WebShare Search & Conversion Marketing Blog

Search & Conversion Marketing Blog

Welcome to our blog! Here you'll find posts on the topics of web design & traffic acquisition, paid and organic search strategies, analytics & business intelligence, conversion testing, interviews, videos and more. We hope you find it useful, and invite you to read, share, subscribe, leave a comment, or just have a look at what's here.

Archive for the ‘Conversion Marketing’ Category

How to deal with perceptual blindness – Dare to not be different

Thursday, July 29th, 2010 by Julie Ferrara-Brown

One of our most popular services at WebShare is to critique ecommerce sites, and one concept that comes up often is perceptual blindness. This is the tendency to overlook something that is right in front of you because it’s not where you expect it to be. Think of the internal site search box on a website. If you moved this to the very bottom some customers may conclude the site is missing the ability to search because they are not used to looking for the search box at the bottom of the page. This is why we say it’s often better to “Dare not to be different” in certain areas of website design.

I just recently experienced the perfect example that illustrates our point. A friend of mine in Germany found out she is pregnant, and so I just had to send her two books right away.

I logged on to Amazon.com like I always do, entered her address and was about to pay when I saw that Amazon was estimating it would take over a month for her to receive the books, plus the shipping was more than the cost of one of the books! At this point I was beginning to rethink buying these books from Amazon. On a whim I decided to check out Amazon.de (the German version of Amazon).

One thing to point out is that I don’t speak a lick of German, but with Amazon you don’t have to! I searched for the titles in English, the pictures of the covers confirmed I was ordering the right books. So now it was time to add them to my cart. While the text on the “add to cart” button was in German, the buttons and checkout process was so intuitive that I knew exactly what to do without even reading the text. Since the spelling of the months are extremely similar to English, I was easily able to see that the delivery time was much more appropriate and since I was buying on the German site and shipping to Germany I was able to get Free shipping! (which I knew because the location of the shipping charges are in the same place as on the US site—right where you would expect them).

By now you should be picking up on a consistent theme. I was able to make this purchase without knowing any German because Amazon understood the value of consistency and meeting expectations. While it is important to make your company stand out from the rest, be careful to ensure that you don’t actually make it harder for people to do business with you. People abandon shopping carts for lots of reasons—don’t let a frustrating UI be one of them.

Julie Ferrara-Brown
Julie is WebShare's chief statistician and conversion testing expert. You can find out more about Julie here.

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Posted in Conversion Marketing, Website Design | No Comments »

First Look: Optimizely

Friday, July 23rd, 2010 by Nick Iyengar

One of the cooler things about working at WebShare is the fact that we regularly get our hands on the newest, most exciting tools in the analytics and testing industry. One tool we’re especially excited about right now is Optimizely, a brand new (it’s still in private beta) A/B testing platform designed to make testing easier than it’s ever been before.

At the core of Optimizely’s promise is its WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) variation editor, which allows you to create variations of your original page with drag-and-drop simplicity. You can easily edit text, rearrange your content, re-size images and buttons, etc., all without having to do any coding whatsoever. Below is an example of a variation of our Seminars for Success microsite: I moved the “Reserve Your Seat” button, our major call-to-action, to a more central location. Then I moved our dates and locations information, which we know is among the most important information on the page, to a more prominent location. It’s nothing revolutionary, but it could be different enough to show a significant difference in performance, and it took me a grand total of about 45 seconds to do.

Original:

Variation:

This core benefit strikes at one of the biggest hurdles to efficiently testing your site: the creative process. Many small to medium-sized businesses simply don’t have creative resources in-house, which makes developing variations a major challenge. Optimizely minimizes that issue by allowing non-creative resources (such as myself) to quickly and easily generate variations that are significantly different from the original.

