landing pages, and other online creative.  Rather than using the shotgun approach by testing repeated wildly differing designs- put on your white lab coat and treat your web optimization campaign like a real scientific experiment.  Run focused, controlled, carefully designed experiments- varying only one thing for an AB test or a handful of things in a multivariate test.

This approach may not be quite as exciting as the former, but in the end, you will learn more, and have a better likelihood of success.  Once you have completed one test, be immediately ready to run the next, iterating (or building) on what you have learned.

3. Add the word OFAT to Your Testing Vocabulary

Just because OFAT sounds horrible (old and fat?) it is neither bad, old nor fat.  OFAT stands for One Factor At a Time- in other words one variable at a time.  Google erroneously took the term ‘AB test’ and popularized it to mean testing wildly differing designs (in fact different web addresses.)  AB testing was originally synonymous with OFAT- meaning in a split test, you isolate one variable and change it to measure the effect of the change.

4. Take a Class or Read a Book

In my job, I get to observe the testing practices of a great number of marketers and agencies. I can say with a degree of certainty that many of them (including those “certified by Google”) would benefit by taking the time to study testing best practices.  Even though they are technical and not specifically geared towards web testing reading up on experimental design and design of experiments can help you create better tests with more reliable results.  A side benefit is that they will possibly require less traffic to get statistical validity as well.  There are a set of well understood principals from offline testing which can be ported over to the online world with great success!

6. Learn from example

Lately,  a number of inspiring sites have popped up with examples of real test results, expert commentary, and other resources.  One of my favorites is Anne Hollands “WhichTestWon” which hosts a weekly blog asking their namesake question.  Marketers submit two versions of a prior test, and visitors to the site are given the opportunity to pick which they thought won!  These sites can help you in two ways- 1.) You get a view into the mind of other marketers and how they chose to design experiments, and 2.) They can be a great source of ideas for testing on your own site!

7. Take a walk offline

Some businesses count as many as 70% or more of their conversions from offline sources (telephone orders.)  The simple fact is you cannot afford to ignore these when you are running a test.  Would you drive a car with the windshield 70% obscured??  Sadly, many many marketers do the equivalent testing online.  If you get a lot of orders by phone, you need to hook some phone conversion tracking capabilities to your test.  I am not sure how many testing vendors support phone tracking integration, but I know at least one that does (wink).

As for the phone tracking vendors, a search of Google will illuminate many- varying widely in cost.  Most will work for testing purposes.  The important thing is to make sure that each unique recipe tested is correctly assigned to a unique phone number.  Then when a call comes in, the phone system needs to be told to report a conversion for that page version.  It sounds confusing because it is.  Luckily, all of this complexity happens in the background.

8. Pay Attention to Segments to Maximize Testing Satisfaction

Ask yourself what would happen if Santa Clause delivered the same present to every child, regardless of age, nationality, or gender.  Would most kids be happy with their gifts?  I doubt it!  Instead, Santa segments his audience, making sure little boys get toy cars, action figures, and the like, and little girls get dolls, stuffed animals, jewelry, etc.

Don’t make a mistake by assuming all of your website visitors are going to respond to test options in the same way.  Many marketers are running tests with darkened glasses on here, blindly ignoring the nuances that commonly exist amongst different traffic segments.  Make a goal in 2010 to invest in a testing platform that can show you how visitors from Google performed compared to visitors from Facebook, and which version of the test won for each group.

I’m co-presenting the live webinar awards with Anne Holland.  Our fellow judges are Avinash Kaushik and Bob Bly. Plan to attend next week, on Tues Dec 8th, 2:30pm ET/11:30am PT

Reserve Your Seat Now(space is limited, so don’t wait)

What will you learn?

You’ll get to see samples — winning and losing test panels — plus data from the best tests of 2009 including:

• Homepage tests
• PPC landing page tests
• Ecommerce tests
• B2B lead generation tests
• Email opt-in form tests
• Advanced online tests

Space is limited, reserve your seat now!

If you love testing, this should be one of the most inspirational events of the year. The webinar is Next week, Tuesday Dec 8 at 2:30 PM EST.

Reserve your Seat Now

Simply put, content and internal links are said to be the keys to success. How can websites be designed along these criteria without losing sight of conversions? From a usability (and conversion) point of view, a wall of text is just as undesirable as overhanging and unclear navigation menus. Are we stuck with the clash between SEO and conversion optimization?

To keep it short: no! Websites can be optimized for search engine crawlers as well as user conversion. Not only can they be optimized for both, but they should be. A full scope analysis, with both SEO and conversion optimization experts at the table, guarantees a user and search engine friendly website design. Conversion rate optimization is very important for a website’s success. The earlier this exchange takes place, the more time, stress, and unnecessary costs can be saved in the end.

Optimizing the conversion rate is crucial for a website’s success, because rather than taking the expensive and costly route of always buying more traffic, you can take advantage of streams of existing users. Reservations about conversion optimization are often heard, that tests influence Google rankings, or that changes can’t be made to the page without negatively influencing on-page optimization. This is somewhat short-sighted, since conversion optimization and SEO fit together very well.

Testing does not influence rankings

For Google and co., these tests are completely undetectable. All leading testing-tools work with JavaScript (AJAX) to replace the page’s original content with text content in the browser. Since the HTML source code is unchanged, the tests have no effect on search engine rankings. Furthermore, Google supports conversion optimization with its website optimizer and the Google Conversion Professionals program, and emphasizes somewhat that such JavaScript replacement are not interpreted as spamming.

On-page optimization for SEO and better conversion rates are not mutually exclusive

Websites with good conversion rates can be listed at the top of organic searches. When conversion specialists and experts work together for SEO, such as the case is with QUISMA, each new test variant allows for the best possible on-page optimization. Moreover, many SEO relevant adjustments can be made to conversion-optimized pages without affecting the conversion rate.

To take a closer look at overhanging  menus from the introduction: for usability and conversion, a compact and well-arranged menu could be placed at the top of the page. Further down on the page, all of the subcategories can be listed and linked. This achieves a compromise where both goals are compatible with each other.

Finally, all traffic should be measured well to see if it leads to a good conversion rate. If new users gained by SEO don’t generate any revenue due to bad usability, then the search engine optimization was for nothing. Accordingly, holistically thinking SEOs will keep conversion rate in mind, and use the conversion rate optimization to ensure that the client benefits from good results in the end.

(Original article was published in German at Twoqubes.com)

The author

Jörg Dennis Krüger (Xing/LinkedIn) is Senior Manager Conversion Optimization at QUISMA – a GroupM company.

The first annual awards were announced last week, and you have until November 20 to get your entry submitted!  There will be an awards webcast in the beginning of December (we’ll announce it here or you can follow whichtestwon.com to stay up to date.)

Winners will get links from us, whichtestwon.com and a number of other sites that choose to cover the awards.  Furthermore, you get a cool badge to place on your site indicating that you were a winner.  Plus it’s a great resume bullet to say your AB test won an Award!  This has the potential to earn you or your agency a lot of free publicity!

The categories  include things like Best: Homepage Test, Copy Test, PPC Landing Page Test, Email Opt-in Offer Test, Ecommerce Store Test, Blog Interaction or Conversion Test, Video Test, Advanced Testing Tactics.

The rules are pretty simple, but one important thing to note is that your test does not have to use Vertster.  In fact if you have a good test to enter that you did with Google Optimizer, Omniture, or any other software, feel free to enter it!  We’ll keep your results anonymized as well!

So hurry up and enter- the deadline is Nov 20.

This week,  a test run on the Vertster Optimization Platform appeared on WhichTestWon.  In this test, two significantly different home pages were pitted against each other.  One featured traditional sales copy, and the test version had a big video, as well as use of an authority endorsement.   Place your vote for the winner and read the full case study on the site!

Both banners drove traffic to same landing page. So it would stand to reason that any change in the number of conversions was a direct result of more people *clicking* on one or the other banner.

Here are the two versions of the banner ad.  Which do you think resulted in more conversions?

or

Text Translation:

On demand webinar
Landingpage Optimization 101

Contents: Introduction Conversion Optimization, Benefit of landing pages?, What are good landing pages? Best practices for successful landing pages. Conversion clinic.

View now for free

Results:

The second version generated 65% more sign ups.  This clearly shows that including a picture of yourself is something that needs to be tested!  In our experience, unless you are super hot and wearing a bikini, or super famous, the picture is better left off your page.  What is interesting to note is that moving the button to make room for the image could have actually helped the head shot version- because in western countries we read left to right and left button placements often outperform right placements.  (This is an example of a possible interaction effect- best sorted out with a multivariate test.)

1. The search box itself:

The primary goal of optimizing the search box itself is to make certain visitors on the site can find it and understand what it does. Typical tests would revolve around the placement of the search box, size of the text field, color, and the appearance and text on the button.

2. The search results page:

Once people complete a search, they arrive to a results page which displays matching products or content.  The goal of the results page is for people be able to quickly see the results and then link to the content found.  Certainly, the effectiveness of this page will be highly dependent on the relevance of the results, but on-page factors (which can be optimized) play an important role as well.

We have seen simple changes and optimization increase search result page engagement by over 40%, which is a very big lift for something most people would think has little to do with testing.

