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How do you know if your marketing works if you’re not testing?

Do you casually glance at your website traffic stats, hold a finger in the air and say …yes that headline increased our website sales? Or do you scientifically test one headline against another and synchronize this with the number of orders you get?

To help make sure you’re on the right track here are 6 “hot” tips for successful split testing…

1. Test at least two versions of whatever it is you’re testing, this would be the contol and the variation

The control version is the one that’s getting you the best results so far, the variation is the version you’ve created that you want to have beat the control.

2. Equally test one version against another

You’re looking for each version you’re testing to be exposed to the same environmental factors. In the case of your website this would be making sure each version gets the same amount of website traffic form the same source.

3. Measure the actions of each split test

Now you have equal amounts of traffic going to each version you’re testing how will you determine which is more effective? This is where you need to state clearly the objective you’re aiming for, it might be more subscribers or more sales. Then you need to measure this for each version you’re testing.

4. A big enough sample of results.

It’s no use testing 10 visitors to each versions of you’re testing, I promise this won’t tell you anything of any value. On the other hand if you looked at 300 visitors for each test variation you’ll begin to see a more representative picture as to which version is the winner (which then becomes your control in future tests).

5. You need patience

Testing takes time, if your website doesn’t get much traffic on a regular basis it’ll take longer for you to get the results you’re looking for. On the other hand a high traffic site will get your website testing moving along much quicker, leading you to a high converting website in a fraction of the time.

If traffic is something you need more of recently I launched a traffic course called “Flood Your Site With Traffic” if you don’t have this yet click here to get yourself a copy today.

6. You need to understand the results

This one needs more investigation because sometimes you’ll find yourself in a situation where one version A of a test out performs version B by 5%, yet version B communicates your websites values more effectively. So which version should you choose? Over time you’ll become more experienced at testing and your “gut feeling” will play a significant role in deciding the winners of split test where the results are close.

To get you started with your split testing I recommend you take a close look at using Google’s excellent website optimizer.

Get started with your split testing today:

Google Website Optimizer…
http://services.google.com/websiteoptimizer

Split testing doesn’t stop with regular websites either… you can also split test the headlines and the content of your blog posts using this special WordPress plug-in…
http://websiteoptimizer.contentrobot.com

Here’s a useful online tool that helps you to calculate the effectiveness of your testing…
http://www.splittester.com/index.php

There’s one last thing you’ll come to realize once you’ve been split testing your website for a while… even your best testing is uncertain at best.

Why? Because of Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principal which states that we can’t be certain of anything because the very act of looking changes its nature. This is why as Mark Joyner says in his excellent book Mind Control Marketing… “Drawing broad conclusions from your testing can be hazardous to your financial health”.

Increase your website sales by 275% or more...

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It should be obvious to any person with some marketing experience online that there is no magic pill to success.

To be honest with you I’ve grown tired of reading email after email filled with claims on how easy it is to sell online.

Whilst this can be true, what many fail to tell you is there’s more to it than just putting up a website and driving traffic to it.

Are you ready for the “real” truth behind successful online marketing?

Here it is…

“Fanatically test and track everything!”

Let me say it again, it’s that important…

“Fanatically test and track everything!”

Before you get started with your testing and tracking you need to know what your website conversion rate is right now. This gives you a yardstick to measure future improvements to. In scientific terms this is called your “control”.

Knowing your conversion rate before making, say a change in your headline, is the only way to know for certain if the change made has a positive or negative impact.

And by split testing one headline against another you’ll soon find a winner that beats your control.

Here’s a word of warning… never make a steadfast change to your copy based on some other marketers advice.

This is critical and it’s where so many people fall over…

What works for them may not work for you too.

Plus, how do you know they’re not merely repeating some “mantra” they read or heard elsewhere?

A classic example of this is to make your headline a bright red color. Whilst in some markets this might be the “winning” headline color, in other markets it could fall flat on it’s face and reduce sales conversions massively. Can you see the importance of testing?

Whilst it’s true you can increase sales by increasing the traffic to your site, it’s not the easiest way to do it.

Let’s face it, increasing your traffic is either going to cost you more money or a lot of time and effort (certainly more than split testing and tracking everything to improve your existing sales conversions).

However, just throwing more traffic at your website without knowing your baseline conversion metrics means you’re leaving money on the table because you do not yet know the full potential of your sales process.

Let’s play with the numbers for a moment to give you a good example of what I mean…

Say you have a 1.5% conversion rate and 1000 visitors each week.

That’s equal to 15 sales a week. Not bad.

And each sale is worth $20 in profit.

1.5% x 1000 = 15 X $20 = $300 profit each week Now, increase traffic 50%… 1.5% X 1500 = 22.5 x $20 = $450 profit

Let’s step things up a bit…

Now you increase your conversions to 2.5% and send more traffic, let’s see what happens next…

2.5% x 1000 = 25 x $500 profit. That’s $200 more than in the example above and $50 more than sending more traffic.

Let’s send more traffic to our 2.5% converting site and see what happens with a 50% increase.

2.5% x 1500 = 37.5 sales x $20 = $750 profit each week. Replicate this over 4 weeks and your financial picture changes dramatically.

Always keep this in mind…

Only when you’ve got your sales conversion percentages as high as possible should you begin to consider increasing traffic. This ensures you get the very most return on your investment (ROI) in any marketing campaigns you run that send you more traffic.

Becoming fanatical at testing and tracking is the true path to online wealth.

To help you get started here are the testing and tracking tools I use and recommend you use too…

Google Analytics: www.google.com/analytics/

Google Analytics tells you exactly where your organic traffic is coming from, what pages people visit, how long they stay for and even how well it converts.

Google Website Optimizer: services.google.com/websiteoptimizer/

This other service by Google is integrated with Google AdWords, but don’t let this hold you back because you can use it by itself on any website you own and costs nothing to use. Google Website Optimizer enables you to run “split tests” where you test one website component against another automatically.

To access both these superb tools for free all you need is a Google Account.

Increase your website sales by 275% or more...

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