When you’re ready to launch a test, all you have to do is install one compact block of JavaScript into the <head> of the page you’re testing. This simple, streamlined implementation process adds even more weight to Optimizely’s claim that they provide “A/B testing you’ll actually use.” With your test running, Optimizely will measure user engagement with each variation, and report back you on the winners and losers.

As you might expect with any raw, beta-stage product, Optimizely is missing some things we hope it’ll incorporate in the future. There’s no word yet on whether Optimizely will handle multivariate testing. The WYSIWYG editor can be clunky and unpredictable. It’s difficult to save your variations while you work. There are no undo, copy, or paste buttons. But all in all, the concept behind Optimizely is clear and compelling. There’s a huge market for a simple A/B testing platform, and we think Optimizely could be well-suited to serve that need. To sign up for the beta, head over to www.optimizely.com, and to stay on top of all the latest news in the analytics world, don’t forget to subscribe to our RSS feed or follow us on Twitter.

Nick Iyengar
Nick is a senior analytics and web intelligence analyst with WebShare. You can find out more about Nick here.

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Tags: A/B testing, conversion testing, landing page optimization
Posted in Conversion Marketing | 1 Comment »

Free Google Webinar – Planning & Running Your First Website Optimizer Experiment

Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009 by David Booth

Google and WebShare’s David Booth are teaming up to offer a free webinar on Thursday, September 24, 2009 at 10:00 am (PDT):
Planning and Running your First Website Optimizer Experiment.

Sign up for this webinar!

This 90 minute webinar is targeted at anyone who’s ready to get started with A/B and Multivariate testing using Google’s free Website Optimizer tool. The topics we’ll cover are based on trainings we’ve delivered at Google offices across the country and as part of the live Google Seminars for Success training series that continues to hit cities across North America. Join us for this live webinar and learn:

Landing page testing basics – what is it?
Identifying test pages and planning for your first experiment
How to set up and run A/B and Multivariate tests
Live demos of both A/B and MVT experiments
Reading the reports and understanding the test results

There will be 30 minutes of questions and answers with Google’s Trevor Claiborne and Andrew Gomez.

Hope to see you there!

David Booth
David is a co-founder and principal consultant at WebShare. You can find out more about David here.

See more posts by David Booth

Tags: A/B testing, conversion testing, Google Website Optimizer, Multivariate testing, webinar
Posted in Conversion Marketing, Google Website Optimizer | 3 Comments »

Search and Display Advertising Working Together

Tuesday, December 30th, 2008 by Dave Reichenbacher

It is every online marketer’s question; “Which will result in a better ROI, search or display advertising?” Traditionally the two were measured independently and with little regard for how the two advertising methods interact with one another. However, a recent study by The Atlas Institute set out to “…determine what role display media plays in combination with sponsored search.” (read the study here).

The results of their study were quite interesting. The concept of “the whole is more than the sum of its parts” is one we are all familiar with and dates back to Aristotle. But the Atlas study has proven it to be true when it comes to online display and search marketing. When a single advertiser exposed searchers to both display and search ads the conversion rate jumped 22% over search alone. That is an impressive conversion rate increase that most any advertiser would be thrilled with.

The study also discovered that 44% of internet users who clicked on a sponsored search ad had also seen display ads from the same advertiser. The display ads often act as a brand building tool that seem to make users more inclined to click on and convert on search ads.

So now that you have the “which is a better ROI” question answered (you need to be using both) you have to be asking yourself “what does this mean to my online marketing strategy?”

It means: Optimize, maximize reach, measure conversions, test and test again, track and analyze data…a lot of work. If that is more work than you have room on your plate, you are not alone. But results like these cannot be ignored. A consulting firm like WebShare can be a great resource to get your online marketing strategy on course and your conversions well on their way to seeing numbers like this study has proven possible.

Dave Reichenbacher
DR directs program management and operations at WebShare. He also is one of our Seminars for Success instructors and has an affinity toward local search marketing. You can find out more about Dave here.