The results page offers up many more areas of testing and optimization.  Here are a few to consider:

• How many results do you display?
• Do you use a regular site template or a scaled down page design which makes it easier for the user to focus on results?
• What visual cues do you provide within the results (such as highlighted matching text.)
• Do you allow people to purchase or add to cart directly from the search results?
• Do you show prices in the results?
• Do you show a “related searches” section to help the user refine their search (this has potential to distract them from the main results though.)

When you test these, you should make sure to track both result page engagement (did people click on the search results) as well as revenue per visit.  Subtle changes in the search system can make a big difference in revenue for many e-commerce sites, so never rely on engagment metrics only!

Before you ever start testing, you should have an idea of what you plan to get out of it.  You should not be testing just to join the “cool kids.”  Going into your testing program you should have a written goal.  It may be broad, but having that goal will change how you proceed through each of the steps of creating and launching your test.

2. Assemble your Team, Communicate what you are doing internally

Identify who will be involved with the test, and make sure each person understands their specific role.  If you will need custom creative assets developed, identify the stakeholders and get some time carved out in their schedule.  Let other groups in your organization know you will be performing testing on the site so they do not get surprised be an unexpected change to the site.

3. Research problem pages on your site with analytics

Use web analytics tools to spot trouble areas in your site. Things like high drop off or bounce rates, low conversion rates, and poorly performing landing pages should stick out like a sore thumb and could be ideal places to focus your testing campaign.  Also look for pages that get a significant amount of traffic, as these may be prime candidates for testing as well.

4. Choose the page on your site to test

The next thing to do is determine what page or pages you want to include in your test.  In many cases, this will be obvious- most people start with either specific landing pages, or (eek) their home page.  Home pages are notoriously difficult to test because of competing goals and noisy traffic but if you analyze specific traffic segments you can still get good learnings.  Regardless, use your analytics research to help choose where to focus your efforts.

5. Decide what variables to test

This is incredibly obvious, but of course you have to decide what things to test.  We have devoted a number of past blog posts to this topic, but it is worth repeating: focus on stuff that appears “above the fold” like headlines, images, page layouts, inclusion of navigation, special offers, promotions, scarcity elements, and risk reversal. Below the fold focus on order and buy buttons, forms, and more risk reversal (near the buttons.)

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

6. Create radical options

This has also been written up before, but if you are going to run a test, run a TEST.  Don’t be shy!  Minimal changes will result in minimal differences in performance- leading to drawn out test times and the possibility of a NULL test result (no clear winner no matter how much traffic you get.)  Don’t test 10 different shades of blue for that order button- test 10 different colors from across the spectrum!

7. Identify external factors and plan to block them

There are many external factors which can sway test results.  An easy to understand example is “day of week.”  People tend to behave differently on weekdays vs. weekends.  This can show up in a test with different results on weekends than on weekdays.  To block this data from affecting your overall results- make sure you run the test for at least a full week or two full weeks.  Alternatively you can analyze your results for just weekday visitors or just weekend visitors although not all testing software supports this.

8. Develop a Hypothesis

Just like you did in science class growing up, you should form a hypothesis of what you think will happen.  This statement summarizes what you are testing, why you are testing it, and what you suspect will happen.

9. Decide whether to run a multivariate, split or URL test

Multivariate tests have the advantage of speed and understanding: you’ll get more testing done in less time- particularly with a fractional factorial MVT.  You’ll also get the advantage of seeing how various changes work when combined together.  The downside is that management has less understanding and getting buy-in may be tougher.  Split tests let you focus on one or more variables on a page test alternative treatments… think headlines, buttons, hero shots, etc.  If you wish to test really big ideas, like completely different page layouts- try testing multiple different URLs!

10. Make sure your site is “modular”

The best way to run any type of experiment is to focus on something called “variable isolation.”  This means that each thing you are testing should be tested in an independent manner- thus making certain that any performance lift (or loss) you observe are directly tied to the changes you have made.  The easiest way to get to variable isolation is to design your web pages in a “modular” fashion, which makes it easy to target specific things- like the headline, images, or info box.

11. Consider upgrading your HTML

Modern XHTML is better for testing than table based layouts.  Coding your page with XHTML and CSS will give you cleaner code which renders much more quickly in modern browsers than older table based layouts.  It has the advantage of being easy to test with CSS style tweaks (as opposed to submitting entire blocks of html) and also will help your SEO.

12. Identify the success metric and proper value to judge the winner

Looking back at #1, you should be able to extrapolate from your goal to pinpoint the specific metrics you need to base the test on.  Although many people talk about “conversion rate” as the best metric to judge a result- this is often not the case.  If you are selling products or run an e-commerce site, metrics like Revenue Per Visitor (RPV) or Average Order Value (AOV) will provide a much clearer view of the test winner.  Trying to increase ad clicks means that you should be using outbound click tracking, and if your goal is to just increase site stickiness- then track engagement or bounce rate.

13. Make sure your Adgroups and other traffic sources are passing identifying parameters

If you want to be able to segment your test results by adgroup (yes you do) you’ll need to make certain your Adwords account is set up to pass an identifying parameter in the URL.  You probably already do this for your standard analytics- but if not, make sure you do it for testing purposes.  Often you will see visitors from different adgroups responding to your tests differently.

http://www.yoursite.com/landing.html?adgrp=blue_widgets

14. Implement a Testing Solution

Select a testing software solution to implement the test on your site.  Different solutions integrate differently (this could be an entire post.)  Some require you to inject javascript calls throughout your HTML, while others are far less intrusive.

Image by Runs With Scissors via Flickr

15. Test the Test: Make sure everything is working before you launch

Before you launch or auto schedule the launch of a test, make certain everything works as you expect, including the tracking.  There are plenty of examples out on the web of people who have launched tests only to find out later that there was a major problem with the tracking or a variable not displaying correctly.  Here again, different software providers offer different capabilities for checking thing.  Also, some providers update results in real time, making it easy to spot problems quickly.

1. Private Label – Skin the software to have your colors, your CSS, your logo, even your own domain.

2. Flexible Pricing - Do you have a lot of clients? Or just a project from time to time? Either way, the pricing structure lets you work within your business model.

3. Support and Resources - Need help setting up a test? Need help in selling a client? Need whitepapers or collateral? We have it and we can private label that as well!

4. Client Ready Graphical Reporting - Run reports for your clients showing their conversion lift, conversion rate, and winning versions as well as many other important KPI’s.

5. Increase Your Revenue - With our pricing model it’s easy to monetize the service. Also you will be providing a valuable service that clients will be willing to pay for. Get ready to open up a whole new revenue stream!

6. Login Control - Want to give your customers access to the reporting capabilities of Vertster? No problem- we’ll keep them from breaking things and doing other unauthorized things that could hurt their results.

If you are from an online marketing agency or an interactive media agency and want to learn more call us at 801-571-8200. We would love to show you a demo of the new features designed specifically for you.

“Did anyone get the license plate of the copywriter who just hit me?”

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, here is an example I created on the fly.

“We are the premier integrated supportability assessment module provider, specializing in custom configurations, enterprise level integrations and pre-configured appliance maintenance. We offer solutions to shorten sales cycles, extend existing applications and deploy a wide range of platforms all within web 2.0 compliant support modules. Fully integrated with standard retention management solutions, we can install our platform into any enterprise release schedule.”

That was pretty bad, but I don’t think I’m too far off from actual “Corporate Speech” found out in the wild.

Speaking in terms of converting, this stuff doesn’t.

I’m sure you are all familiar with KISS and WIIFM. But strangely enough, we forget them so often when writing marketing copy.

KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid!) – This is key. With my experience in consulting people on conversions, simple always wins the day. I know your target audience is smart, but simple copy resonates louder.

“Reduces costs and shortens sales cycles” can be turned into “Saves you money and brings you sales”

WIIFM (What’s In It For Me?) – This may come as a shock to some of you big companies out there, but nobody cares what you do. If your copy includes a lot of “We” then you are probably stuck in the cycle of talking about how awesome you are. Your copy should include a lot of “You” with a lot of benefits.

“You will grow your business, You will get more sales, You will outpace your competition, You will retain more customers.”

Take a hard look at your copy, be honest with yourself and have the courage to change it. The difference might mean that “You will get more conversions!”

However, usability – which means conversion optimisation – is not just about testing. Testing is indeed vital and is the fastest way to obtain meaningful information on visitor behaviour. First, however, test variants have to be developed.

So everything starts with the drafting of possible display variants. Drafts can be done on paper or using tools like Visio, Powerpoint or – my favourite – Pidoco (former RapidRabb.it).

During such a prototyping phase, different presentation possibilities can be tried out, although, at least at the beginning, you won’t be able to test all of them. This phase is vital as it creates a good basis for testing: especially at the start, test variants, which first need to be developed, should differ as much as possible.

Example prototype of an alternate start page for an online shop created with pidoco

The creation of such a prototype draft does not require a graphic artist, but knowledge about the website, its visitors and the products. After the elements and different forms of presentation have been planned in this step, they serve the graphic artist as a useful basis for the creation of the web design. This also limits the number of correction runs as many obstacles have been overcome beforehand and many misunderstandings have been prevented.

The realised websites are then ready for testing.

This approach is also very recommendable for the planning of multi-variant tests, as, based on a basic pattern which often has to be found first, different elements can be developed before the work-intensive graphic design process starts.

