The ABC of A/B Testing

We constantly hear that your website needs to be optimized, but ever wonder what that really means? Below is a beginners guide to optimizing your site with A/B testing.

Do you have a creeping suspicion that a refresh for you website copy might help sales, or a brighter coloured buy button may help customers press it? You will never know until you test for it.  Copy, positioning, colors, images are all great options when conducting an A/B test.

Where to Begin
Start by quantifying what’s most important for you. Is it sales, sign ups or engagement? Pin point the area on your website that is most important. Take a closer look at where you are loosing customers, and target that content. Crazy egg is a great program that helps narrow down to the area of where customers drop off.

Hypothesize
Could it be the copy? Is the checkout form too long? Could it be the images of the product? Ask a friend that would be interested in your product to run through the steps and listen to their suggestions. One of my favorite sayings is “A worm in sauerkraut only knows sauerkraut.” You are that worm, so you need outside perspective.

Tips – here are some things you may want to consider when testing your website
Forms – whether it’s a survey, checkout form or an email sign up, keep your form as short as possible. Remove any fields that are not crucial. This can be simply done with a hide function.
Keep text simple. If your form is very long, break it into two pages. Checkouts that are multiple pages typically perform better than one page. It doesn’t overwhelm the customer and they feel committed once they’ve gone through a few pages. While these suggestions work for the majority, they may not work for your business. Customer sets are differ and this is why A/B testing is so important – The average doesn’t always work.

Images
Placement and type of images can make a difference as well.

Website copy
If you want to engage people you need to use the right words. Maybe changing the submit but to something that aligns with what they are accomplishing.
Use verbs and not nouns. If you wAnt someone to do something. You need to tell them to do it.

Test it
Make the change

Optimize. Try A/B testing. See and buy what you re selling. The principle different versions of your site. What option is the most effective. Visitors more likely when they saw Obama with family. Optimize me.
Clear hypothesis and definition of success
Strat by quantifying what you are after. Your metrics that matter. Completed purchase or time on site clear hypothesis. Optomizely. New hypothesis.
Blink #4 declutter website. Less is more. Removing any fields that are not crucial. Break up longer forms.
Break longer form into more pages. The right language.
Use verbs rather than noun