Google Data » Jon, Website Optimizer Blog Team https://googledata.org Everything Google: News, Products, Services, Content, Culture Thu, 02 Apr 2015 17:58:43 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.1 Tried and Trusted https://googledata.org/google-website-optimizer/tried-and-trusted/ https://googledata.org/google-website-optimizer/tried-and-trusted/#comments Tue, 08 Jul 2008 19:06:00 +0000 Posted by Tom Leung, Website Optimizer Blog Team

Hope you all enjoyed today's webinar put on by Google Webmaster Tools, Google Analytics, and Google Website Optimizer. We had record attendance, and it's great to see thirst among website owners for the Google trifecta. If you missed it, have no fear. Later this week you'll be able to watch a recording of the presentation on our videos page. We'll try to hold another webinar in the future -- perhaps at an intermediate level.

In the meantime, we'll be doing a guest presentation tomorrow with industry expert and WOAC, Bryan Eisenberg from FutureNow. Bryan will talk in detail about how to design webpages that inspire trust and confidence. We'll provide tips at the end about using Website Optimizer to test some of Bryan's ideas and figure out which ones have the highest impact for your site. You won't want to miss it!

Sign up as soon as you can, since the webinar is tomorrow (Wednesday, July 9) at 9AM PDT / Noon EDT. We hope to see you there.
]]> https://googledata.org/google-website-optimizer/tried-and-trusted/feed/ 0 Free Upcoming Webinar: The Google Trifecta https://googledata.org/google-website-optimizer/free-upcoming-webinar-the-google-trifecta/ https://googledata.org/google-website-optimizer/free-upcoming-webinar-the-google-trifecta/#comments Wed, 25 Jun 2008 21:10:00 +0000 Posted by Jon Stona, Website Optimizer Blog Team

As much as we like to think the world revolves around Website Optimizer, we'll admit that our product is one of several that Google offers to help increase the effectiveness of your site. To be truly competitive online, you need a complete picture of how your visitors land on your site, how they interact with it, and what motivates them to take action. Fortunately, Google provides ample free solutions, like Google Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics, to help you get just that.

Individually, each tool offers valuable and actionable information about specific aspects of your site; combined, you get a comprehensive understanding of both your visitors and your pages. How visible are your pages on Google? Where do your visitors come from? What content most effectively gets them to take the action you want?

For the first time ever, the Webmaster Tools, Analytics, and Website Optimizer teams will join forces in a free webinar. We see it as the ultimate webinar for anyone who owns, operates, or manages a website. Here are the details:

TITLE: The Google Trifecta: Webmaster Tools, Analytics, Website Optimizer
DATE: Tuesday, July 8, 2008
TIME: 9:00 - 10:00 am PT (Pacific Time)
JOIN US: Register to attend

During this webinar, we'll:
  • Briefly introduce the products
  • Highlight recent product releases and developments
  • Discuss the benefits of using the products together
  • Answer selected questions that attendees have submitted
Once you register, we also invite you to submit any questions you'd like the presenters to answer. Come one, come all!


]]> https://googledata.org/google-website-optimizer/free-upcoming-webinar-the-google-trifecta/feed/ 0 Test Before You Accessorize https://googledata.org/google-website-optimizer/test-before-you-accessorize/ https://googledata.org/google-website-optimizer/test-before-you-accessorize/#comments Fri, 30 May 2008 06:45:00 +0000 Posted by Tom Leung, Website Optimizer Blog Team

These days there seems to be an infinite number of things you can add to your site. News alert widgets, embedded videos, click to call buttons, talking avatars, verified testimonials: you can add anything you think of to help your visitors get more from their experience on your site.

Intuitively, we know that some widgets are helpful, some may not make a difference, and some may actually be distracting. Separating the wheat from the chaff is one thing that a website-testing tool can help you do with much more certainty than you'd get from case studies, best practices or sales pitches.

