Top 10 Rules You Need to Consider for Testing a Landing Page

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1. Enough visits will illustrate a true response rate

One way to know if the results that you will get are clear and accurate is by running a test. If more viewers visit your website, there is the tendency that their actions will be indicating the actions of others as well. If you have just 10 hits on your site and two people converted, it is safe to say that you have a 20% conversion rate. However, the test group is very small to become a random sample.

2. Take away any of the outside variables

To make sure the split test accuracy that was conducted, of course you want to be sure that the involved variables are those intended only for your test landing pages. Other variables like referral sources, timing, media campaigns, etc. need to be restricted so as to ensure that the conversion differences are only influenced by the change in the elements of the landing page. You should control the most significant aspect which is the source of the traffic. The traffic source has the most influence over the test results. If you have a television advertisement running and are directed by the viewers to the mid-test of one of your URL, the results will thus be immaterial. The best landing page will display not so good results if the wrong traffic is directed to it—just imagine if the senior citizens are directed to a download source of hot new music. The traffic issues are more subtle and could affect your results easily. Keep your experiment restricted as much as possible and ensure that these items still remain the same throughout the whole test period:

• The kinds of media ads like radio, television, adwords, other PPC, etc.
• The same media combination if you are making use of more than one so that the traffic will be directed in an equal manner to each test page and not all Google ads to one and not all radio ads to another one.
• Ads should be identical and the same aside from the URL that the visitor is directed to.
• The allotted time frame should be the same so that you will not be able to test one page for several months during the summer and be able to compare it with the results from another page run for the same number of months during the winter. Each customer has different buying patterns and needs in different seasons. This is the reason why you want a split test run like the Google Optimizer so that the different pages are run all at the same time and be able to get an accurate result.
• Relationship of the customer with your company. The past customers will reply in a different way as compared with the potential new customers. Those who opt-in and currently on your list already for a longer time will reply differently also than those who opt-in just recently. It is just normal that you want to be sure that each test page is receiving visits from the demographics of exactly the same kind.
• The brand awareness level. Your advertising’s type and frequency will have a big effect on your conversion rates. This holds true even for offline advertising even when offline advertising does not mention a URL web address. A huge increase will be discovered in the traffic from search engines as the customers will hear and see your offline advertising and be able to search to look for your website. This traffic type differs in conversion rate than the traditional traffic from search engines, and is usually double your usual rate of conversion or even triple.

3. Testing

In the world of online marketing campaign the phrase “nothing lasts forever” hold true, and there are many possible reasons for this and mainly because of the over saturation in the target market, a flood of copy-cat campaigns off to join the bandwagon, a change of season and the going out of style syndrome.

You may notice the short shelf life of the online marketing campaigns as it goes in and out of trend. However, there are online campaigns that last for a long time. Take for example Classmates.com and vistaprint.com. The expert marketers of those sites have routinely test their pages, the reason why they lasted that long. They continuously test their pages against the prevailing trend, the old and new standards for major overhauls and minor tweaks until it was decided to what things to let go and what to keep.

Web campaign would only lasts up to six months to the most, with that always keep testing regularly especially when you have reached the milestone. You should evolve and continue improving your landing page and do not let it stand still, because there is a tendency to stall once you’ve reached the peak. Its either you stand still or continue to improve in an ever changing environment.

4. Looking at the bigger picture

Instant conversions are an amazing thing to happen, but you should consider other factors whenever you decide if your campaign will be a success or not. Remember all the conversions are not the same; here are some factors to consider:

• Whether your customers purchase one time for the promotion and eventually became a loyal customer.
• Whether your white paper down-loaders proved to be a competent sales lead or just looking for a freebie.
• Whether your opt-ins finally heed your emails or just merely includes their names on your mailing list only to ignore your correspondence in the end.

More often than not, internet marketers do not have the patience or the proper systematic order to track deeper for more relevant results; instead they look and easily satisfied to their conversion rate. It would take a little longer for the customers to show a long term product loyalty as well as the business lead to flourish. In the meantime you have to set out the necessary support actions such as the campaigns and setting up the landing page is equally important.

