6 Awesome Tips For Split Testing

In marketing and web development, split testing is a web design experimental approach aiming to find web page changes that maximize outcomes. You basically compare versions of your website pages; for example, you can compare two versions of your web pages or website like comparing of versions A and B such as A being the live version and B being a modification of that version. Usually, websites that are great candidates for testing A/B are e-commerce websites. Testing and making modifications based on your results will help increase your sales.

This process of alternating 2 or more website design alterations to test interactions between users is called split testing. Landing pages and other web pages with goals that
are specific benefit from considerations of design that force users to take actions which are appropriate. Split tests let designers utilize metrics that are relevant.

Most companies use the approach of designed experiments to make decisions about marketing. This is a practice that is increasingly common as the expertise and tools grow in these areas. There are a few case studies that used split testing, revealing that testing is a practice that is getting more and more popular with medium and small sized businesses. For instance, the pioneer of split testing use in the space of ecommerce was done by Amazon.com. Here are 6 awesome tips for you to help you with split testing.

1. Testing Elements

When split testing, the various elements that need to be tested include the colors, images, layouts and copy test. You will see which results are generated by which elements. Keep in the elements that reveal good results and tweak or make significant improvements on those that do not.

2. Adjust Text

In split testing, adjusting images and text content tends to create maximum audience impact. Text shortening such as only including the brand or product gist seems to increase the engagement of the audience and stir the motivation for making a purchase.

3. Adjust Images

In the same way, test your images to find which product photos on the landing pages increased visitors click through and if it increased the checkout rate. Compare these results to those of pages with no photos of the products.

4. Don’t Split Test Everything

When it comes to split testing, there is no need to prioritize navigation tools design as well as menu bar designing. As long as these are found in all the correct places, the style doesn’t matter usually.

5. Adjust Color

Even if many webmasters assume that color adjustments are not a priority, these are actually quite significant. This is due to the fact that visuals tend to lure guests into actions. Websites with blue backgrounds that are not quite noticeable are not able to get as much attention as much as bright colors can such as orange.

6. Test All the Landing Pages that Matter

To do this open your browser on the Web and navigate to the home page of Google. Create a new general account or sign in to your Google webmasters tool account. Navigate to the Website Optimizer of Google. In the window where it says Getting Started, create a new experiment and from the 2 choices listed for the experiments, click A/B Experiment and click the button “create.” In the provided field, enter the name of the Experiment and add the original URL page you want to test and make sure that it is not log-in or password protected but rather, is quite accessible to Google. Name as many landing pages you want to test in the additional fields below.

Split testing is a great method to find out what modifications you need to do on your website to increase your sales. Follow these tips and start split testing so that you can grow your business.

original: SociablWeb

SEO Tactics For The Post-Penguin/Panda Internet

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a field of internet marketing that’s constantly in a state of flux thanks to Google’s massive influence over the entire Internet. On more than one occasion, Google has rolled out algorithm updates that punish SEO practices that were once widely accepted. In the aftermath, webmasters are left with seriously reduced page rankings, web traffic and revenues.

Google Penguin

That’s exactly what happened last spring when Google rolled out their notorious Penguin update. From Google’s perspective, Penguin addressed a major problem caused by websites who linked to dozens, even hundreds, of other sites in hope of raising their rankings on search results. This created major headaches for end users, who wound up having to sort through dozens of low quality results in order to find something of value.

For webmasters, Penguin created headaches of a different sort. They suddenly found that
the link networks they’d spent years, and sometimes thousands of dollars, developing were now rendered useless. These same folks also had to spend countless hours identifying and removing low quality links going to and from their sites.

Given the challenges of actually contacting a person at  most sites , this proved to be a very difficult task. But since Google demanded that both inbound and outbound links be of high quality, they didn’t have much choice.

Developing Penguin Friendly Links

Google’s main complaint against the old system of paid links and link exchanges is that it wasn’t, “organic.” The company decided that one of the best standards for measuring the legitimacy of links and their associated content was whether it was attached to a site that featured relevant, related content.