For example, Dale and Thomas Popcorn used a trust seal on their checkout process for years and assumed it was effectively encouraging visitors to buy their gourmet popcorn. One day, a sales representative from another major trust-seal company called to suggest that Dale and Thomas "upgrade" their seal to the one the sales rep was promoting. The rep argued that even though his seal was more expensive, the resulting increase in sales would more than pay for the difference in cost.

When faced with such a decision, one possible strategy could have been for the Dale and Thomas marketing manager to call some industry colleagues and ask for reviews of the sales rep's proposed seal. It's far from ideal, though, to base a big decision on a few opinions.

Instead, the marketing manager made her decision based on data. She happened to be using Website Optimizer for the first time when the sales rep called again, and rather than saying she wasn't interested or signing up on the spot, she ran an experiment with the following traffic split:
  • one-third of visitors saw the original trust seal
  • one-third saw the new one
  • one-third saw no seal at all
She compared the purchasing rates of the three groups. When the test ended, she discovered that having no seal at all did in fact perform worse, but the difference between her current seal and the new one was almost indistinguishable—certainly less than the added cost of the more expensive seal. Good thing she ran her test. Dale and Thomas could instead use the money they would have spent "upgrading" their trust seal to make more efficient marketing investments to drive their business.
]]> https://googledata.org/google-website-optimizer/test-before-you-accessorize/feed/ 0 Online Marketing in Uncertain Times https://googledata.org/google-website-optimizer/online-marketing-in-uncertain-times/ https://googledata.org/google-website-optimizer/online-marketing-in-uncertain-times/#comments Fri, 23 May 2008 23:15:00 +0000 Posted by Tom Leung and Tamara Micner, Website Optimizer Blog Team

We're all concerned these days about the bottom line: economic uncertainty is still around, marketing budgets are getting more scrutiny, and tolerance for "spend and hope" marketing investments are understandably under attack.

When revenue is uncertain and ROI is even more important than usual, any advertising that can precisely measure and track results is especially valuable. Online, that's very doable. You can see where your money's going, what you should invest in and what you should change.

In fact, companies that invest intelligently in growing their business, even in softer markets, will be able to leapfrog their competition, who might be much less efficient with their ad spend or turn it off altogether.

SEM campaigns have always been attractive, since they give you crystal-clear metrics on how much you're spending for how many eyeballs and clicks on specific keywords and creatives. And Google Website Optimizer shows you exactly which changes will improve (or reduce) your online conversions—however you define them.

Here's an example: StairSupplies, a customer of ours that produces custom orders for stair remodeling and new home construction. About a year ago, they started testing their homepage with LunaMetrics, one of our Authorized Consultants. Can you guess which screenshot below was the original homepage, and which was the winning redesign?



The winner was #2: all it took was deleting the image of the model and hiding the drop-down menu on the left side. Surprisingly, the page with the extra image did worse, when best practices dictate the opposite. Even best practices can be wrong, and you don't know when unless you test.

Although the changes to the homepage seemed trivial to Len Morris, StairSupplies' CEO, they made a huge difference to users. StairSupplies' online conversion rate increased by 144%, and average order size increased by 18%.

At the end of the day, as Avinash Kaushik says, your ads shouldn't write checks that your website can't cash. So as your marketing checks get smaller, let us help you make the most of your traffic and your budget.
]]> https://googledata.org/google-website-optimizer/online-marketing-in-uncertain-times/feed/ 0 Is a Picture Really Worth a Thousand Words? https://googledata.org/google-website-optimizer/is-a-picture-really-worth-a-thousand-words/ https://googledata.org/google-website-optimizer/is-a-picture-really-worth-a-thousand-words/#comments Fri, 25 Apr 2008 15:30:00 +0000 Posted by Tom, Website Optimizer Blog Team

People say pictures are worth a thousand words, and some industry experts even argue that you should always have them — the bigger, the more friendly, the better. But whenever you hear someone say "always," that's your first clue to test that claim (if for no other reason than to become a website-design myth-buster). We came across an interesting case study from WiderFunnel Marketing, one of our Website Optimizer Authorized Consultants, that illustrates this very point.