In this way, good prototyping can also save a lot of time and money in the area of conversion optimisation, allowing for a much more focused testing process.

The author

Jörg Dennis Krüger (Xing/LinkedIn)  is the founder and CEO of Optimeister – Conversion Optimization with a guarantee for success. The German online optimisation agency offers a complete optimisation service for landing pages, websites and online shops. Optimeister uses Vertster for its projects and offers support to Vertster users in German-speaking countries.

1.  Your conversion action happens on another  site, which you have no control over: This is a surprisingly common occurrence in larger companies as well as for affiliate marketers.  The best thing to track in this case is any outbound clicks to the remote site which represent a purchase or lead straight to the checkout process.

2. Your IT department refuses to put conversion tracking code on the thank you page: Just as above, the trick here is to track the final event, whether it is a click on the “checkout” button, or a click on the last step of the checkout process.  The later in the process, the better.  You can also grab revenue for the order at this point, and if you want to be even more accurate, reduce the purchase amount to match the “throughput” of the un-measured steps.

In other words- if you can only track up to the “checkout” point, and you know that 50% of people clicking “checkout” will actually complete the process, reduce the revenue figure for each transaction by 50% to better approximate average order value and revenue per visitor.

3. You are optimizing yield from banner ads or some other outbound link (such as affiliates): In this case, mark clicks on the outbound links.  If you have information about the value of each click, you may pass this to the reporting tool along with the click.

4. You are pushing leads to a remote aggregator: In this case, you may be hosting a lead form on your site, which posts to a remote URL of a lead aggregator or marketplace.  There are two possibilities here- either attach the conversion event to a click on the “submit” button, or bind to the form submission.  Either way will truthfully record the conversion occurrence without requiring a code snippet on the thank you page.

The solution to these scenarios

The only way for this to work is if your conversion tracking system provides for click event tracking.  Another way to do it is by adding a “taking you to your destination” page which can then display the normal conversion pixel, but this is not very desirable.

This interesting article popped up recently about a test done in Scotland for lost wallets. What variables combine to entice the finder of the wallet to return it?

The variable was a picture and the options were, an elderly couple, a family, a baby and a puppy.

The picture was supposed to elicit an “Ah that’s cute!” moment and “Somebody is going to want that back!” feeling. The desired action? Return the wallet!

Which picture do you think got the most returned wallets? Keep in mind that each wallet was completely void of cash and didn’t contain any credit cards, only typical wallet items. But the picture was prominently displayed.

If you guessed the baby, you guessed right. Here are the return rates.

80% of the baby

53% of the puppy

48% of the family

28% of the elderly couple

A wallet with a charity donation receipt was also tested and had a 20% return rate and wallets with no special items(The Control) had a 15% return rate.

It just goes to show that when you want someone to take a desired action, whether it be on a website or on the street, you need to play to their emotions. Emotions play a huge role in marketing and if you can hit the right triggers, you can elicit big responses from your multivariate tests!

I’d like to try the wallet test again, but this time let’s add some money to the mix!

1. Firefox with the Web Developer toolbar: First of all, this is definitely the easiest way to clear cookies for the Firefox browser.  If you do not have the Web Developer Toolbar installed, head over to the Firefox Add Ons site and grab it.

To use it, click on the Cookies menu on the left, and select “Delete Domain Cookies”.  Pow.  All the cookies for the site you are currently on will be removed!

2. Clearing a Specific Cookie on Safari: Safari makes you do a little more mousework to get to the listing of cookies in the system, and you have to specify which you want to remove.  To get started, go to the preferences menu, and open the “Security” Options.  Partway down the page is a button labeled “Show Cookies.”  Click this.

Once you have clicked the “Show Cookies” button, you will be shown a listing of all of the cookies your browser has stored, along with a handy search box.  Type the current domain name into this search to see a listing of cookies set by the current site.  From here, you can select and delete the cookies.

3. Clearing a Cookie on IE 8: Internet Explorer before version 8 made it a real hassle to delete cookies for a given domain, but now version 8 includes a component called Developer tools which is modeled after the Firefox Web Developer toolbar.  This makes the process dramatically easier.  To begin, select to tools menu and choose “Developer Tools.”  This can also be opened by pressing F12.

Once the developer tools window opens, choose the “Cache” menu option on the top and you will the the choice to “Clear Cookies for Domain.”  Click this and pow, the cookies will be eliminated for the current domain you are visiting.  Super easy!

4. Clearing a Specific Cookie on Chrome: Chrome makes it fairly easy to clear cookies for a single domain, and works similarly to Safari.  To start out with, click on the wrench icon on the right side of the address bar.  This will drop down a number of choices.

Choosing “Options” brings up another dialogue and if you scroll down a bit, you will see a button for “Show Cookies.”  From here there is a convenient search function for quickly locating cookies you wish to remove.  Enter the hostname you are looking for and then select the cookies from the list and choose “Remove.”  Simple.

Conclusion: It has gotten easier to delete cookies for a specific domain over the years- and now is a relatively painless process.  It used to be that many people would delete all of their cookies at once, which is not ideal given that you may loose autologins, personal choices, and other site functionality.

Chances are you need to test your web applications and sites in each of these four most popular browsers, so refer back to this guide in the future to remember how easy it really is to remove specific cookies.

Equally important to testing the presence of seals, is to test where you position them on the page.  In most of the examples below, the seal appears below the footer- which is possibly the worst place on the page if you actually want people to see it. These site owners would be smart to try moving the seals around, and in particular- put them near the call to action or checkout buttons.

1. Sitepal Talking Character – http://www.sitepal.com/

What it does:

SitePal is an easy-to-use and affordable speaking avatar solution that enables small businesses to enhance their web presence and improve business results with virtual speaking characters. With its ability to engage site visitors and reinforce a call to action, SitePal has been proven to increase site traffic, conversions, loyalty and sales.

2. McCafee Secure Site Seal – http://www.mcafeesecure.com/

What it does:

The McAfee Secure™ trustmark appears on more than 80,000 websites worldwide. Certified McAfee SECURE sites include some of the largest brands in retail ecommerce and brick and mortar retailing; as well as financial and non-profit institutions, manufacturers, universities, Fortune 500 corporations, and government agencies.

McAfee Secure certification is achieved by passing rigorous daily network security audits. The certification process is completed in six steps. The first three steps are the vulnerability audit itself; comprised of Dynamic Port Scanning, Port-level Network Services Vulnerability Testing, and Web Application Vulnerability Testing. The fourth and fifth steps are alerts whenever vulnerabilities are detected and remediation management using our extensive vulnerability management portal. The result is highly effective, pro-active security.

3. ControlScan Seal – http://www.controlscan.com

What it does:

ControlScan is an PCI compliance and security solutions company dedicated to understanding and meeting the needs of smaller merchants.  Controlscan provide several different security seal products, including their “Verified Secure” and “GeoTrust” seal.

4. BBB Seal – http://www.bbbonline.org

What it does:

BBBOnLine’s mission is to promote trust and confidence on the Internet. BBBOnLine allows businesses with Web sites to display the BBB Accredited Business seal online following confirmation of their adherence to the BBB Code of Business Practices, including its online standard.

5. Verisign Secure Seal – http://www.verisign.com

What it does:

VeriSign is the leading Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certificate Authority enabling secure e-commerce, communications, and interactions for Web sites, intranets, and extranets.  The VeriSign Secured Seal is part of the VeriSign® SSL Service. SSL helps you deliver a secure and convenient way for your customers to interact with you over the Internet. When you display the VeriSign Secured Seal, your customers will recognize the most trusted security mark on the Internet and gain the confidence to complete their transactions with you.

6.  Liveperson Chat - http://www.liveperson.com

What it does:

LivePerson humanizes the online experience, increasing sales, customer satisfaction and loyalty. More than 7,000 companies, including some of the largest and most-recognized global brands, use LivePerson’s real-time chat platform to communicate and build relationships with their customers on the Web.

7. Green Certified Site – http://www.co2stats.com/

What it does:

People want websites they visit to be eco-friendly.  CO2Stats helps you attract and retain those visitors.  CO2Stats is the only service that automatically calculates your website’s total energy consumption, helps to make it more energy efficient, and then purchases audited renewable energy from wind and solar farms to neutralize its carbon footprint.  CO2Stats is easy to set up, and works with your existing web host!

8.  Truste – http://www.truste.com

What it does:

Build trust and drive revenue with TRUSTe programs and services. Displaying the TRUSTe seal demonstrates that your site complies with our privacy best practices. Sign up and let consumers know they can trust you more than other businesses when it comes to online privacy and trust.

9.  BillMeLater – http://www.billmelater.com

What it does:

Bill Me Later is a convenient and secure way to pay on the web or over the phone. Bill Me Later lets users pay without using a credit card. At checkout, provide your birthday and the last four digits of your social security number, accept the terms and your purchase is complete. It’s that easy! There are no codes to find or account numbers to remember.

Some people like to click on text links and others like to click on images.

Oftentimes I see websites that are missing opportunities to drive people to a conversion by offering only one way to get there. If you are measuring movement from one page to another as a conversion action, then you don’t want to limit the visitors’ pathways to get from page 1 to page 2.

