Website testing is a powerful tool that delivers results by improving your website’s conversion rate. You can test by changing elements like landing pages, forms, call-to-action text, headlines, and layout to name a few options.
So what is testing? It’s like those science experiments you did back in school. You change elements of your website and different variations that are randomly presented to your website visitors. While Visitor A might be browsing the original version of your website, Visitors B, C, and D might be browsing a very different version.
Meanwhile, the testing software studies your visitor’s actions to determine the best-performing variation of your website. Since different websites have different goals, you can set your own metrics for success like clicking on a link, visiting a page, or revenue tracking among others.
Let’s say that your goal is to improve your form conversions; try testing these innovative mad lib-style forms. If your pricing page isn’t converting visitors, consider a new layout like Basekit did. Their redesigned pricing page improved their conversion rate by 25%.
Testing your website is important because human beings are unpredictable! Once you start tracking their activity, your users’s behavior will suprise you and even defy logic. Would you believe that changing the color of a call-to-action button increased Performable’s conversion rate by 21%? A common theme to successful testing is creating variations that simplify webpages, visually or verbally. Let’s look at two variations to see which had a better conversion rate.
Except for the images, the headline, subheadline, description text and call to actions are exactly the same. But testing the lock image really proved that this host provides secure hosting, which increased Hawk Host’s landing page conversion rate by 200%.
CareLogger tested headline text by introducing a different color to focus on what their product can do for their customers. That very simple change delivered 31% more sign-ups.
Like these case studies show, there are no rules for testing – it is is a creative process so don’t be afraid to drastically change elements. You will be surprised by the results!
As an online business, it’s not easy to track visitor behavior. Your analytics data can tell you what brought your visitors to your website but it’s not so easy to find out why they left. Testing is an effective way to study your visitors’ activity and improve your website with them in mind. Because testing tools are easy to use and track in real-time, you can get actionable results that can dramatically improve your bottom-line.
About the Author:
Anish Kothari is associated with Wingify, the company behind the world’s easiest A/B testing tool: Visual Website Optimizer. Thousands of business worldwide (including Fortune 500 companies and SMBs) use it daily to increase their online sales and conversion rates. For interesting tips on conversion rate optimization follow us on Twitter @Wingify.