WiderFunnel's client, Safe Software, wanted to maximize the number of people downloading a trial version of their software application. They sought to make the Trial Version Download Page more effective by getting more visitors to click on the download button. Here was the original version of the page:


The website owner had meant to update this page for some time. Working with Safe Software, WiderFunnel developed two alternate versions of the page which they envisioned to be more modern and visually appealing. One version had a big picture of a smiling model, a number of points outlining the benefits of the software, and a clear call to action. The other version maintained the distinct call to action, but removed the picture and benefits points.

Alternate version 1:


Alternate version 2:


The team at Safe Software wasn't sure which of these versions (original, version 1, or version 2) would lead to the most conversions. If you're an avid reader of online marketing best-practices literature, you might predict that the version with the picture and benefits would outperform the others. After all, aren't pictures and useful information always good things to show to visitors? What's noteworthy is that the winning page was actually version 1: no picture and not as many supporting arguments. Even more surprising is that the original page outperformed version 2!


After the fact, we might hypothesize that the preceding pages did all the selling and that at that point, visitors just wanted to get their hands on the application. Perhaps the image distracted visitors, or perhaps some of the supporting arguments raised more questions than answers.

What's certain, though, is that the winning version led to a 15% increase in conversions. These results go to show you that what you (or 'the industry') think works best often doesn't, and you never know until you test it.
]]> https://googledata.org/google-website-optimizer/is-a-picture-really-worth-a-thousand-words/feed/ 0 Testing is not just about Technology https://googledata.org/google-website-optimizer/testing-is-not-just-about-technology/ https://googledata.org/google-website-optimizer/testing-is-not-just-about-technology/#comments Mon, 21 Apr 2008 18:46:00 +0000 Posted by Tom, Website Optimizer Blog Team

One of the things we've learned is that to be a successful experimenter, you need to master a few key concepts. These concepts include diagnosing problematic pages (Google Analytics is a good tool for this), coming up with ideas on how to improve these pages, and understanding how to use Website Optimizer to instrument tests. Last but not least, you need to have the discipline to wait for your tests to gather enough data before drawing the right conclusions. Let's break down each one.

Diagnose and Develop Ideas:
Look at a page that gets a lot of users. Does it have a high bounce rate? What's wrong with it? What's stopping people from continuing to dig further into your site? What are they expecting to see? Is it there? What's there that isn't important? If you asked visitors what they expect to see before the page loads, is their answer even close to what you're showing them? Figuring out what's best to test can be as much an art as it is a science, but it may be the difference between a 30% improvement in your page performance versus a test which concludes that the various versions of your page performed about the same.

Instrument the Test:
All the ideas in the world won't help you if you don't know how to set up the test. We have a bunch of demos and help articles to show you how to do it, but the best way to learn is simply to start using the tool to set up lots of tests. Before you know it, you'll be trying all kinds of advanced experiments. If it's your first one, we'd recommend a simple A/B test where you give Website Optimizer two or more URLs and we split the traffic among them.

Wait:
Sometimes the hardest part of running a test is not jumping to conclusions. Let the horses run a few laps around the track before declaring a winner. Website Optimizer will tell you the chance to beat your original for each variation. The lower that number is, the more likely the pages are simply not that different. We like to wait a minimum of two weeks and for a 95% 'Chance to beat original' before declaring a solid winner, but it depends on how sure you want to be.

Keep in mind that it's possible your test may never determine a winner or that the winner may even be your original page. This could happen if all your pages perform about the same or your original page is really better than the other ideas you tested. Sometimes those tests are the most valuable since you learn what not to show your visitors.

For ideas on a few top elements to test on any site, check out our recent webinar, 'Website Optimizer, What Should I Test?'.

