Split Testing Basics
If you’re having a hard time getting additional traffic, then you should try out other ways of increasing the income you get from your online business. I’ve already talked about one method on one of my post which is creating back-end products and adding it to your sales funnel.
Today, I’ll tackle another method which is one of the easiest ways to make more money online in your business without directing additional traffic to your site – split testing.
The Magic of Split Testing
Split testing is very easy to do and most of the time you can do it for free (I’ll show you a free method later on). Split testing, as the name implies, takes the traffic from your site, split it and drive it into different variants (in this case your webpage) that you want to test.
What pages of your site should be tested?
You can actually test any page that you have in your site that requires an action from the visitor – this can be a simple click on a link, opting in forms, or getting them to buy your product.
Most Important Pages To Split Test:
- Opt-in Page – page where you have your opt-in form. This is where people type in their name and email address in exchange of the information you promised.
- Sales Page - your sales letter. Where you advertise your product and entice people to buy it.
Two types of split testing:
- A/B split testing – the simplest way of testing. Compares the performance of two different versions of a page. This is what I’ll discuss further on this post.
- Multivariate testing – Tests the content variations on multiple areas or parts of your web page. One page with multiple testing points.
A/B Split Testing
This type of split testing compares the performance of two different versions of your webpage.
This test equally splits the traffic you get from your site and directs it to the two versions of the web page you want to test. Version A – the original page (we call this the control version), and Version B – the page where you made some changes.
You need to use a split testing tool to do this. There are several tools and softwares that offer split testing capability but the one I use is Google Adwords Website Optimizer which is free if you have a Google Adwords Account.
If you don’t have a Google Adwords Account yet, you can sign up here. Don’t worry, you don’t have to run an Adwords Ad campaign to use its tools. Follow the instructions below to get to the website optimizer A/B split testing tool page.
1. Log-in -> Select tools tab -> more tools.
2. Select website optimizer from the set of tools.
3. Create a new experiment.
4. Choose A/B Experiment
5. Follow the instructions and complete your first split testing experiment.
This split testing tool will track the performance of each version and will tell you which of the two has a higher conversion rate.
What elements to split test?
- Content – heading, sub-heading, P.S., call to action, etc…
- Layout – position of your opt-in form, call to action, etc…
- Colors – background, font, borders, etc…
- Sizes - font, heading, sub-heading, etc…
After putting up your first testing experiment, you need to forget about it for now. Remember that you need a significant number of traffic to really determine the winner. I suggest you select the winning version after having at least a hundred conversions.
Split testing is an ongoing process. Strive to increase your conversion rate by 1-3% per experiment. This way, you increase your income without the need for additional traffic.
2 Responses to “Split Testing Basics”
Jinny on September 13, 2009
Hello,
I have already seen it somethere…
Have a nice day
Jinny
3 Ways To Spice Up Your Sales Letter | Internet Marketing Proven Methods and Tips On Making Money Online by Ricz Sabido on October 12, 2009
[...] you already have a good conversion rate with your sales letter, then split test another variation and see its effect on your numbers. You will be surprised how changing two or [...]