If you have only one link that takes you to the next page, then I bet your conversion from page 1 to page 2 is rather small. However, if you offer a handful of ways to get there, you increase your chances of having people dig deeper into your site. Common sense, right? I see so many websites that don’t do this.

The trick is to make everything clickable. Offer a text link explaining where it goes, but offer an icon as well that takes your there and maybe an image that goes to the same place also.

Another trick is to have clickable text links in paragraphs, headers and bullet points. This also helps your internal linking for SEO.

In Japan there is a saying, “There are many paths to the top of Mount Fuji”.  Your website should be the same. Create many paths to your conversion pages, not just one. Make everything clickable and you’ll find more people funneling to your important pages.

There is a truism in conversion testing- the more radical your tests, the more you stand to gain.  Testing radically means testing widely varying options, and exceedingly different ideas.  Think about testing colors for a moment as color testing is an easy to understand example that most people grasp quickly.  The conservative approach might be to test 5 differing shades of blue, whereas the radical approach would be to test blue against red yellow and black!

Small changes to your site often mean small incremental changes in performance.  This is fine, but if you have a ton of traffic you have a competitive advantage, in that is is easier to test HUGE changes.  So don’t squander this opportunity.

Why a lot of traffic gives you a distinct advantage at being radical:

With a lot of traffic you can learn and fail fast, sometimes very fast.  Furthermore- you can protect your existing revenue by testing with just a percentage of your total traffic- a real advantage that makes failures much more palatable.

Troubleshooting Tools:

1. Firebug

Firebug is an extension for the Firefox web browser which helps you design and debug CSS rules, HTML and javascript.  It lets you make edits to a page that is live on the web (although you cannot save them.)  This means you can try things out in Firebug, seeing how they will look on your site.  When you are ready, just cut and paste the edited HTML into your testing application.

In addition, if you are seeing layout problems, these same capabilities may be helpful in figuring out the problem.

2. Web Developer Toolbar

The web developer toolbar is another essential Firefox extension.  It contains many of the same capabilities as Firefox, but has a useful option to “View Generated Source.”  This works just like the regular “view source” except it will show the source code of the page after it has been rendered- which may be different than the “actual” source if a test is running.

3.  FireCookie

Firecookie is an add on for Firebug, that makes it easy to view, edit, and delete cookies. In addition, cookie activity shows up in the Firebug console.

4. Add and Edit Cookies

This is another Firefox extension for editing and deleting cookies on your system.

5. MVT Vendor Detector

The Vendor Detector is a Greasemonkey script for firefox that will show you which (if any) vendor a given website is using for testing on their site.  It works well at detecting Google optimizer, but is unable to determine the variable location of tests run with some other tools.

Design Tools for Creating Test Options

1. Fireworks

Fireworks, from Adobe, is the perfect software for building alternate buttons, badges, and other assets for your tests.  It includes many of the same capabilities as bigger brother Photoshop, but is optimized specifically for building website images.

2. Dreamweaver

You can use Dreamweaver to develop HTML layouts and snippets, then include them in your tests.  It is tightly integrated with Fireworks, and using the two applications together you’ll be able to quickly develop complex HTML layouts.

3. CssEdit (Mac Only)

You will most likely want a visual tool for creating new style rules for existing web pages.  Although there are many editors on the market, and Dreamweaver also does CSS, if you have a Mac you are in luck.  CssEdit is, in my opinion, the best CSS editor out there.  It works by allowing you to “override” the native styles of any web page, and edit them in a WYSIWYG environment with live updates on the actual site you are editing.

Copywriting Tools

1. Thesaurus.com

When you are writing alternative sales copy for your site, you’ll definitely want to keep a thesaurus handy.  Thesaurus.com lets you quickly find alternative words and ways to say things.

2. Digg.com

One of the best ways to learn copy writing is through example, and Digg is a literal treasure trove of good and bad examples.  Often the most well written headlines help the story make it to Digg’s front page- and the lesser examples flounder in anonymity.

To get started, run some searches on Digg using your business niche as the search word.  The results of your search will contain a wide selection of examples, which you can then order by number of Diggs received to find the best.

Tools for Planning and Keeping Track of your Tests

1. Microsoft Excel or Google Spreadsheets

Keeping good records of your testing activities is important, so you will want a spreadsheet.  Both Excel and Google Spreadsheets will meet your needs here. Google Spreadsheets is great because it’s online, but is still buggy in places.  For mass acceptance, Excel is the way to go.

2. Fleck

We have convered Fleck in the past, and it continues to be a useful tool for unobtrusively annotating web pages and test designs.  It is particularly useful if you need to send some ideas to a client or partner, and want to be able to share it via a URL (say through IM).

What did we miss?

Is your favorite resource missing from this list?  Why not add it in the comments below, and we may do a following on post covering your suggestions!

Let them all have a try.

Here is a strategy to move forward and dial in on the best conversion rates.

FIRST – Create two or three landing pages. Try different layouts, different messages, different imagery and different calls to action. Then put the pages up to your audience, through SEO, PPC or whatever means you use to drive traffic.

Start with a high level split test, alternating complete pages and URLs to your audience. Watch the results and wait until you get a clear winner and move to stage two.

SECOND – Take the winning landing page and begin a multivariate test, testing all the variables that influence conversions and give them different options. Good things to test are; the headline, the images, the copy, bullet points, the buttons, the button location, the button text, different calls to action, different offerings, etc.

Once your multivariate test reaches statistical validity you have a winning recipe. Implement the winning recipe and move onto stage three.

THIRD – Once you have a winning recipe, your software should tell you what variables on the page or in that recipe are the most influential. Begin a split test with that variable, if it’s the button, just split test different options with the button, the button text, or the button size and color. If it’s the headline, just split test different headlines, etc.

With this three stage approach you can have a sure-fire strategy to dial in to your optimal conversion rate. The good news, Vertster’s software can handle all of that.

Don’t guess that you have the right message, run a test and validate it. And if you make big gains in conversions, congratulations! But don’t stop, always be testing!

Apparently the new Yahoo home page was the result of testing 141 different versions!  The goal of the testing was to find out which design resulted in the greatest site stickiness.  This makes sense, considering that Yahoo primarily makes money when people view and click on search results and ads.

http://twitter.com/optimizeit – This is the twitter account of Scott Miller (me).

http://twitter.com/vertster – This is the official twitter account for Vertster, and contains important system announcements and things like that.

It boils down to one reason- Google designs by testing, not by what one (or several) design guru’s say looks good.  I can appreciate both sides of this story- certainly great design cannot be created by machines- design still has, and always will have it’s place. That being said, Google is not known as a design oriented organization, and their style is very geeky, plain, and barebones.

As a testing and data junkie, I can say that if you have the shear volume of traffic that Google has, there is little reason not to test everything.  Given the extreme simplicity of Google’s designs, it is not only possible to test 41 different shades of blue, but it is fairly easy.  For most sites, this is simply not feasible- due to more complex page layouts and far less traffic.

So where does this leave design?  In my opinion, rely on designers to get started with a new look or direction, and then use testing to refine and perfect the design.  I always tell designers that the best thing about testing is that you get to try several great ideas, instead of just providing one final deliverable.  Tests cannot design the design, only perfect it from a profitability perspective.

To illustrate my points, I decided to take a quick tour and grab a couple examples from around the web:

Search marketing software company Acquisio uses the following unit to make users aware of different options available to them.  Although they have done a fine job, I can’t help but wonder if asking for a trial first isn’t putting the cart before the horse.  For me, I would probably want to look at the demo and case studies before signing up for the trial.  This is definitely worth testing.

Acquisio.com

Customer Relationship SAAS vendor Salesforce.com uses the following widget to promote three possible actions:

Salesforce.com

Their ordering makes a little more sense- starting with the demo, followed by a contact request.  If you are not ready for either of these things, you can always take the non committing option- to view the resources on the site.

These widgets work well for B2B companies, but can also cross the boundary and appear on B2C websites.  Here is an example from Cruise ship line Carnival:

Carnival.com

It is a little different, instead of focusing on next “steps” the unit simply is giving a couple options to get started.  I think it would be smart for Carnival to also have a “request information” option, where people could sign up to get a booklet in the mail.

It is important to present options for differing levels of interest- from information gatherers, to those on final approach to completing a purchase.  You would be well advised to test what you include, what the thing looks like, and the order different steps are presented.  Here is a mini overview of possible test options for a “next steps” widget:

• Size
• Look and Feel
• Title (ie “Next Steps” or “What to do Next”
• Number of Options
• Ordering of Options
• Colors
• Placement on your pages

Myth #1: Testing will negatively effect my SEO
This concern has been around forever, and continues today. Even people using the free Google website optimizer tool have shown concern about losing their rankings. That being said, Google has come out and said that since testing is all about increasing conversions, not tricking search engines, it is not a problem.

In our experience, the biggest risk comes when you are changing URLs to run a test. This is usually done with a fast redirect, meta refresh, or javascript redirect- all of which can lead to confusion for the search spiders. Luckily, most of the testing software out there takes this into consideration and sidesteps the problem by using javascript to render different page versions dynamically.

Myth #2. Conversion is the correct metric to judge success
When you run a test, its essential to consider what metric you will use to determine the success or failure of a test. Traditionally, we group split testing, MVT and other testing types under the category of “Conversion Improvement.” However, conversion is often the wrong metric to judge the success or failure of a test campaign.