]]> https://googledata.org/google-website-optimizer/testing-is-not-just-about-technology/feed/ 0 Content Testing Goes Mainstream https://googledata.org/google-website-optimizer/content-testing-goes-mainstream/ https://googledata.org/google-website-optimizer/content-testing-goes-mainstream/#comments Wed, 16 Apr 2008 17:00:00 +0000 Posted by Jon, Website Optimizer Blog Team

It's been about a year since we made Website Optimizer available to all Google AdWords users. Since then, we've seen great enthusiasm for the tool; now it's hard to find a serious advertiser who doesn't at least plan to do content testing this year. One thing we've learned is that lots of people who don't work on advertising still want to perform content experiments. These folks are often web designers, web developers, and marketers who may not be directly responsible for advertising.

So this morning, at the ad:tech conference in San Francisco, we announced that we're also making Website Optimizer available outside of AdWords. You can now sign up for and access the tool with any Google Account, such as the one you may use for Google Analytics or Gmail.

For those who use Website Optimizer from AdWords, have no fear: you can still access the tool within your AdWords account as you have in the past, and we'll continue to add features regardless of how you access Website Optimizer. For those who have been putting off testing because you didn't want to set up an AdWords account, the standalone version of Website Optimizer awaits you.

The AdWords and standalone version of Website Optimizer are virtually the same. Both are free, work with all traffic (pay-per-click, organic, and direct navigation) and support an unlimited number of experiments. No matter which version of the tool you access, you'll also see an improved setup flow for multivariate experiments, with more straightforward instructions we've adapted from user feedback.

If you're about to set up your first test, we recommend visiting our new Testing 101 section for detailed tips on how to get started and step-by-step video demos. Next, pick a page that gets lots of traffic. Create a version of that page that looks really different (don't be shy: big changes generally yield big differences in performance). Then run an A/B test to see which one does a better job of getting people to another desired page on your site, such as a Contact Us, Product Detail, or Thank You page.

Once you launch your experiment, just sit back and let your website's visitors tell you what works on your site and what doesn't. We recommend letting your experiments run for at least two weeks, no matter how much traffic you get and how strong the results initially appear, just so the data has enough time to normalize. Feel free to share your experiences and learnings with other users on the Google Website Optimizer user forum.
]]> https://googledata.org/google-website-optimizer/content-testing-goes-mainstream/feed/ 0 Welcome to the Website Optimizer Blog https://googledata.org/google-website-optimizer/welcome-to-the-website-optimizer-blog/ https://googledata.org/google-website-optimizer/welcome-to-the-website-optimizer-blog/#comments Tue, 15 Apr 2008 07:40:00 +0000 Posted by Tom, Website Optimizer Blog Team


Welcome to the Website Optimizer Blog
Are you optimized?

Wouldn't it be nice to test which of these two headlines might encourage you to learn more about Website Optimizer? Well, that's exactly what Website Optimizer does in a nutshell: you can test different variations of your site content to determine what is most effective at getting your visitors to take the action you want them to take. That desired action could be anything from a visitor making a purchase or signing-up for your newsletter, to spending a set amount of time on your page - the possibilities are endless.

Now that Website Optimizer has been around for a year, we thought it was high time to remove our beta label and start our own blog. The purpose of this blog will be threefold:

  • Keep you up-to-date on the latest developments that relate to Website Optimizer, such as new features or service updates.

  • Share industry best practices, tips, and tricks about testing, so that novice and experienced testers alike can get the inspiration and knowledge to help them successfully launch that next cool test
  • Highlight case studies from folks like you, so that the interesting work you're doing can get the attention it deserves in the testing community
We'd love to hear about your most innovative experiences using Website Optimizer, as well as any other feedback you might have. To send it in, just click the feedback link on the right-hand side of this page.

We hope you'll consider subscribing to the blog to receive posts in your Inbox, or just stopping by every now and then for a dose of testing talk. We also hope everyone who has a website will use controlled experiments to make sound decisions about their content and design. In the long run, we see that practice as being good for Internet users, since they get well-designed web pages, and good for website owners, since their website performs better for them.

Thanks for checking out the blog, and don't forget to also stop by our Google Group if you're feeling chatty - another great area to discuss testing strategies, technical questions, and industry insights.

Happy testing!
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