Internet marketers and online advertisers need to understand the importance of web testing before taking a plunge into web optimization and setting up advertising campaigns.
Keep it simple
Starting with a campaign that you can control or setting up a simple PPC landing page is a good way to approach the process of web testing. Splitting the test between the control and the test page is highly recommended if you are worried about the results. An 80-20 or 90-10 ratio is considered to be low risk and though these may take more time to accumulate ample data, setting up these pages is the best way to reduce risk while building confidence.
Launching the web testing process
Once you name your test, choose the page that you want to test and decide what it is that you would like the users to do when they reach that page. Testing tools generate codes that tag pages and sections or elements and you can get IT help for this part of the process. Once you enter test variations into your testing tool, you can launch the web testing experiment.
Data analysis
Once the page starts collecting data, you can start analyzing it after a suitable length of time. Check important elements that contribute to the data such as headline for statistically significant differences in variation results. Good and well written headlines are the only way that users decide whether the page has the information that they are looking for or not and it encourages them to engage more seriously with it. Testing page elements is also highly recommended as it can significantly impact conversion rates. Though each element has a different impact on the conversion rate, higher priority should be given to the more important elements. Go section by section and avoid testing too many variables in too many sections at the same time.
Multiple testing options
A/B Test-This is a good test to start with as you test two variations of a variable or just two pages against each other. Large scale changes such as page layouts and designs can be tested to see huge differences faster.
Multipath Multivariate Test-Use this test to see which test combinations of elements across various groups of pages work best. You can also specify more than one conversion goal in a ‘Do Anything Test.’
Linger tests use time as a conversion metric on a page while Click testing targets a specific click or event. The Split-Path Test is ideal for checkouts and other linear conversion funnels and paths as visitor navigation usually follows a non-linear fashion.
Most marketers have no clue about how to test their website, who needs to be consulted for the process, and how web testing contributes to meeting the needs of their customers or how it will affect their website. The goal of any website is to meet the specific needs and requirements of their customers through an online environment that it provides.