**by Carrie Hill**
If you asked some of the best online marketers in the business what
one piece of advice they can give you to help make your site better,
stronger or more profitable, I bet most would say test your pages,
test your techniques, and test your theories.
The one constant in search engine marketing is change. Things that
worked a few months or even years ago don't work today. Conversely,
things that work today maybe didn't work 2 months ago. Learning what
is best for you and /your/ site takes a lot of patience, research and
testing.
If you're a do-it-yourself website owner—or run your own company
and do your online marketing in-house, using a tool like Google
Website Optimizer can help you test different ideas and theories with
ease. Testing your landing pages and conversion funnels can help you
craft a site that is user friendly and more conversion friendly.
Whether your goal is to sell an item, or generate a lead, simple steps
to set up and implement a test can help you gain insight into what
your audience is looking for.
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/23148333@N06/4244880251/>
Visiting Google.com/WebsiteOptimizer
<http://www.google.com/websiteoptimizer>
is an easy—and free—way to easily get started with a great tool
that's easy and intuitive to use. If you can design a new page and
paste a bit of code into your website, you don't need any help at all
to get started. If you're a design novice and have someone help you
out, have them help design your test page and then it's literally less
than a half-hour of effort to install the scripts, provided there
aren't any special steps needed to make them work.
Tip: If you use WordPress, install the Easy Google Optimizer Plug-in
for Wordpress
<http://www.impressionengineers.com/wordpress/easy-google-optimizer-plugin/>
from ImpressionEngineeers.com. This makes setting up your campaign a
snap!
I also like to recommend Website Optimizer if you're testing out some
targeting and segmentation ideas, like the ones I put out in my last
column How to Target your SEO Landing Page's Demographic Profile
<http://searchengineland.com/how-to-target-your-seo-landing-pages-demographic-profile-30988>
. The reality is sometimes segmentation and targeting takes many
/many/ versions to dial in the right one. Being able to A/B test your
original against a new version is a great way to see if the change
should be permanent without guesswork.
The nice thing about the Website Optimizer interface is the step by
step setup instructions. There is a shopping list of what you need
before you start your test, and then a step by step Q&A to help you
decide what type of test you need, what your conversion goal page
should be and then the code is generated& voila!
Here are some screenshots to get you familiar with what you're doing.
This will take you through to the code generation portion of your
test:
Step 1: Create a new experiment
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/23148333@N06/4245599738/>
Step 2: Choose the type of experiment
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/23148333@N06/4244825419/>
Step 3: Name and identify your control, test and conversion pages
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/23148333@N06/4244825499/>
Step 4: Tell Google how your scripts will be installed
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/23148333@N06/4244825463/>
Step 5: Copy and paste the code into your site and validate your
pages
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/23148333@N06/4244825283/>
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/23148333@N06/4244825329/>
The most important rule to remember is to allow enough conversions
for an accurate test. Google recommends around 100 conversions for an
accurate measure. Some pages can reach that goal in a day, while some
may take a month or more. If you have a site that receives a few
conversions a week or month, you can still test. Consider making your
goal a clickthru to the next page in the conversion path instead of
a full blown conversion.
If you're not sure where to start with your first test, some things I
would suggest are:
Conversion button style and placement. Whether you're looking for a
book online or contact us type of conversions, work on how that
message appears to your visitors. If it's a text link buried in a
paragraph, separate it out and give it a colorful, eye-catching button
to entice more conversions. Use your testing to design the right
button for your audience.
Navigation overhaul.. Is having left-hand navigation the best or
should you move it to the right, can you eliminate some navigation to
encourage the conversion action? Is the order of your navigation
encouraging or discouraging engagement and conversion? Do some testing
to figure it out.
Page layout. The middle left side of your page is a dead spot. Are
you putting important information there? Try rearranging your text and
important links to encourage more time on site and more clickthrus.
Virtual tour or image conversion optimization. If you use virtual
tours or image galleries, try different techniques to layover or
include links to help the visitor into your conversion path. These
pages can rank well, so try to use them as much as you can.
Getting started with your testing can be intimidating, but the first
test is definitely a milestone you should hit in January 2010! The
results you see and the potential become addicting. Remember, a key
part of the overall SEO process is to take time to work on not only
the rankings and traffic to your site, but the nuts and bolts that
make your site work for visitors.
Opinions expressed in the article are those of the author, and not
necessarily Search Engine Land.
Carrie Hill <http://searchengineland.com/author/carriehill/>
is the Director of Search Strategies and Client Services at Blizzard
Internet Marketing <http://www.blizzardinternet.com>
, an agency located in Glenwood Springs, Colorado that specializes in
comprehensive online marketing strategies for travel, tourism and
hospitality websites. You can also follow Carrie on twitter,
http://twitter.com/carriehill@carriehill.
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2010</li><li><a
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