The huge rise in small businesses investing in SEO is testimony to the fact small business owners now realise just having a website isn’t enough. You need to bring visitors to your website.
But statistically 50% of your visitors will leave within a few seconds (bounce rate) – thats a lot of potential customers lost very quickly! Fortunately, AB testing helps you give your visitors what they want, keep them on your site and turn them into customers. And prove its all working at the same time!
Increase your websites conversion rate
or: How to I learned to stop guessing and love my website
AB testing is a process where you create 2 different pages for the same product or service. Changes and tweaks to the page content, layout, text, images and design are made. You then monitor which of the pages has the higher conversion rate.
It’s that simple.
A successful small business website converts visitors to customers. But 99% of the time you will not meet your prospective customer face to face, or even have a conversation over the phone. Your website is left on its own to persuade your potential customers to choose you over your competition. Your message has to be right; first time, every time. AB testing can literally be the difference between one or two sales per month or one or two (or more) per hour.
5 quick ways to improve your site with AB testing
- ImageFirst impressions count! In less than a second visitors decide if they like your website. Their initial judgement is emotive, based on design, colour and layout.
- HeadlinesCritical to your page, headlines should grab your visitors attention and help them determine if the page is relevant to their needs in just a few seconds.
- Scannable ContentYour online copy should be formatted so its easy to digest online. Even big companies get it wrong. See Amazon’s userbility changes.
- Improve the CopyCopy written in the active voice will have fewer words and an energy and directness that keeps your visitors clicking.
- Calls to ActionVisitors want to get something from your website. Every page on your site should have some form of call to action that leads the user on. If they reach a dead-end they will leave.
Small changes can have a big impact
Even small tweaks to the 5 key areas listed above can have a huge cumulative impact to the conversion of visitors to customers on your website. Watch the video below to see how Colonial Candles increased their conversion rate by 20%.
A low cost improvement for any website
AB testing is its suitable for both new and old websites. Without the expense of having a new website designed and built you can maximise your current websites potental.
AB testing is a long term investment to your online marketing. Lessons learned and improvements to the content and site can all be carried over to any future website development as well as any other online marketing in place such as google adwords, email marketing and banner advertisements.
Google Website Optimiser Guide
Google UK provide a great beginners guide to Google Website Optimiser that helps guide you through setup and integration on your site.