Split Testing: The Best Way to Test Your Effectiveness Lickety Split

Your website is working great guns. (It isn’t? Call us!) Every day, tons of conversions come flying into your company. But you still can’t help and wonder: Can my site work even better?

There’s a way to find out: Split Testing!

Split testing is a process where you offer slightly different versions of your website to an equivalent number of web visitors – and then compare your conversion results.

For example: Let’s say you have a shoe site and you want to announce an athletic shoe sale. Your split test would compare your current headline:

“Save 50% on every second pair of athletic shoes! This month only!”

With a variation of the offer:

“Save 50% on every pair of sneakers! This month only!”

At the end of the month, you should be able to determine which version worked better by examining the conversions and sales garnered through each.

If the new version makes you more money, you should most likely change the headline on your site to the new one.

However…you can always do another split test. See how sneakers fares against “shoes,” for example. Or compare “athletic shoes” against the more formal “athletic footwear.”

That’s the fun part to split testing – you can do it as often as you like. All you need is time and bandwidth. And eventually you’ll have the best-converting site you ever imagined.

Google, Bing, Yahoo – What’s the Difference? When it Comes to SEO, Plenty!

In our last issue, we touched briefly on the differences between Google and the new Bing search engine from Microsoft. In a relatively short amount of time, comparisons between the two and Yahoo!, in regards to how these sites rank any given search, are now trickling in. The results are at once eye-opening, but not entirely surprising.

As reported on several blogs, particularly the primary blogger at Cuil, Bing and Google are virtually identical in several important categories. Yahoo!, on the other hand, is being left in the dust in several areas.

So you’re probably wondering what, if anything, does Bing do better than the others? As far as major differences go, not much. But there are many subtle nuances worth mentioning.

Any two search engines will usually rank sites in a fairly similar order. But the algorithms of each search engine will frequently cause differences in rank for some sites. Here is where Bing lets its personality show through.

For example, Bing appears to prefer keyword-rich URLs more than Google or Yahoo! This is the basis of their current advertising campaign, where they imply that Bing puts what you’re actually looking for first.

We decided to test this theory using the phrase “pink pumps.” Bing did indeed zero in on shoes (as did Google) but ranked the keyword-rich sites higher.

For example, Bing’s number one organic search for pink pumps was for the page www.shoemall.com.

This same page ranked number three on Google:

Our test search also confirmed that Bing appears to like larger sites rather than smaller ones. In addition, Bing Really Likes Sites With Terms That Have Initial Caps, Like This Entire Sentence!

How these differences will effect where your site ranks on one search engine or the other is questionable. Obviously, if it’s a matter of ranking at number 10 on page one of a Bing search and number 11 at the top of page two on an identical Google search, you may have some adjustments to make. (Perhaps some additional link building will turn the trick. We’ll be happy to help.)

In several other search quality areas, Google still outshines Bing. Its paging capabilities are still superior. Bing frequently repeats the search result at the bottom of one page at the top of the next. Bing also has a nagging problem with understanding apostrophes, etc. in people’s names.

Yahoo!, which has always been kind of the also-ran in the search engine game, scored particularly poorly when it came to spam comparisons. Where Google and Bing were practically tied for allowed spam (2.5% and 2.9%, respectively), the amount allowed by Yahoo was nearly double.

On the plus side, Yahoo has slightly better numbers than Bing when it came to searches that overlapped Google (25% vs. 29%).

So while it’s still probably too early to name a new search king, the results show that people will only veer off Google when they’re not satisfied with the results they got there. Bing and Yahoo have their work cut out for them if they ever plan to take on Google for the primary spot in the minds of web surfers everywhere.

The Seven Basic Steps of Landing Page Optimization

What makes a good landing page? Well, you sort of know it when you see it, right? A good landing page makes you want to do something right away – fill out a form, click to the next page, purchase a product, etc. – without putting too much thought into the process.

Good landing pages make the decision for the viewer and persuade them as quickly as possible.

Now – what constitutes a good landing page? Well, there are actually seven steps of preparation that go into prime LPO. When you optimize each step, you’re more likely to get you outcome you expect from your landing page.

Step 1: Optimize Every Element on Your Landing Page.

Test, test, test. Use split testing or even multi-variant testing with your headlines until you find the most effective one. Test your photos until even you can’t resist the pull. Test your copy for the most appealing sales propositions. The old “first impression” adage is important here. Make the customer fall in love with you at first sight.

Step 2: Optimize Your Landing Page.

There are lots of companies who make lots of money telling you lots of things about how every landing page should follow the same basic layout: Top-left to bottom-right, never vary or it won’t work. And if you’re in this business more than five minutes, you know that this is not always the case. However, you won’t know what’s right until you try different layouts to see what works for you. Maybe the tried and true works. Maybe you should do exactly the opposite. You’ll only know when you optimize your page.

Step 3: Optimize Your Path.

How do people get to your landing page? PPC? A banner ad? Email? However they do it, your message that gets them there should be nearly identical to the message they see on your landing page. If your banner ad says “Save 25% on melt-in-your-mouth chocolates!” then your landing page headline had better have at least the words “Save 25%” and “chocolates” in it. It is perfectly okay to repeat the whole phrase in many cases.

Step 4: Optimize Your Consumer Segments.

Who’s buying from you? Do you appeal to different markets? Make sure that your message addresses the needs of each segment of your market. Do men and women both buy your product – but for totally different reasons? Be sure you’re covering every angle.

