The Importance of Split Testing in Online Marketing

If you run a website it is a really good idea to use split testing on the existing traffic, as it can help improve the site's conversion rates. Using this form of testing will also help improve the response percentage rates from your visitors. By testing the smallest things you can help your online business sales increase dramatically.

Testing your website is necessary to increase your online business, as this helps in knowing what is best for your site, and what gives you sales. If you don't try different techniques on your site, you won't know what works. For example if you evaluate the results for different products, then you will start to gain an understanding of what types of products sell, and what products do not.

Google website optimizer is a free program to use, it allows you to create a basic split test on, for instance, just the way your buttons look or the images you use for selling. If you use Google AdWords for Pay-Per-Click advertising, you'll find that it too comes with split testing capabilities. With both these tools Google will give you statistics to evaluate the results of your split tests.

By testing and tweaking the site in response to the results you see in the Google Website Optimizer, you can start to achieve an improvement in your click rate measure. You'd be amazed, really simple things like just changing the way a button looks can make a difference. However, when you do use split testing, it is crucial to test one aspect of your site at a time. If you test too much at a time, it could take far too long to gain any meaningful results and you may end up not learning what is working for your online business. For example, if you are using two sales letters, use different headings for each, this way you will see what heading is getting the best results.

Companies like Amazon use split testing to improve their conversion rates, and they put a lot of money into it as well - emulate them! Look at how their sites work, and what happens with the up sell process, and what ideas they use to make money.

Not using split testing could handicap you when it comes to making money online because you are not trying a range of different techniques to see which works best. Having split testing in your web management process will ensure that your business sales grow, because you are testing what the consumers like best and what is attractive to them. Knowing what the customers want is the best way to sell online, and using the links, pictures, colors and text that appeal to them is one way to do that. With split testing, you will learn the difference a change in color can make to the conversion rate relative to what you previously had, helping you in your aim to give customers what they want.

You could almost say that using split testing for a web based business is mandatory, as it can help you gain more sales for your website. Knowing what works and what does not work will help your business grow and give you an advantage over your competitors that don't use split testing.

Derek Leahy is a freelance business and technology writer.
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