Here is why: Lets say you are testing your online store, and in that store, you have many products at differing prices. So you embark on a mission to improve conversion, and the savvy marketer inside you says- “hey I bet if we make our products free, conversion will go up.”

By running a special promotion, you are able to drive conversion rates to all time highs- close to 100%! But guess what happens to your business? You go out of business because of the sudden lack of revenue. In this case, it would have been better to judge your success based on Revenue per Visitor- which would have shown that even with a 100% conversion rate, your revenue per visit was actually dwindling to ZERO dollars.

This is a silly contrived example, but- it illustrates the point. If you focus solely on conversion, you run the risk of increasing conversion at the cost of revenue.

3. Testing is a “one and done” activity
You should embrace testing and optimization as an ongoing activity, rather than something you do once or twice a year and consider it good. Over the course of more than 5000 web experiments, one thing we have learned is that testing a LOT pays off. Frequently, you will learn a few things in each test, and its the cumulative results that ultimately deliver the biggest results.

Don’t be afraid to fail! Often times, the first test will see only marginal or minimal gains, but as long as you learn something, it puts you one step closer to the higher conversion rate that you know you deserve. Remember- the only test that is a loser is one that you don’t learn anything from.In 2009, commit to an ongoing, iterative test program where you can quickly test over and over again, taking what you have learned and plugging it into the next test. Strive to minimize downtime between tests so as to increase your odds of success over the long haul.

4. Once I optimize my site, I am done.
This is just plain wrong, for a number of reasons- things in the world are always changing! Right now we are in the throes of the worst economy in years. Do you think the same sales pitch that worked 18 months ago is still going to motivate people today? I doubt it!

We recommend people re-validate their results every 6-8 months.  This ensures that you are always maximizing your conversion- and will help you understand the effect subtle changes in the marketplace have on your customers.

5. A/B testing is going to disappear
Since the onset of Multivariate testing, pundits have continued to argue that A/B testing is going the way of the dinosaurs. If you are of this mentality, I have news for you. Dinosaurs are destined to stay in the museums, and A/B Split testing is destined to stay in every marketers toolbox.

Here is why: A/B testing is simple, easy to understand, and works great for sites with lower traffic levels. It is the tried and true way to run tests, and the one approach that all marketers and corporate higher ups understand. That being said, multivariate and Taguchi testing is more powerful and can yield more interesting results- at the expense of increased set up time, and decreased acceptance and understanding by clients and management.

Do you have any more myths??  If you do, please post them in the comments!

Rather than spend a bunch of time trying to fix it, we spent the same time rebuilding the blog with Wordpress 2.7.  And here it is.  Wordpress is great, and we’re excited to have finally made the switch.

The site has a new look and feel, and contains more detailed information about the software and solutions we provide.  In addition, it was built to be extremely fast loading and browsing, something that should get even faster as we tweak it.

Stay tuned in the coming days and weeks as we announce new features at the site.  We will also be diving into some of the exciting new features of the newest Vertster software release.

Warm Regards,

Scott Miller

It all goes back to where AB Testing on the web came from, something most of us learned in elementary school science class called “the experimental method.” About.com defines the experimental method as follows:

“Definition: The experimental method involves manipulating one variable to determine if changes in one variable cause changes in another variable. This method relies on controlled methods, random assignment and the manipulation of variables to test a hypothesis. “

The most important part of this definition is “manipulating one variable.” Using a carefully designed experiment that changes only one variable, any change in the outcome (other variable) can be attributed to the single change.

What happens if you change more than one thing at once? Confusion. What we testing geeks call confounding of the results. One can no longer reliably link a given change to a given result. (Note- this is not the case with Multivariate experiments.)

So back to my original point. When a split test is running, it is essential that all possible variables be held constant (frozen), until enough data has been collected to reach a point of statistical certainty.

And what happens when you make changes to the pages that are already running in a test? Its worse than changing multiple things at once. Your results will be utterly useless, unless you have hit statistical validity before making the change. In this case, you are basically completing one experiment and launching a second.

Warm Regards,

Scott Miller, CEO

Author of “The ConversionLab.com,” The worlds first “How to” guide to testing and optimization. Visit http://www.conversionlab.com/ for a special offer!

If your landing page takes more than a couple seconds to render on broadband, you are surely leaving money on the table. This is especially true if the headline and primary value proposition are slow to appear. The longer your pages take to download and render in a user’s browser, the more money you are losing. This is because people have a strong tendency to use their back buttons if a page takes too long to appear.

If you are not sure how long your landing pages take to appear, use the free website speed report to learn how fast (or slow) they are. This site will also give you some specific suggestions for speeding things up.

Most people agree that fast loading pages are a good idea, although they seldom do much about it. However, in case you missed it, a couple weeks ago, Google came out and promised to penalize slow loading landing pages connected to Adwords advertisements.

Google has added a new metric in the Adwords interface that indicates if they think your page is too slow. Slow loading pages will have a negative impact on your Quality Score and increase your minimum bids. I am curious what steps they take to determine if your page is slow, but one thing is for certain…. slow pages will ultimately cost you more money to advertise.

Will this mean an end to the 15 page long sales letters than dominate some niches? I don’t know, we will have to wait and see. These pages are frequently 250-300k and can take minutes to download completely on a slow connection. Another area of concern is landing pages that use javascript libraries like Prototype, Scriptaculous, or Jquery. Will Google’s new policy inadvertently stifle ajax and web 2.0 landing pages?

It is too early to know the answers to all the questions, but the bottom line is this. You will not only enjoy a higher conversion rate by putting your pages on a diet, you may save some money on your Adwords bill as well.

Warm Regards,

Scott Miller, CEO

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Warm Regards,

Scott Miller, CEO

Author of “The ConversionLab.com,” The worlds first “How to” guide to testing and optimization. Visit http://www.conversionlab.com/ for a special offer!

If this takes off and gets traction, it has the potential to strongly alter how conversion takes place. Your loosely controlled meta description will no longer matter at getting people to your site- your actual design will! This search engine does away with tradition search results and uses an iTunes inspired “cover flow” to display website screenshots.

On a large screen, it is easy to pick out the primary value proposition and read key copy- if it exists. With this site, I can quickly make a decision as to whether or not a site even stands a chance at getting my business- without even visiting it.

Personally, I think this is one of the coolest technologies I have seen in a while, and have only begun to debate the long term implications on conversion. Certainly many of the same things still apply, but now you have to balance “organic search juice” with a compelling design and clear messaging.

This is something top sites have done a great job at for a long time, so it may be nothing new to them. But a quick glance through several searches on Searchme.com and it became clear- if this idea takes off, sites which don’t strongly embrace conversion oriented design don’t stand a chance.

Warm Regards,

Scott Miller, CEO

I am excited to announce we are putting on a free webinar on 4-22-08 at 2-3PM ET in conjunction with the team over at MarketingSherpa. Before I tell you much more about it, SEATING IS LIMITED and we are doing free landing page optimizations for attendees as part of the webinar!!

Sign up ASAP at http://www.vertster.com/webinar042208.asp to take advantage of this opportunity

The webinar will include a brief presentation by MarketingSherpa’s Director of Research, Stefan Tornquist. During this part of the webinar, you’ll learn top lessons from the new Landing Page Handbook. We will then conduct LIVE OPTIMIZATIONS of attendee landing pages, so make sure to provide your URL when you register.

Here are a few of the things you’ll learn:

• Five types of Landing Page Tests that work best for increasing conversion rates
• See real creative samples and their results
• Get examples of increased conversions for PPC dynamic search, registration forms, creative elements, SEO landings, and mobile email
• Revealed- the biggest tips on measuring landing pages
• How to Justify budgeting for analytics and testing

Once again, space is limited, and we expect the fill the seats quickly, so don’t delay!

Warm Regards,

Scott Miller

When I look at a page for the first time, I examine it under the premise of a simple framework I call the three C’s of conversion. It goes like this:

Does your landing page:

1. Capture the attention of the visitor?
2. Communicate your primary value proposition to the visitor?
3. Close the sale, lead, or other offer you are making?

Each of these steps are essential to boosting conversion. On my snow-delayed flight out of Chicago, I thought I should add one more C to the equation: the Customer!

Obviously, with no customer, there is no sale!

The reason this is important is simple: upon arrival to your site, the customer has some expectation in mind, something he or she was looking for. In order to capture, communicate and close, your site must be as relevant as possible to this customer.

In the coming days I will be sharing more specific recommendations and insight on analyzing and improving your Cs of conversion.

Warm Regards,

Scott Miller, CEO

Author of “The ConversionLab.com,” The worlds first “How to” guide to testing and optimization. Visit http://www.conversionlab.com/ for a special offer!

I spoke alongside Jamie Roche of Offermatica, Tim Ash from Sitetuners, and Tom Leung from Google Web Optimizer. Plus Alan Dick of Clawfoot Tub retailer Vintage Tub.

My presentation included two case studies: One featuring online store Tinyride.com and tested the effect of using the Hackersafe logo. The other was a Taguchi test from Business and Legal Reports (BLR.com). Following the presentation, was a short time for Q&A, during which people had some great questions.

If you attended the session, or are just interested. you can download my slides here.

