Every serious online business owner should make split testing a number one priority
There is more to E-commerce than having a flashy looking website. The objective of having a website in the first place is to make sales conversions right?
The reality is that having a blinged out website or online gimmicks is not the answer to swaying customers towards a sale – In fact, if a website is too design orientated and not user-friendly enough, users will just bounce off your site… Having the opposite effect you are trying to achieve as well as having a negative effect in the SERPS.
Website owners need to understand that their site is a never-ending “work in progress”… Meaning that no matter how much money and time you have already spent on it, no matter how pretty you think it may be – You should always be split testing your site to see how much you can increase sales conversions.
It is simply pig-headed and arrogant to think that your site is perfect and doesn’t need further optimization to make more sales. The most successful online companies NEVER stop split testing. A great example of this is Amazon.com – The most successful E-commerce site in the world. You will also see subtle changes in your social media accounts. This evolution of the user-faces is a direct result of split testing.
What’s split testing?
Split testing or also called A/B split testing is where you make a duplicate version of your landing page, but makes one change to it – An educated guess on how the page could be improved. Then splitting the traffic 50/50 to see which one performs better. Over a period of time (depending on how much daily traffic you get) your data will show you which one performed better. Once the data is conclusive, you split test to try and improve it more. It’s important to only make one change at a time while you split test, otherwise, you will not know what change is making the difference.
The reason for doing this is because everybody has different buying patterns. A colour or design you might find attractive might not be appealing to others. Because you are in a certain industry, and you are used to things are done a certain way, doesn’t mean a prospective client will automatically understand. It’s an easy mistake to assume the prospect will naturally know where to go and what to do on your site. For this reason, you will need to test what people react positively or negatively to.
One of the easiest ways to get a head start on how to increase sales conversions is to ask clients to answer a simple 5 question survey. People are easier to answer a survey than you think… Especially if they are a loyal customer. The data you receive on a carefully thought out questionnaire can literally double your profits in no time!
Stay tuned for more insights on why split testing is your key to dominating your competitors.