SEOs and webmasters quickly adapted their content strategies to account for Google’s new emphasis on organic links and began putting their own emphasis on a practice known as, “guest blogging.” Guest bloggers are simply writer from one blog who guest post on another, related blog in exchange for a link to their site.

Guest Blogging

While guest blogging is a great method for building organic link networks, it can be very time consuming. After all, you’ve still got to contact each individual blog, make arrangements to post, and then write the post. For some webmasters and blogger, this is more work than they’re able to do on their own.

Oftentimes, these time strapped bloggers will hire out a guest posting service like the one run by 4th Media in Denver, Colorado. These services not only write the guest posts, they find relevant sites to actually post them on. It’s a big job and, if you’ve been hit hard by Penguin, they’re well worth the money.

Finally

It’s a whole new world out there for SEO practitioners and webmasters. Simply keeping up with the ever-changing whims of Google executives, and the latest SEO best practices, can be very time consuming. Nonetheless, staying ahead of the SEO curve and keeping your traffic generating strategies in good shape isn’t something you can easily ignore.

Understanding how links work and how to utilize them to maximum SEO effect is one of the bet things you can do for your site.

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How To Use The Twitter Vine Video App For Your Online Business

This is probably one of the most overused-but-true sayings in the realm of marketing, whether it is within social media circles or any other kind, is the fact that “words tell but tales sell”.  I am sure that you’ve all heard that expression on a number of occasions.  However the reason any kind of saying like this becomes a cliche like that’s it’s true.  People interact with people due to things that unite us, things that we share.  And exactly how we uncover deep connections with other people is most frequently with the
energy of the story and how it is told.

In the earlier days of Twitter.com, people wondered how exactly a tale might be told in 140 figures or less. So Twitter was wiped off by many people as just a teenager’s play-thing.  The general concensus was that anybody who is really serious about communicating in 140 figures probably isn’t that bright.  I mean after all, they would need to use abbreviations, symbols, and customize the English language to an almost non-sensical degree.

But, that’s not really been the case has it?  Because people began to make use of the service, it became very clear there could be some real energy in individuals using just 140 figures to stir feelings, to share ideas, and also to connect.  And along the way, tales were told – see where I am going with this?

For this reason alone I am looking forward to the brand new stand alone video application that Twitter just launched known as Vine. Just in case you had not heard, recently Twitter introduced a micro video blogging application known as Vine. Customers can make and upload 6-second video loops (as well as splice short clips together) to then share with their buddies.

Vine does not import any connections out of your other platforms (like Twitter).  This means that as with every other platform, it will take you a while to hook up with other Vine users, as well as making yourself attractive by putting some thought into creating your profile.

But How Can a 6 Second Video Help Your Business?

1 – Product Demonstrations

To date, this is among the most obvious way in which brands and companies may use the energy of 6-second videos.  Is there be something which is easy to show to your clients rather than explaining with words? If so, then transform it into a 6-second video (or a series of different ones).

2 – Contests & Competitions

Contests are among the most widely used social networking tools in almost any brand manager’s toolbox, right?  So make use of this to your benefit!  Do some crowd-sourcing and request your fans to produce their very own favorite how-to video or advertisement on Vine.

3 – Showcase Your Team

As I have pointed out for other picture and video platforms, this is often a fantastic spot to show some “behind the curtain” footage out of your company. Have a quick video within the worker break room or snap a fast video of the cat having fun with a laser pointer before you go for your forthcoming presentation. Show a before, happening, after of the next trade-show set-up. The options for letting your clients get to see the “behind the curtain” of the company and your employees working hard are endless.

Info: An alternative to Vine, is of course YouTube.  It’s unlikely that Vine will ever beat the volume of viewers that you can gain via Youtube, but it should still serve its purpose.  Check out this video to see how a popular coupon code company is using videos to engage their customers.

original: SociablWeb