Do You Know Why You Should Test Your Website Pages?

Does your website work the way you intend it to? Is it easy to navigate? How's your traffic? You need to know how your website appears to visitors. You also need to track your visitors and find out where they come from, how long they stay on your site and whether or not the click through to your offer. Having a good understanding of these figures means more money in the bank- if you know what to do with them. When you find out the analytics from your site, the next step is to test new copy against the old. This is the only way you can find out whether the changes you make are helping you or simply making things worse. Test, test and test again.

First Things First

The first thing you need to do is test to see how your website looks in different browser and on different operating systems. It's all well and good if your site looks great in Internet Explorer, but what if a visitor comes through Firefox or Google Chrome or Safari? Will your site look the same in all of these browsers? Does it matter if your visitors are viewing your site with Vista or XP or Mac? You need to test your site in a wide variety of options to be certain everything functions properly no matter how someone is viewing it.

In addition to testing how the site looks in different browsers or on different operating systems, pay attention to how long your site takes to load- especially if you have a lot of graphics or images on your site. Once you know your site is displaying properly across the board, you can begin testing various elements on your site or blog to determine how well they are converting to sales. The most common way to do this is called a/b split testing.

A/B Split Testing

A/B split testing is a simple concept. It is basically comparing one thing to one other thing. In other words, with A/B split testing, you change just one element on your page, then test the two sites against each other, and see which one performs better. While you can make more than one change at a time, keep in mind that you'll get the most precise information if you know exactly what change makes a difference in traffic or sales. There are times, however, when you will want to test a radical re-design of your page. If what you have been using is simply no longer performing, it might be wise to change the entire page and then split test to see if you improve your traffic.

One place where many marketers make use of A/B split testing is on their landing pages. In order to get the most reliable information from your split testing, you need to test repeatedly, using the same original page, known as the control, as your stating point. You need to decide how long a time you intend to run the split test in order to get a large enough sample to make an informed decision. This time will vary depending on how much traffic your page gets. Remember to be consistent with your split testing times, so you have accurate figures to compare.

There is a large variety of software available to help you with split testing your copy. You can find free software as well as paid services. The best choice for your business will depend on how much time, money and expertise you have or don't have. There are split testing options available for every price point and skill level.