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Posted in Conversion Marketing, Pay Per Click Marketing | 1 Comment »

Three Search and Conversion Marketing Tools You Can’t Live Without

Wednesday, October 24th, 2007 by David Booth

Are you using the best tools for your search marketing and conversion marketing programs, and are you using them to the best of your advantage? There are a variety of applications offered by various vendors, however Google leads the pack with three applications in particular: Analytics, Adwords and Website Optimizer. It may not be perfectly clear as to how the Google applications work together and what the function of each one is. So let’s demystify the situation. Below we highlight a few Google applications, and each one can be used to help you create, manage and implement your search and conversion marketing program. Best of all, these applications are free or are available at very reasonable costs. As an added bonus, these applications are web-based, which means you don’t have to host them on your server.

Information is power, and from that perspective Google Analytics, Google Adwords and Google Website Optimizer together are a nuclear power plant! Together, these three applications can help you answer more than just how many visitors were on you site yesterday. They can help you answer as specific of a question as, “How many visitors from Chicago who speak Spanish clicked on my pay-per-click advertisement and actually converted?” And “Which version of the specific advertisement I showed them was more effective?” Furthermore, the tools can help you use the information from those questions to identify and create tests with your site to further improve your conversion rates. Now, that’s powerful stuff!

Google Analytics houses all of the information collected about your site’s visitors, and allows you to view it in hundreds of different reports. It costs nothing (other than your time) to open a Google Analytics account for your website. Think of Google Analytics as a giant database that allows you to collect loads of data about your site’s visitors, and perform highly specific queries to slice and dice visitor data in just about any way you desire. Google Analytics can be even more powerful when used in conjunction with another Google application (Adwords or Website Optimizer) to help you manage your search and conversion marketing programs. If you’re serious about increasing your site’s traffic and conversion rate, you should be incorporating Google Analytics into just about everything you do.

Google Adwords is Google’s Pay-Per-Click (PPC) program, and its interface allows users to manage the campaigns that drive traffic to Web sites on a cost per click basis. Opening an Adwords account is easy, and only requires $5 and a few minutes. In Adwords, users can implement new PPC campaigns, edit keyword lists, change ads, and manage their PPC budget. Additionally, Adwords gives you access to a number of tools than can give you insights into everything from seasonal trends across industries to keyword research. Adwords also provides a number of reports to view your PPC campaign statistics and progress, and your Adwords account can be linked to Google Analytics to give you even more data about your ads and paid traffic. The data available in Adwords are certainly extremely useful, but any organization serious about improving their search and conversion marketing program should be exploiting the wealth of information that a solid analytics package (like Google Analytics) provides in addition to the Adwords reports.

Google Website Optimizer allows users to conduct statistical tests on their site’s pages to determine which variables will improve the probability that a visitor will convert on the website’s goals. Website Optimizer is free, but as it is accessed through the Adwords interface, it is only available to users who have an Adwords account. So technically Website Optimizer costs you the $5 you need to open an Adwords account. The variables you can test are virtually unlimited – they can range from changing the page background color, testing different ad copy, different images, different headlines, different positioning, and different layouts and designs to the combination of size and location buttons, trust logos, affiliation links, and anything in between. Website Optimizer offers two statistical analysis methods (A/B split testing and full factorial multivariate testing) to help you design and implement tests that will determine what changes on your site affect the probability of visitors converting on your site’s goals. Website Optimizer uses Analytics-like tracking code to run the tests, and you can use Google Analytics to see the long term trends that result from your Website Optimizer testing. If you’re not converting 100% of your visitors, then you should be testing your website right now.

Still not sure where to begin? WebShare offers consulting and training services to help you make the most of your search and conversion marketing programs. Webshare is one of a handful of companies in the world that is an authorized consultant for Google Analytics, Adwords and Website Optimizer as well as a certified consultant for a number of other tools including Yahoo! Search Marketing. Without a doubt, Google Analytics, Adwords and Website Optimizer can be intimidating, and they do take time to master. However, if used to their fullest potential these three applications can help you improve your search and conversion marketing programs by leaps and bounds.