Early customer activities are indicative of the future odds and specify what goes beyond the immediate conversion rates. Be aware of all sorts of behavioral patterns in customers such as high email open and click rates, purchasing multiple items in just an initial visit, willingness to answer short survey and their favorable reply to the telemarketing follow-up.

5. Expecting too much too soon

As the old saying goes “you shouldn’t count your chickens before the eggs are hatched.” Remain as humble as possible; after all if you knew all the answers your landing page is now on its record breaking, all time high conversion isn’t it? And you wouldn’t have to test anything at all. A lot of “experts” are left bragging their achievements before the results. Some other would go extra mile in implementing radical changes before the test had been made and wound up in disastrous situations.

6. Testing one at a time

If you do not have multiple variant of businesses to test, keep your testing one at a time and in a small scale. Testing too many variables in a small site will confuse and makes it difficult to tell which changes actually counts. Consider testing a single element at a time in order to effectively distinguish the changes.

Another alternative is to test in parallel two totally different concepts or two totally different landing pages simultaneously. In this instance, you will see the difference and determine which page has the higher conversion rate. However, you will not be able to answer the reasons why such results if you do not test it one by one. Therefore keeping all other factors constant like the incoming traffic sources and pages in path experience will make sure that the only aspect affecting the test result the landing page itself. This will make away of the confusion and will yield exact results in testing your landing page.

7. What to test

It is important for you to determine what part of your web page you should include in the test. Testing the important elements at first will help you point out the necessary and crucial improvements you need for the landing pages quickly. Analyzing your landing page is visually breaking it into individual design elements. This includes:

• Headline
• Sub-headline
• Greeting
• Main page
• Body
• Testimonials
• Signature

Test first the components that appear near the top of your web page, the area on which visitors would see first. In performing a split testing, headlines, main page or any promotional messaging (i.e. free shipping, 50% off etc.) are set against each other. It will yield precise results if you use headline promotional messages that are significantly different and be as specific as you can be. For example, “save 25% off if you order by June 15” is more specific than “save 25% off for a limited time.”

While you focus on the top portion of your website, keep in mind that you are doing these tests to improve the conversion rates. With that in mind you are making sure that you are performing the test to improve the business and not just to see things and how they fare.

8. Testing small and big fixes

Big companies create a formal testing group in order for them to test their landing pages formally. This would enable them to quickly discover what changes to implement immediately. Replicating this is not such a bad idea; it has its importance in determining necessary changes. Split the test in two groups, one group to test the smaller items and the other group out to test the larger changes that have the possible major impact.

Although smaller changes may not produce dramatic increase in conversion but regularly, substantial changes happened after implementing minor tweaks. This piece of advice is vital in sites with lower conversion numbers and smaller audience; because the owner of such site may not be able to produce large test cells to immediately see the difference.

9. Quality vs. Quantity

If you don’t have enough data on your hand to run a quantitative test, you can opt for surveys to gather information and find the answers you need for your site. Surveys will also help you improve your conversion rate. One of such survey scheme is a pop up options that visitors can fill up once they try to leave your site. This is an ingenious way to determine why people don’t convert. People who immediately exit your site are the best candidate for this survey and not those who are frequently visiting.

There are things that you might discover significantly, one of them is that your search engine information is misleading thus yielding wrong visitors to your site. It is such a waste of time to try to gather round as much traffic as possible to your site without them converting into something useful to both of you. It is an old notion that gathering up traffic by any means would be an advantage, not any more, not this time. It should be targeted traffic and not bounce traffic. You only want visitors who would be interested in what your site can offer so that the benefits for the action should be mutual and productive.

10. Never letting go

Normally the first test will not show any significant improvements. Testing other fields will give you information where to focus your attention. A 1% increase could spell a lot of money in annual basis for you that is why taking the time to search for that tweak that could spell the difference is very important. Strive for it and never let go, compare your stats for the average in your field, this way you can determine whether you are at par or lagging behind the race. This will also gauge your performance whether you need to hire an expert or it will be sufficient with you in charge.