Step 5: Optimize Your Campaign.

If your online message is connected to your advertising in other media, it is imperative that you coordinate your messages. (The auto insurance companies have this perfected down to a science.) If you’re using different approaches to attract different demographics, everything that audience sees must coordinate. So you may need different landing pages for different audience groups.

Step 6: Optimize Your Operations.

This step is all about post-click, or landing page management. If you’re a company with more than one landing page, you need to be able to keep track of how all of those landing pages are performing. The page that kicks butt today may well be a flash in the pan that just takes up space on the internet tomorrow. Optimization is an ongoing thing. Always be on the lookout for ways to make every page you have better and better.

Step 7: Optimize Your Strategy.

This is the fun part; it’s like playing with your food. How is your landing page synching with your marketing strategy? Optimizing your strategy means breaking it down into segments and testing different ideas and theories to see if you can make things even better. Obviously, you don’t want to drop a successful strategy for some wild idea you have at two in the morning. But what if you really think that idea has some merit? This is where you can put up a micro-campaign. Build a landing page that plays off your idea. Write PPC that appeals to a small group of your customers, then sit back and watch. If it works, go nuts! Roll it out to everybody. If it doesn’t work, you’re no worse off than you were before – and you learned a lesson in optimization!

If you consistently do these steps on your landing pages, your successes will far outnumber your failures. And you’ll have the ammo to turn those failures around!

Google Comes Clean: Keyword Meta Tags Aren’t Used for Search Ranking

In an announcement that everybody expected –and suspected, Google recently came clean on the influence of the keywords meta tag on search rankings:

Diddley squat.

Matt Cutts, the Search Quality know-it-all at Google, recently confirmed what most people were suspecting. “We don’t use the keywords meta tag in our search ranking,” Cutts rather bluntly states in an official Google viral video. “Other search engines might, but Google doesn’t.”

While Cutts didn’t say exactly how long this has been the policy, he said it was the result of keyword abuse on the part of webmasters. Keyword stuffing – particularly irrelevant keyword stuffing – has been a long term issue. Google felt compelled to do something about it, so goodbye keyword meta tags.

In other words, since you can’t play nice, Mama Google is going to take your ball away.

When you add to this the recent announcement that Yahoo! no longer uses keyword meta tags to determine ranking either, one might be tempted to ask why you should even bother with the Keyword meta tag.

Cutts was also quick to mention that Google could change its mind at any time, so it’s wise to keep your keywords in your code. (If and when this happens, of course, the other search engines will follow suit.) While the keyword meta tag may not be doing you any good as far as rankings go, they won’t do you any harm, either.

Keep in mind that this announcement does nothing to undermine the importance of the other meta tags in your code. For example, Google still relies heavily on the “title” meta tag for determining search results.

Ecommerce Optimization: A Holiday Playbook for Procrastinators

Fall has arrived. And if you have been reading our newsletters all summer, you know that we have been preparing you for the fall online shopping rush, which traditionally begins on Halloween.

A lot of you probably took our suggestions to heart and prepped your SEO, LPO and content in advance for the holidays. Right?

What? You haven’t done it yet?

Well, there’s still time. And if you don’t think you have the time to make all the changes that we were discussing all summer, there are still some things that are easy to do, quick to do and important to do. If you have no other time for holiday prep, at least do these seven things:

1. Increase clickthroughs by updating your title tags and meta descriptions. For example, put a holiday message in your title. You can always change it back on January 1. Samples:
   1. Make (COMPANY) Your Holiday (Product)-Giving Place! Free shipping and guaranteed delivery by Dec. 24!
   2. Put a smile on their face this Christmas with (PRODUCTS) from (COMPANY)!
2. Speaking of clickthroughs, if you sell products and use pictures of those products, make sure the pictures click through to the shopping cart. So many sites lose sales because they forget to do this. Make sure every picture clicks through.
3. Make sure your shopping cart is easy to find on every page of your site.
4. Make your convenience offers (Free Shipping, etc.) more prominent, if they’re not already easy to see.
5. Create a holiday-themed landing page! Nothing pleases holiday shoppers more than instant access to the products they want to buy from you! Landing pages make it easy to connect the customer to the commodity.
6. “Decorate” your page. This time of year, your site is your Christmas tree. So decorate it with holiday visuals! Add some blinking lights, ornaments, familiar icons, even Santa if you can get away with it. One thing, though: Be sure to take the lights down right after New Year’s Day. Nothing says “unattended website” like a Christmas display that still up in June.
7. PPC: You still have time to bid on holiday keywords and phrases. Here are a few ideas to get you started:
   1. Holidays: Christmas, Chanukah (or Hannukah), xmas, kwanzaa, etc.
   2. Gift Words: gift, presents, idea, gift idea, presents for, etc.
   3. Relationships: Dad, Mom, grandma, grandpa, grandparents, teacher, etc.
   4. Terms: after Christmas Sale, December 26th sale, Post-Christmas clearance, etc.

We also suggest you revisit our entire summer’s worth of “Christmas in July [1] [2] and [3]” articles for more good ideas on getting your site primed for the holiday rush. You still have time, so make a list, check it twice and get going!

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Coming in Our November Issue:

If Google Changes its Algorithm, Does that Change Your Rankings?

The short answer is, probably. However, before the next algorithm alteration occurs, we have plenty of tips on how to make sure your site weathers the storm. Watch for all this and more in our November Issue!