David Booth
David is a co-founder and principal consultant at WebShare. You can find out more about David here.

See more posts by David Booth

Posted in Conversion Marketing, Google Analytics, Google Website Optimizer, Search Marketing | No Comments »

On the Spot: HackerSafe’s Cresta Pillsbury

Tuesday, October 16th, 2007 by David Booth

by David Booth
Founding Partner at WebShare, LLC

If you’re doing conversion marketing and statistical testing on your website and you haven’t explored trust logos yet, then you’re missing out. It’s no accident that you see the same logos appearing on more sites day after day – it’s because they’re working.

These little trustmarks have the ability to get more people to push the button, sign up for the newsletter, enter their credit card information, or even pick up the phone and call the number. We do quite a bit of testing with trust logos, and one of the most successful ones we’ve come across is the HACKERSAFE logo, an image that by now you surely recognize:

Want to try Hackersafe for yourself?
Get started now at a discount!

We asked HackerSafe Senior Director of Business Development Cresta Pillsbury to talk about what’s new at HackerSafe and why this logo and program have been so successful in increasing website conversion rates:

WebShare:

What has ScanAlert been up to lately? Can you tell us about the headway that’s been made in comparison shopping?

CP:

PriceGrabber.com, Pronto.com and Yahoo! Shopping have each integrated HACKER SAFE into their comparison shopping listings. It is the first time since the invention of comparison shopping that consumers can evaluate merchants on more than just pricing and merchant ratings. We’re the only trustmark company doing this, and market this syndication opportunity as the HACKER SAFE Feed.ScanAlert customers can subscribe to the FEED for an additional charge above their regular HACKER SAFE subscription cost. The FEED is sold as an annual, unlimited clicks package, with rates varying according to the retailer’s site traffic and the engines they want the seal to show up in. Enrollment, which takes about five minutes, is an easy, self-directed process via our portal. We provide a pricing matrix that looks just like an advertising rate card. Every day, we send a whitelist to our shopping partners so the product searcher sees real-time security information. This is how the HACKER SAFE seal integrates with PriceGrabber.com’s listings, for example.So far, the results have been great and the FEED is making retailers lots of money.

For example, PlumberSurplus.com saw the number of orders from PriceGrabber.com rise 35%, and sales in dollars more than double (112% to be exact). PlumberSurplus.com’s Online Marketing Team Leader Ryan Douglas is not surprisingly very happy. He told us this week that while he had been getting steady sales growth in 2007 using other search tactics, he hadn’t seen anything like the results he got when he added HACKER SAFE to his PriceGrabber.com listings. (Readers will be able to read more about this in the November issue of Internet Retailer magazine).

Our comparison shopping program is very exciting. We’re continuing to add new shopping partners, the holiday retailing season is picking up speed, and retailers have a great way to stand out and close even more business.

WebShare:

How can a website owner go about getting the HACKER SAFE trustmark on their sites, and what kind of testing can they do to see if it’s really helping?

CP:

It’s easy. They can go through a HACKERSAFE partner such as WebShare, visit HACKERSAFE.com or call us toll-free at 866-872-3011. As far as determining an ROI, there are several testing options. While some of our customers use testing and optimization services like Offermatica or Verster, the vast majority work directly with us to implement a very simple A/B split test. More than 800 retailers have run these highly transparent, statistically valid tests with us. During the test period, visitors either see (research group) or don’t see (control group) the HACKER SAFE image. Conversion rates between the two groups are then compared.On average, the number of orders from the research group has been 14% higher than the control. The difference between one site and another usually tracks to issues like brand equity; large chain stores typically see a 4.0-9.5% difference, while smaller, less well-known sites can see up to 30% higher conversion. In other words, if you’re a smaller retailer with a 2% conversion rate, you’ll likely see a 2.3-2.5% rate by having the site HACKER SAFE certified. Multiply this against weekly, monthly and annual sales figures and you can see that the ROI is considerable.

