What is “split testing” and why it’s so important?

byjacobwh

225 followers

12 years ago

Which headline will work best on my site?

Which design is best?

Which theme, which strategy… etc etc!?

Frankly, NOBODY knows…

Sometimes ugly sites have higher conversions rates, and unlikely designs and strategies win out over seemingly genius strategies.

So what can we do about this?

Split testing is the only to objectively test your strategy.

Split testing allows you to show variations of your website to different visitors, and then show which one get’s better results.

You can split test for…

- Higher conversion / opt in.

- Lower bounce rate

- Higher website engagement

- Longer “time on site”

Example…

You change a headline and main image on on your main page.

Login to “Google Analytics” and choose “Content Experiments”

Tell them you’re testing page1 (URL) vs page 2 (URL)...

And then for which result your testing the page.

Google will give you codes to put on each page.

Then your site will be live and testing.

Some visitors will see page 1, and only page 1… others will see page 2.

Google will show you the results as they come in…

Once you have determined a winner you keep the winner, and toss the loser.

Then… run another test!

Testing your website is one of the “secrets” to being a successful blog or site owner.

If you have high conversion, you can make more money per visitor, and justify buying ads because your site conversion is high enough.

Site conversion is the hinge on which so much of your sites success is determined.

What do you think about spit testing?