Warm Regards,

Scott Miller, CEO

Author of “The ConversionLab.com,” The worlds first “How to” guide to testing and optimization. Visit http://www.conversionlab.com/ for a special offer!

One of the challenges of designing multivariate tests is getting everyone in your organization on the same page. Thats where Fleck comes in. This browser extension lets you add “sticky notes” to annotate any web page.

We just started use it to mark up pages and indicate where variables are and even provide guidance on proposed variable options. This vision can be shared around with multiple people in multiple organizations before the test assets are actually built and the optimization is running.

Here is an example of a test design for my ebook site TheConversionLab.com:

http://extension.fleck.com/?sh=788d04e7f5d3dad9de1c4bf0b9315f16f3fad065

Note: Fleck is currently in beta, and appears to choke on the CSS layout of this page slightly. It goes to figure that this is the only site I have ever seen Fleck have an issue with.

Warm Regards,

Scott Miller, CEO

Author of “The ConversionLab.com,” The worlds first “How to” guide to testing and optimization. Visit http://www.conversionlab.com/ for a special offer!

What is Multivariate Testing
Wondering about the buzz surrounding Multivariate testing? Check this article for a plain English explanation about why you need to start doing it.

Multivariate Optimization vs. A/B Testing
Whether to use A/B or Multivariate testing is a question most marketers face. This article helps you understand some of the important differences.

Taguchi who? I don’t speak Japanese!
This article describes the origins of the Taguchi Approach and summarizes a Taguchi testing framework.

Warm Regards,

Scott Miller, CEO

Author of “The ConversionLab.com,” The worlds first “How to” guide to testing and optimization. Visit http://www.conversionlab.com/ for a special offer!

Hence… I decided to write a real new post this morning. Coming up with ideas to test can be difficult, particularly if you have already done quite a bit of optimization work on your pages. But have you ever considered finding a few key phrases in your sales copy, and applying a yellow highlighter like background to them?

This can be a real eye grabber and can really improve response in some circumstances. Most times we’ve tested it, it works well.

The key is to identify the main value propositions in your copy and apply a highlighter type style to them. Use something like this in your external style sheet to create the above effect:

.highlighter {
background-color: yellow;
}

Remember, your mileage may vary, so always test this with either a split test or multivariate test to confirm that it actually helps.

Warm Regards,

Scott Miller, CEO

Author of “The ConversionLab.com,” The worlds first “How to” guide to testing and optimization. Visit http://www.conversionlab.com/ for a special offer!

Warm Regards,

Scott Miller, CEO

Author of “The ConversionLab.com,” The worlds first “How to” guide to testing and optimization. Visit http://www.conversionlab.com/ for a special offer!

Hmmm… I found the article troubling and really short on data. Several different cases were presented, from retailers such as Overstock.com, Dell, and Apple. What was not presented was any kind of objective data showing that in fact online chat is actually decreasing sales conversion rates at online retailers. Rather, I think the author keyed in on a couple of bad experiences and painted this useful risk reversal technique with a broad negative brush.

What it comes down to is that like most other sales boosting efforts online, this can and should be tested. Always. Had the author commissioned a couple simple split tests, she may have written it differently.

Will this article trigger some business owners to rip down their “Live Person” buttons? I wouldn’t be surprised. My message to you: Test it first to see what the effect really is on your sales.

Warm Regards,

Scott Miller, CEO

Author of “The ConversionLab.com,” The worlds first “How to” guide to testing and optimization. Visit http://www.conversionlab.com/ for a special offer!

There is no doubt that a well optimized offer page, e-commerce system, etc. can be an incredible competitive advantage. But let’s rewind for a moment and consider what a perfectly optimized offer is…

As I said at SES three weeks ago, optimized offers combine the perfect benefit, perfect amount of risk reversal, perfect amount of scarcity, and perfect unique value proposition for the state of mind the customer is in at the moment they see they offer.

Now unless your offer is identical to your competitors, and your customer’s are the same, your “optimized” offer is going to be different than theirs. The only time offers truly converge is in a commodity marketplace, where nearly every competitor is identical and everyone competes on price.

Now I am not saying to go posting your secret optimized recipes for the world to see, but its food for thought. Do you really need to be paranoid? I think not.

Warm Regards,

Scott Miller, CEO

Author of “The ConversionLab.com,” The worlds first “How to” guide to testing and optimization. Visit http://www.conversionlab.com/ for a special offer!

http://www.vertster.com/SES-SanJose-2006.pdf

Warm Regards,

Scott Miller, CEO

Author of “The ConversionLab.com,” The worlds first “How to” guide to testing and optimization. Visit http://www.conversionlab.com/ for a special offer!

Our session on Landing Page Testing and Tuning was great. We filled the room again, and got some great feedback.

Perhaps the worst part was when the presentation laptop failed (for the 2nd or 3rd time) just before I was about to promote my new ebook, the first ever on testing and optimization. I guess they really mean it when they say no promotional talks during the speaking slots!

By the way, this is the new ebook that is getting rave reviews, and is sure to change the way you think about testing.

So back to SES. It was kinda hot in San Jose this year. Blame it on global warming, I guess. My friends in the S.F. area have been complaining all summer. I think they should just move to Salt Lake where I live where we complain EVERY summer.

Then the flight out was extra fun. Thursday was made up of me being transfixed by MSNBC showing the lines in the hub airports, and then waiting in the (usually 5 minute) line at San Jose for 1 hour. Overall, not too bad, but I missed the burger at the Expedia Bar and Grill this year.

The show itself was typical. I saw a couple great sessions, including a preview of the Panama platform from Yahoo. The best part of the whole week was the networking, nothing new there. Had fun with a bunch of customers, previous customers, and future customers. Not to mention friends, competitors, and new people I just met for the first time.

I had a great time sitting down with Dr. Ralph Wilson, of wilsonweb.com fame. I am going to be writing a couple articles for his newsletter as his “expert” columnist on site testing. Then got some dinner with my friend Matthew Roche of Offermatica fame. You might be thinking we compete with each other, but really we’re both just Red Sox fans

Overall, a great trip!

Warm Regards,

Scott Miller, CEO

Author of “The ConversionLab.com,” The worlds first “How to” guide to testing and optimization. Visit http://www.conversionlab.com/ for a special offer!

Traditionally, web tracking has been done with a third party cookie. Within the last couple years, third party cookies have come under increasing criticism due to privacy concerns.

Consider the tracking cookies you certainly have on your system. Owners of these cookies can essentially track and archive every site you visit on the web that contains their scripting (if you let them.) Every single move you make is recorded, and stored for eternity. This is kind of scary if you ask me.

Check out our friends at Google for instance. Genius aren’t they? Google is best known for being the king of search. Rightly so. I think they are also the king of the cookie. They have code on many, many, MANY websites that they are using to spy on us, and log every move we make. In fact their analytics program is reportedly used on 400,000 sites now.

It’s no wonder that anti-spyware makers and vendors of internet privacy software have begun a “seek and destroy” campaign against third party cookies. With the resulting war on third party cookies, they no longer represent a viable way to track test results or any results.

Long Live the [1st Party] Cookie!

First party cookies do not suffer the same challenges of being deleted or rejected that the more common third party cookie faces. The reasons are as simple as they are compelling.

The first party cookie can only be viewed by scripts on the domain that set it, making it nearly impossible to track a users movement from one website to the next. This is good for privacy as well as conversion tracking. As users, we get the peace of mind that big brother is not looking down on us. As web experimenters, we get more accurate results.

Long Live [Testing]

It turns out that third party cookies are horrible for testing, because they are deleted so frequently. Depending on what you are testing, this could really throw your stats off.

I recently tested a homepage, all the way to a purchase (not recommended by the way.) A full 50% of users converted latently, many after two weeks. If you were using a third party tracking cookie, that would mean losing 50% of your data. Or even worse. This makes getting a statistically reliable result impossible, especially when the difference between the pages may be as small as .5%.

Warm Regards,

Scott Miller, CEO

Author of “The ConversionLab.com,” The worlds first “How to” guide to testing and optimization. Visit http://www.conversionlab.com/ for a special offer!

Definetly the most fun, best weather, and best location. The dates are coming up… August 7 to 10, 2006. I will be there most of the show, so if you want grab a coffee, beer, SES approved box lunch, or whatever, by all means shoot me an email at scott@vertster.com.

Warm Regards,

Scott Miller, CEO

Author of “The ConversionLab.com,” The worlds first “How to” guide to testing and optimization of online marketing. Visit http://www.conversionlab.com/ for a special offer!

Here is a summary of what you will find inside this book:

* The most important phase of a test, that doesn’t even involve your website!
* When to use Split Testing and when to use Multivariate tests to get the highest ROI from your activities.
* How to test without affecting your Natural Search Engine rankings.
* 25 Common sources of Experimental Noise that can render your results completely useless.
* Which is better: A script you install on your server, or a hosted service?
* The 7 key categories of page elements that literally define your success
* Why most marketers are incorrect when they optimize by looking only at the conversion rate
* A library of 50 of the most important testable items on any site
* Includes a review of 5 key attributes your testing system should have.
* See 25 real life screen shots taken from actual live websites.

This is a limited release preview edition, so it won’t be available for very long. I suggest you go and get it now!