WebShare:

Of all the trust logos out there, why do you believe the HACKER SAFE logo in particular has had such a profound positive impact on website visitors?

CP:

The impact really is profound; almost every media outlet covering the online marketing world has published something in which our customers rave about the experience and ROI. Some of the media coverage (and the profiled customers) include:BtoB Magazine (Stuller), DM News (Stacks and Stacks), DIRECT, Ecommerce Times (JL Hufford Coffee), InformationWeek (CDConnection.com), Internet.com, Internet Marketing Report (4WD Hardware), Internet Retailer (American Musical Supply), Internet Retailer (Yankee Candle Co.), Internet Retailer (Shari’s Berries), Marketing Sherpa (PETCO), Multichannel Merchant (Stylin’ Concepts), SearchEngineWatch, SmallBusinessComputing.com , and STORES (Frederick’s of Hollywood).

There are several reasons why HACKER SAFE works best. Thanks to a decade of unceasing media coverage about hackers, consumers are extremely conscious about security and hackers so the words “HACKER SAFE” really resonate with shoppers. The HACKER SAFE standard has been adopted by so many name brand companies (from AIG, Ace Hardware, and Cabela’s, to FootLocker, GNC, and Prudential) that consumers are much more aware than ever about what companies need to do to meet the standard. HACKER SAFE builds the trust that builds online businesses.

One way to test out if the HACKERSAFE logo works for you is to get it at a discount through WebShare, and then use Google’s new Website Optimizer tool to set up and run a conversion marketing test. Whether you’re looking to increase leads, sales, downloads, signups, or clicks, it’s very likely that this little logo can help you make better use of the visitors you have on your site.Statistical experimentation can tell you if you gain anything (and how much) by making small changes to your website, and can be the most powerful tool in your search marketing arsenal.

David Booth
David is a co-founder and principal consultant at WebShare. You can find out more about David here.

See more posts by David Booth

Posted in Conversion Marketing, Search Marketing | No Comments »

Conversion Marketing Tips – Buttons

Friday, October 5th, 2007 by Lisa Sipe

Perhaps one of the most difficult – and crucial – aspects of conversion marketing is making the decision of what variables you’re going to test on your website. We know that not everything we try is going to work (in fact, that’s why we’re testing it in the first place!), and we should certainly be putting some thought behind this decision for every test we run.

We want to make sure that if we are going to expend the time, energy, and resources to put together and run a conversion marketing experiment, we’re giving ourselves the best possible chance to discover something that gives us an increase in the performance of our site. In addition to input of actual users, ideas from your site designers and a little common sense, we can also look at test variables that test well over and over again across many industries.

Here are three ideas around the testing of buttons that we have seen move the needle in our own testing, and these may be good things for you to try in your conversion marketing strategy to see if they work on your site:

1. Use calls to action in your button wording.

As human beings, we’re accustomed to perking up our ears when we’re told to do something. We can use this on our website to increase the likelihood that a button gets pressed (or a link gets clicked, or a selection gets made, etc., etc..). Instead of a button that says “Online Checkout” , you might be able to increase your conversion rate with a button that says “Checkout Online” or even “Checkout Now!” Subtle changes can make a big difference in conversion marketing!

2. Test different button styles and colors.

As the Internet continues to change, users become accustomed to different types of experiences. Also, you’re not the only one doing conversion marketing and testing out what makes people buy, submit, or convert on website goals, and it’s interesting to watch how when the “big guys” decide to use a new style, most of their peers quickly follow suit. Soon, Internet users become accustomed to this new style and become more likely to click. As an example, the “glassy” style button is being used all over the place right now, and with good reason – people are more likely to click it. Take a look at the buttons below – does the one on the left look more appealing than the button of days gone by on the right?

