How to Design a Split Test

By Dr. Ralph F. Wilson

One of my goals for my readers is to inspire and train you how to
test so that you can improve your conversion rate, sales -- and
bottom line. More and more I see a growing divide between larger
companies' online conversion rates and small business. The
difference is largely in willingness and ability to test.

The ultimate success or failure of your split testing will
largely be determined by three W's:

1. Which pages should you test?
2. What page elements should you test? and
3. Why test these things?

Let's look at each of these to see how they can help you sell
more on your website.

Which Pages Should You Test?

The specific page to be tested is the very first decision that a
testing marketer will make. Unfortunately, many folks decide to
test their home pages first, which immediately leads to
frustration and lack of conclusive results. The home page, by its
very nature, is the hardest page on your site to test. Because of
the many goals the page attempts to serve, isolating a single
goal and "success action" is very difficult.

It is much better to focus on specific landing pages, which
usually have only one goal and purpose.

What Page Elements Should You Test?

The next decision you'll be faced with involves deciding which
portions of a web page to include in your experiment. Effective
test design means looking at your web pages and visually breaking
them down into individual ingredients, called components. A
typical landing page is made up of several common ingredients.

Here are some examples:

* Headline
* Sub-headline
* Greeting
* Main image (sometimes called a hero shot)
* Body copy
* Testimonials
* Signature

Focus on components that appear near the top of the web page.
Some of the first things to look at when designing a split test
are the headline, hero shot, any promotional messaging (such as
"free shipping" or "30% off"), and any scarcity messaging (such
as "limited time only"). When designing variations, select
substantially different options, as these tend to yield clearer
data. Be as specific as possible, because "Save 20% if you order
by Feb 19" is often better than "Limited time offer, save 20%."

Why Test These Things?

As you select pages and components to test, keep one word in the
back of your mind: Why?

I once had a customer who was set on testing whether a footer
should appear or not. His answer was sheepish: "Because I wonder
if it will help my sales or not." What do you think? With an
average bounce rate greater than 50%, that is, people who
immediately hit their back button, it's safe to say most of his
users weren't even staying long enough to scroll down to the
footer.

Focus on the top portion of the page, but also remember why you
are testing in the first place: to increase your sales. Use tests
that are likely to improve your business, not to answer some
inner curiosity about the relative importance of various page
elements.

Add to : del-icio-us