It wasn’t until the arrival of the automobile that engines found their place in the world. The engine went behind the scenes and a new tool was born- the ability to get from one place to the next became easy.

We think of multivariate testing as the engine. It is what propels the vehicle- your web site. In the perfect world, this engine would “propel” a web page for each individual visitor. Based on their characteristics, the engine would automatically and seamlessly create a page for exactly what the user was looking for. While many people continue to “test” and “optimize” their sites using things like Taguchi and multivariate testing, wouldn’t it be better if your site were like a car? We think so.

By putting the test algorythm behind the scenes, your site could do it what it was meant to do better. That is get visitors from point A to point B, or in other words, from a lead to a sale.

“Test, Test, Test” they say!

The strange thing is that there has been nary a guidebook or source of best practices information on testing techniques. A huge majority of people have left with a great idea, but no way to implement it in their business. Now, for the first time ever, Vertster CEO Scott Miller is going to open the “war chest” and share with you precious information on using the powerful Taguchi approach to site improvement.

[Download it Now]

This is information from a new e-book which will be available only to Vertster’s highest paying consulting clients. For a limited time, I am making an excerpt available as a whitepaper, free of charge. You can follow the links here to or visit our site to download the new whitepaper.

[Download it Now]

• The difference between split testing and multivariate testing
• What things to test first
• How Vertster got started
• and more…

Listen to the interview now!

1. Headline: We normally test different versions of text for the headline, but you could go so far as to include additional modifying variables like: font size, text color, typeface, alignment, horizontal position, vertical position…

2. Bulleted List of Benefits: When most people look at bulleted lists, they see a text list with little tick marks. We see possibilities. Obviously you could test different sets of bullets. You could also test which bullet comes first (since the first is often the only one read,) how many bullets to include, whether including a bold leader helps, bullet style (image, square or circle), plus the normal formatting stuff….

3. Hero Shot (Image): The hero shot is the main image of your product or offer. Its usually quite important. Lots to do here too: testing the subject of the image of course is a biggie, size of the image, horizontal or vertical orientation, left or right (center?) aligned with your text, drop shadow or not, blend background with page or not, link image or not…

So there you have it, in a quickie blog post I have identified 25 different testable things, and this is just a start.

Anyways, I welcome any new readers to Optimize IT! and encourage you to subscribe, check back often, yada, yada, yada… Welcome! If you are looking for my slides from the presentation, they are here: Vertster 2006 SES NY Slides.

In marketing, very few of these so called noise factors can be controlled. In fact, very few can be identified at all. Marketing is extremely noisy. One of the best ways to combat noise is to run multiple tests against the same (or similar) sample. On the web, this is easy. Run a two week test cycle (to balance day of the week) and then repeat. Unless there has been a world catastrophe or your first cycle included the holidays, you should have a pretty similar audience.

Taguchi has also been used for direct mail and email optimization. Getting good results in this medium has proven elusive, yet there are some “experts” out there claiming to be able to do it. Personally, I have seen the results and they are dubious. The reason is simple… you get one shot with a given audience. Once you have mailed your list, it starts changing. People come and go from the list. Folks have been exposed to your brand one more time, altering the way they would react to a subsequent mailing. This is on top of the huge amount of environmental noise that is present in marketing.

Although it is possible to control all these things and get a good result in email or direct mail marketing, it is definetly trickier than on the web.

The fact is that AB testing is not disappearing any time soon. Taguchi can show you what things on the page are the most important. Once you know this, using OFAT on them is a smart strategy for “fine tuning” your key elements.

Back to factors… what can you or should you test? Start with the stuff that appears above the fold. Recent research shows that web visitors make a nearly instantaneous decision about your page. Improving your “engagement rate” can have a major impact on overall response. If your page is not engaging visitors, how can it possibly close with a conversion.

Things to consider: Your Logo, Tagline, Headline, Font, Face, Color, Size, Position, Hero Shot, Image Size, Caption, Subheadline, Greeting, First Sentence of Text, Top Bullet Point, First Paragraph, Inclusion of Advertising, Top Navigation Choice, Hackersafe, BBB, search boxes, just to name a few.

1. New GPS for web design, tells you how to build your site

2. 3 Things that will improve your conversion rate

3. Time your tests to get best results

4. Why testing with Google Adwords yields flawed results

5. What is Taguchi Multivariate Testing

Look forward to more great posts in 2006. I hope to have at least one or two more “best of” type posts before the end of the year!

After a little poking around in the blogger interface, I stumbled on the config setting and now everything works great! I also added my profile information finally.

* The ad group that used dynamic keyword insertion recommended a minimum bid of $5.00!
* The ad group that used static keyword insertion recommended a minimum bid of $0.40.

Read the post here.

Does this mean we’ll soon see keyword stuffing and other nefarious tactics on PPC landing pages?? I don’t know, and I kind of doubt it would help anyways, but who really knows how sophisticated this algorytm is.

If you are running Urchin Analytics, Google could actually measure your conversion rate, and include it as part of the score! This is kind of scary, and another reason we’ll never recommend using Urchin to anyone. But then again, if you are actively testing and optimizing your landing page content for conversions, you’ll have a leg up on most of the competition.

My main take away from Chicago was that it was so cold there. This actually was good for networking, because I don’t think anyone dared leave the building. I made a number of great contacts and got to meet a couple customers face to face for the first time. Not only that, but the Reverend Jesse Jackson was in the bar tuesday night! I could hardly beleive it, but there he was. WebmasterRadio.FM was there and got a great sound bit from him.

I would have liked to stick around for longer, but I was up at 5AM wednesday morning to get my flight back in time to participate in Marketing Experiments.com webinar on multivariate testing. Unfortunately, by the time I got on the call with them I was so exhausted by answers were not all that coherent. Oh well….

The best thing about testing and optimizing through October is that the results are likely to remain consistent through the rest of the year, yet it is before the bulk of holiday sales are made. What would a 20% higher sales conversion rate do for your 4th quarter numbers this year??

Things to test? Free shipping offers work particularly well. Try varying the threshold for qualifying for free shipping. How about free gift wrapping? I have not seen this used as a promotion myself, but if it came down to it, I am sure it would sway many folks.

You can view it here: http://www.vertster.com/newsletter/newsletter.asp?newsletterID=18

The answer is rather simple, and here is my favorite metaphor. Web Analytics is like looking in your rearview mirror for the turn or business you just missed. It’s all about what has already happened.

Multivariate testing (MVT) is like having a GPS for your website. A GPS tells you the optimal way to get to your destination, where to turn, and how long it will take. MVT similarly will tell you the best way to build your site to get the most sales the fastest.

The question you must ask yourself: Does your business run by looking in the rearview mirror? Are you reactive or proactive?

The book starts with a look at the size of the PPC advertising market, and how Google got into it. Next comes basic information on how to set up and manage your account. This is followed by the best part of the book in my opinion… the intermediate and advanced stategies. Things like how to write powerful copy, tracking users after they click, and increasing conversion rates. There is even a section on landing page fundamentals.

Order your copy today from Amazon.com and save 32%. This is a very smart purchase at only $16.99.

Get more information on our redesigned product pages at http://www.vertster.com/pricing.asp! Note that this offer is only good for new customers, subscribing for the first time.

But what about us who live hundreds or thousands of miles away?

The press coverage has been more than constant- its been downright transfixing. Anyone who knows someone living near New Orleans or who has been through a hurricane probably spent a little extra time watching the news today… and a little less time surfing the web or “taking care of business.” Not to mention the pervasive online news coverage and blogs pulling eyeballs and dollars away from our sites.

To make matters worse, the threat of spiking gas prices has many people hitting the brakes on purchase decisions. We noted a significantly lower conversion rate today on at least a couple of our “key indicator” tests. It seemed more like a Saturday than a Monday.

We use the term noise to refer to any uncontrollable factor that can affect the outcome of our tests, whether it is a positive or negative change. Split testing helps to disperse the effect equally within the test battery, but it doesn’t always eliminate an uncontrolled bias from entering the test results.

Take for example, a site that sells flood insurance. If this was you, today was probably a great day for sales, perhaps even record breaking. Would today be a good day to get repeatable test results? I think not. The winning creative today probably would be the one with the shortest and easiest order form. Today, many people wouldn’t need much convincing. Normally, the best pulling message might be a completely different appeal altogether. Basing your test results on today’s data, even if statistically significant, would lead you to erroneous assumptions.

1. Displays the free DVD that you will receive.
2. Shows a successful and happy couple.
3. Shows a successful, smartly dressed business woman.

Which do you think would result in the highest response rate?

We have some exciting results to share on the “Blogged Taguchi Optimization.” I hope to add another posting today with some more information on that one. Also, I promised a special offer for the folks that attended the Landing Page Testing session at search engine strategies, and we still plan to make good on that offer. So keep posted.

Last night at the Google Dance I got the opportunity to ask many folks that attended what their thoughts were, and all said it was by far the best session so far at the conference. I was thrilled to hear this, as we put a lot of work into it, both developing the content and practicing/ rehearsing. It sure paid off. Getting the remote voting devices made the session truly interactive, and kept people “in the conversation.”

The response form is always important, since it is the way conversions come in. For this test, we are actually looking at using the same form, in three different locations- in the right column, the left column, and underneath the text body. I have always believed that putting the form above the fold was important. On most landing pages I have designed, you can see this. The right column is a personal favorite of mine, using a 65/35 lineup.