3. Test different placements of your buttons.Where a button shows up on the page can also have a big impact on whether or not it gets clicked. If you have a product page that has as its goal the purchase of that product, placing the “Add to Cart” or “Buy Now” button right next to an area that a user’s attention will be on can be helpful. For example, if you have a dropdown list of product options, a user looking to see what colors are available would be more likely to click on a button that is near the dropdown list they’re perusing. Additionally, you can try multiple (even identical) buttons on the same page. If you’re trying to get a lead from your website, try placing a “Send us your Info” button on the top of the page. Then place your sales copy or any other content intended to get that lead, and then place the same “Send us your Info” button below it. In addition to testing whether or not you get more leads, you can also test which button provided those leads!Conversion marketing is indeed a powerful tool, and the name of the game is consistent and thoughtful testing. We hope these conversion marketing tips have been helpful to you, and help you find the winning combination of variables on your website!

conversion marketing help with Google Website Optimizer

There are a number of methods for setting up and implementing conversion marketing tests, and one tool that makes this process a bit easier is the Google Website Optimizer. As a Google Website Optimizer Authorized Consultant, WebShare can help you set up, configure, implement, and interpret the results of your conversion marketing tests. We can also help you to decide which variables to test given the specific goals of your website.

Lisa Sipe
Lisa is the lead graphic designer and usability expert at WebShare. You can find out more about Lisa here.

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Posted in Conversion Marketing | No Comments »

Conversion Marketing Just Got Easier with Google Website Optimizer

Thursday, September 27th, 2007 by David Booth

We all know that if our websites are not converting at 100%, then we should be running a test. We should be, but we’re probably not. For some reason, even though we know that the payoffs for a consistent and well planned conversion marketing testing campaign can be enormous, the hardest thing to do is to actually start running a test!

Where it used to be necessary to have a team of PhD’s and statisticians design, implement, and analyze a good multivariate experiment, today there are tools that can help just about anyone set up, configure, and run a test and interpret its results.

Google’s Website Optimizer is just such a tool. The tool allows you to create multiple versions (states) of multiple elements on your pages (variables), and then begin the test. The tool takes care of splitting traffic to the correct combinations of each variable and state, and the tool even tells you when you’ve got statistically significant results to look at. Best of all, this free tool becomes your statistician and gives you the information you’re looking for when the test is complete.

Let’s take a simple example: You’d like to see if product photos and descriptions have an effect on your sales conversion rate. In this case, you would have two variables: Photo and Description. Although you could try as many different photos and descriptions as you like, let’s keep this example to a simple 2 variables with 2 states each. You set up the experiment in the tool, insert the necessary Javascript code where necessary on the test and conversion pages of your website, and you’re off. Once enough data has been collected, you’ll have a report like this one:

Google Website Optimizer Sample Report

After enough data has been collected, you can quickly see which of your photos was better at getting people to buy, and which of the descriptions was better. More importantly, you’ll be able to see which combination of photo and description was the best, and you can see what percentage improvement was observed with the winning combination.

Conversion marketing can easily be the single best thing you do for your web marketing program – and with tools like Google’s Website Optimizer it has never been easier to start.

WebShare is a Google Website Optimizer Authorized Consultant, and can help you establish a good conversion marketing strategy that can include tests of virtually any aspect of your website. Consistent testing and incremental positive changes to your conversion rates can translate into an enormous impact on the profitability of your online revenues. If your website doesn’t have a 100% conversion rate, then you should be testing something now!

David Booth
David is a co-founder and principal consultant at WebShare. You can find out more about David here.