Which form position do you think is best? I bet you never thought about testing it

The webinar started off with an audience interactive “vote for the winner” comparison of three different landing page approaches. The vote was a bit tricky because there was little background given on the circumstances surrounding the page. I won’t give it away here, but I will say that I guessed incorrectly which was the “winner.”

I highly recommend if you are new to landing page testing, or want to pick up some tips on A/B testing, that you give this a listen. It runs just over an hour, and is packed with tips and real world experience. The only thing I would add is that you run your tests in 7 day blocks, especially if your test lasts more than 14 days. This provides an equal helping of weekdays vs. weekend days. Running a short test that does not balance the days adds a significant noise factor and can produce unreliable results, even if your sample size is large.

The operative word in that sentence of course is San Jose! Search Engine Strategies is almost here already, and I am pumped. We’re gonna put on a great session on Tuesday on landing page testing, and I can’t wait to meet some new faces. If you want to hook up for a handshake, beer, coffee or otherwise, shoot me an email at scott@vertster.com

Also, keep your eyes on the blog, as I will be posting live updates throughout the event, including a link to the powerpoint from the presentation.

For this test, we are using an optimization type which we only make available for Full Service optimizations. In this case, it provides for up to 6 headlines, 3 images, 3 headers, 3 form placements, 3 greetings, 3 body copies, and 3 urgency appeals. This means there are over 4000+ combinations we will be able to look at!

One of the things I try to emphasize is that no matter what optimization system you are using, if you put garbage in, you are going to get garbage out. This means that a truly great creative writer can probably do more with A/B testing than an ordinary person could do with any of these advanced methodologies. So much of the ultimate success of an optimization campaign is controlled by the quality of the creative inputs.

Factor selections and level selections can be broadly divided into two categories- “creative” and “mechanical.” Mechanical variables are things like font size, color, background color, image size, etc. Creative variables are those like headline copy, ugency type, or call to action. In this case, improved copy will be a key to the optimization. Looking over the factor list, most of the factor selections are of the “creative” type, rather than the “mechanics” type. There is one notable exception- The form position.

Here is our test design, flushed out with the level selections:

Headline

1. Why watching this DVD could be worth an extra $10,000 a year
2. Before your next performance review, make sure you’ve watched this
3. How watching this DVD could keep you off the pink slip list… for good.
4. How to get a raise on your own terms
5. Starting -date- get paid what you’re worth
6. At last a surefire tactic to get a raise on -date-

Image

1. DVD only
2. Lifestyle- Woman
3. Lifestyle- Couple

Logo Header

1. UAC Logo only
2. PB Logo only
3. Both Logos

Form Position

1. Right Side
2. Left Side
3. Bottom

Lead In

1. Here is what…
2. Dear Bookkeeping Professional…
3. None

Body Copy

1. CONTROL
2. Show you first
3. What you will learn first

Urgency Appeal

1. Limited Time Offer
2. Free for a limited time
3. None

Over the coming days we will share some of our thoughts and strategy as we optimize this landing page using the Taguchi Method, and post live results to our blog. Our goal is to increase the lead conversion rate of the landing page at http://www.bookkeepingbiz.com/knowaccounting/ Currently it performs at a relatively anemic 15.5% on traffic from Google Adwords. (This is the conversion rate to date since 6/1/2005).

Using the Taguchi Method, we have identified 7 variables or “Factors” on this page design which we will test:

1. Headline
2. Image
3. Header
4. Form Position
5. Lead In/Greeting
6. Body Copy
7. Urgency Appeal

Check back to this blog regularly, as we reveal some of the secrets of increasing conversion rates, and what we learn on this optimization. In the next post, we’ll find out about level selection for the test!

There are two ways to get more leads or sales out of your online efforts- get more eyeballs to see your ad in the first place, or increase the number of eyeballs that convert to a sale or lead. In other words, put more into the top of your funnel, or widen the bottom so more fall out.

Thanks in large part to the major search engines and advertising networks, the pervasive “best practice” has been to put more in at the top, to get more out at the bottom. In my opinion, the is foolish: It is more expensive, and leads to higher ad costs for everyone.

With costs going up, maybe you should think about the other option- get smarter and widen the bottom of your funnel by increasing your conversion rates!

There is another strategy. This is one I call the shotgun approach. It never teaches you as much as the first, but it frequently brings in better results. The analogy is similar to firing a shotgun. Hopefully a few of the pellets will find their target, which in this case would be a more profitable landing page.

Rather than meticulously varying one element at a time, take a big picture view and vary the whole thing. Change the offer, the major benefit, the headline style, everything. Just try to keep them in line with each other. Although you will never know exactly which change resulted in the bigger results, you just may find a more profitable page! Now is where classic split testing becomes handy. Use it to fine tune your new page by focusing on things like the headline.
——
PS- We are discussing this and other interesting topics in the new Vertster forum at http://www.vertster.com/forum/ Feel free to join in!

Here are Michaels top 4 reasons for why best practices suck:

1. They rarely work
2. It’s a followers strategy
3. Change comes from within
4. They don’t come with a manual

One of the fascinating things we learn through testing sites is how wrong the “best practices” are in many cases. Every site, sale, or offer is unique, and the only way to know what really works is to test it and find out!

I have always questioned the deliverability of our other provider StreamSend. So this is a test, and we’ll find out which works better or if it is a wash. Streamsend has prettier graphs, and their interface is quite a bit different from Vertical Response’s. Our list is squeaky clean double opt in, but I have seen lots of people subscribe several times in a row on Streamsend, apparently unable to get the confirmation email.

I will let you know my results in a few days.

At any rate, this has now been fixed. Additionally, a couple of old out of date articles have been removed, and a couple new gems added. Check these guest articles out when you have a moment:

3 Tips For Writing Better Headlinesy by Bruce Carlson
Are You in for a Safe Landing? – PPC Landing Pages by Shawn Campbell
Conversion Counts: Improving Web Conversion Rates by: Barry Harrison

You’ll see more new content in our resource center in the coming days, especially some well overdue articles about Taguchi multivariate testing.

1. Self Interest rules on the web: People want to know whats in it for THEM, and them alone. If your headline does not accurately predict what the visitor is interested in, AND convey it in a short compelling manner, you are losing visitors and money. Instead of: “This enterprise class system features 16 key functionalities,” try “Your organization can enjoy increased productivity and peace of mind.” Including the word YOU can make or break a headline, and an entire ad. We’ve seen it in numerous tests.

2. Be specific: Nothing sounds like canned boilerplate copy worse that general, non specific descriptions. Adding real numbers makes your copy much more beleivable. Instead of “Our system has many valuable features,” use “Our system has 97 great features that will save you at least 9 hours and 16 minutes each week.”

3. Use “How to”: There are few words which are as powerful as these in copywriting. The reason this works so well is that using “How to” to start off a headline puts you right into a self interest style of writing. People online are seeking information, or in other words… how to do something.

“TRT sayeth thou shalt remove all navigation from thy landing page.”

Okay good idea- in fact I decided to follow it when I first read it. I built landing page after landing page, sans navigation. I mean, it made sense… until I tested it. What I found was that my landing page with my navigation bar intact outperformed the TRT version by 30%!

Now don’t think for a second I am trying to refute the rule of thumb or create a new one. Chances are most landing pages do perform better without extraneous navigation. But my point is, how will you know if your page works better with or without it?

This is where testing comes in. Without split testing your landing page head to head, there is no way to know. So go on… give it a try!

Before you will understand multivariate testing, lets review some facts about statistics and testing. In science class we learned something called the scientific method. This specified that to scientifically test a system, we should only change one thing at a time. By only varying one element in the system, and measuring results before and after the change, we could learn the relative impact of that change.When attempting to optimize a web page this way, we would make just one change to the page at a time. After repeating the experiment enough times, we could prove our results with some certainty.

Multivariate testing refutes the above notions. Using mathematical formulas and specialized arrays, it is possible to test many aspects of a system at the same time. Not only are you able to learn what worked and what didn’t, but also what the optimal combination of page elements is to maximize the response rate. This creates the net effect of doing many simple experiments at the same time.

In fact, it becomes possible to run the equivalent of thousands of tests simultaneously.

How will it help me sell more on my site?

Through the magic of Multivariate experiments, the possibilities are virtually limitless. You can rapidly learn the best combination of page elements- things like your headlines, product images, and price points, to maximize sales or lead flow.Stop guessing what the ideal design for your page is, because you don’t have to. Through Multivariate experiments, you can learn if the picture of the girl with the white background, or the man with the blue background works better. Find out if the long form with detailed instructions works better than the short form with short instructions.

Not only will you learn which works better, but also, which combination of elements works better. In the above example, you might find out that a long form with short instructions actually works best. You never even included this in the original test. Or you might find the best combination in the first example is a man with a white background, another combination that you never considered.

• You’ll learn the answers to these questions and more:
• What are the “hot areas” of your site where you can get a big bang for your testing buck?
• What is a True Taguchi optimization and is it really better than other methods?
• How will I know when my test is complete?
• Where can I go to learn more about testing?

REGISTER NOW

Date: May 18, 2005
Time: 1PM ET