See more posts by David Booth

Posted in Conversion Marketing | 2 Comments »

On the Spot with WebShare: Three Questions with Google Website Optimizer Product Manager Tom Leung

Thursday, September 6th, 2007 by David Evans

by David Booth
Founding Partner at WebShare, LLC

In the world of Ecommerce, those of us who have been involved in conversion marketing and statistical testing know just how big an impact even the smallest of details can make to website performance and the bottom line. Some buttons just work better than others. Some product images provoke more purchases time and time again. Some colors are more likely to cause newsletter signups than others, and even details like punctuation and capitalization can have an effect on the rate at which your site converts visitors into monetized customers.

For some time now, the timeliness, breadth and depth of analytic data available about an array of usage metrics for websites has created a statistician’s dream – the capability to test virtually any aspect of a website and observe its relationship on conversions, time spent on a website, or any other measurable aspect of the visitor’s experience. Well, thanks to tools like Google’s Website Optimizer, you don’t have to be a statistician to reap the benefits of statistical conversion testing and ensure that you’re constantly improving the performance of your online activities.

We caught up with Google’s Website Optimizer Product Manager Tom Leung to talk about the new set of Website Optimizer features that was released yesterday, and here’s what he had to say:

WebShare:

How will the recent GWO improvements help new users begin setting up and running their first tests?

TL:

Our new A/B testing support reduces the set up time for a GWO test by roughly two thirds. We spent a lot of time making the A/B set up process as simple as possible so it is especially appropriate for those who are new to content testing or who aren’t as comfortable adding lots of JavaScript tags to their sites.With the A/B set-up process, so long as you already have two or more existing pages you’d like to test against each other, you can generally set up a test in around 5 minutes and start seeing data a few hours later.

WebShare:

What specific benefits does the new A/B Experiment option provide for GWO users?

TL:

A/B tests are great because they require minimal tagging to set up, they are great for trying new layouts and look and feel changes, and they can also be used to test alternate workflows. Since they generally involve only a few pages, they also require a smaller number of conversions to get statistical significance.On the other hand, multivariate tests are great when it comes to testing dozens or even hundreds of versions of a page. Multivariate tests give you much more granular results, uncover unexpected positive interactions, and once instrumented, allow you to test a lot more content. That said, multivariate tests do require a bit more tagging up front and since they generally cover a larger number of versions of the page, they require more conversions to get conclusive results.

In many cases, we’ve seen some of the most successful testers start with an A/B to find the general layout and look and feel that works best and then follow it up with a multivariate test to boost the conversion rate even further.

WebShare:

What is the most unique success story you’ve heard of that’s come from the GWO tool?

TL:

We hear from companies who have drastically improved conversion rates all the time. It’s not uncommon to hear about GWO tests finding pages that increase conversion rates easily by double digits and sometimes even more by trying new headlines, images, promotional copy, and call to action button designs. There’s a number of these discussed in detail on our case study page.Probably the most unique story I’ve heard was from an ecommerce company who used GWO not only to improve their landing pages but for making a business decision about where to invest their website improvement budget. This company was on the receiving end of a vendor pitching a trust seal which they claimed was far superior to the ecommerce company’s existing trust seal. When the ecommerce company indicated the proposed seal was a lot more expensive, the vendor said the new seal was so much more well known to consumers that the incremental sales generated by their superior seal would pay for the difference in no time.

Instead of the ecommerce company taking the vendor’s word for it or declining their offer altogether, the ecommerce company decided to use Website Optimizer to test the two seals against each other and make their decision based on actual customer data . In this case, they found that the new trust seal did not justify the cost. We’ve been told about other Website Optimizer tests where trust seal logos were shown to have very positive effects so you never know what works for your own situation till you test. Nevertheless, I love this story because it shows that Website Optimizer isn’t only about improving site content for conversions but can also be used to increase transparency and accountability for potential third party changes to your website.

A good conversion marketing strategy includes consistent experimentation of every aspect of your website. With tools like Google’s Website Optimizer available, it’s now easier than ever to set up tests and find out what aspects of your website can be changed to improve your bottom line. If you’re not converting at 100%, then you should have a test running!