Webinar: Website Optimizer - What Should I Test?

Host: Tom Leung - Google Website Optimizer

Guest Presenter: Bryan Eisenberg - Future Now (blog is at GrokDotCom)

Slides will be archived and available within a few weeks on the Google Website Optimizer website in the resources section.

Tom Leung’s Presentation:

What is the website Optimizer? (For those not familiar with the product.)

It is part of an entire system of tools that Google provides to website owners that will help improve their website - AdWords and Analytics are a couple of these tools. AdWords brings the traffic in, Analytics monitors that traffic, and the Website Optimizer helps to improve conversion rates from AdWords and results can be measured in Analytics. They can be operated independently but using all three will bring a synergy to the table.

How does the Website Optimizer Work?

It essentially let’s you perform controlled experiments on your website by taking the guess work out of increasing your conversion rate with your website. Website Optimizer basically asks your users to vote with their actions.

Some features are A/B split testing, Multivariate Testing, Follow Up Testing, Works with ALL traffic - not just ppc, Statistical Analysis, Platform Independent, consistent updates, and more. (You do need an AdWords account to access the Website Optimizer…)

Benefits are that it is absolutely FREE, Easy to use, Does NOT impact SEO, Backed by Google, big increases in conversions are not uncommon, there is a variety of support in discussion groups, tutorials, consultant network.

Quick thoughts on Stats and Reporting

Combination reports show the customer’s favorite page combination. Take the debate out of website design and improvement by testing with the Website Optimizer and reviewing the reports/stats.

What To Test

This is a rendition I did a while ago on the graph about which pages to optimize used in this webinar (I think Google designed the original visual?):

Every Page Has an Optimal Recipe

Info Rich vs Short n Sweet

Left Layout vs Right Layout

Fact based vs Aspirations/emotions

Leads vs Sales

There are definitely more combinations and tests to conduct besides those listed above.

There isn’t ever really a set answer for each website. The only way to know which combination will work is to simply conduct tests.

More Ideas for Experimentation

Headline / Image/ Call to action

Layout

Testimonials

Copy

Embedded Widgets

Coupons

RSS button clicks

Colors, Fonts, Sizes

Sales Incentives

Newsletter subscriptions

Form Fields

And many, many more.

Everything depends on your audience, a portion of your audience will react differently to each test. You can find out more about your audience with testing…do they like certain kinds of widgets? Do they like videos? Testimonials? Etc.

At the end of the day, there are an infinite amount of tests you can perform. Focus on the tests that are most likely to give you the results you are looking for.

Best Practices in Marketing Experimentation

Test a small number of variations.

-Rule of thumb is about 100 conversions per combination

Test bold changes

-If you can’t see difference between two combos in 8 seconds, visitors probably won’t either

Consider early indicators if you don’t have enough conversions

-E.g. if you have modest conversion volume, optimize for leading indicators such as request info, view product details, remain on page features page >5 seconds.

Don’t jump to conclusions

-Less than 2 weeks is no good, focus on absolute conversion differences, don’t get too excited by silver or green or red

Bryan Eisenberg Intro

Bryan is co-founder of FutureNow, Charter member of Google Website Optmizer Authorized Consultant network, Blog located at Grokdotcom.com, Pioneer in persuasion architecture.

Bryan Eisenberg’s Presentation:

Case Study of Overstock.com (Multicategory Page)

Overstock was noticing a 90% exit/bounce rate

It’s about understanding people first

Test small variations so you can get the learnings and understand the variables

Secret of Online Conversion…

Dates back to 470 BC when four personality types were written down - the GrokDotCom translation gives us four types/patterns as displayed in this graph (a rendering based on Bryan’s slide/image)

Four types or patterns: Competitive (Fast Logical), Spontaneous (Fast Emotional), Methodical (Slow Logical), Humanistic (Slow Emotional)

*Holy crap Brian talks fast, flips through slides like crazy and bounces around sporadically (probably not Bryan but software/conferencing issues)…very hard to follow while typing so this is going to get choppy…

Eyetracking Slides (summary found on GrokDotCom)

Personality Preferences

Spontaneous people are looking for features

Humanistics care about reviews

Methodicals find by generally sorting

Competitives search by specifics that they have in mind

Went through 4 personality types for Overstock.com - Does it accomplish each type? Found that one single image needed replaced to target Competitives - and that gave them a lift of $25m!

HUGE gain on Overstock website by simply changing one image near a search box and it increased results by 5% or $25 million! The image was excluding competitive types of people due to search functionality/bounce rates on a specific page.

Opportunity Cost

Every day that Overstock did not fill that hole, they were losing $70,000 a day!

Framework & Optimization Process

1. Know your profiles - Personas, Four Perspectives, or simply emotional and logical

2. Define the conversion goals - what action do you want your visitor to take and what is the success page going to be

3. Do the Creative - based on the first two perspectives

Heirarchy of Optimization (detailed blog post can be found here)

Functionality first - Does it work?

Accessibility second - Can everyone access it?

Usability third - Is it “user” friendly?

Intuitive fourth - Does it feel natural and doesn’t “make us think”?

Persuasive final - Do people really want and understand what their buying?

The higher levels take the most time and effort but give you the greatest return.

5 Formulas to Online Success

1. Product Images Tell A Story

2. Test Your Headlines & Copy

-Test fractions vs Percentages

-Test Asking Questions

-Self Focused vs Customer Focused words (I am, we are vs you can)

-Switch Paragraphs (ordering of copy)

-Different words/meanings

-Informal vs formal (Attitude)

-Font sizes

-Wording on call to action

-Wording on images

3. Forms & Point of Action Assurances

-We value your privacy (next to action button)

-Guaranteed Response time

-Return information

-Reviews next to add to cart button

4. Calls to Action - Get Them To Click

-8 variables for cart buttons (wording, shape, size, style, icon, color, legibility, location)

-Emotional vs Logical (learn more vs help me choose)

5. Don’t Make Them Wait

-Fast load speeds

-Optimize image file sizes (58k vs 7k)

Golden rule: he who has the gold, rules. Customers have the pocket books so they rule. Also, another golden rule to online marketing is not like the biblical or religious adage of do unto others as you would have them do unto you…but the golden rule on the web is “Do unto others as they would have done unto themselves.”

Q&A

Q: What if you have a small amount of traffic but you don’t want to wait 6 months for results?

Bryan: Focus on the top half of the hierarchy.

Q: Ecommerce merchants who have long funnels - where do you begin with a multi-step checkout process?

Bryan: First, worry about the point of action assurances. Other things to do would be to add progress indicators and try to reduce the multi-step checkout process as soon as you can. Can you combine one or two pages?

Q: Do you begin at the beginning or the end of the checkout process?

Bryan: It depends on your analytics - target the biggest bottleneck and work from there.

Q: What are some things that you can do after you feel like you have done the basics like Headlines, copy, etc?

Bryan: Start dealing with persuasive and intuitive things like images, words in hyperlinks, words in point of action assurances, and more. Work up the hierarchy if you already have the basics down.

Q: What goes through your head during the first 30 seconds of reviewing a website?

Bryan: If I were a customer and I were spontaneous/methodical/humanistic/competitive, what would I get out of this page? Try to see what questions I have while reviewing the page as a customer.

Summary

-Controlled content experimentation is critical to maximizing your conversion rates

-Google Website Optimizer is a free tool that lets you do unlimited tests on all your traffic on any page

-Personas and scents can dramatically increase the likelihood of improving your conversions

-Almost everything can and should be tested

-More resources at www.Google.com/WebsiteOptimizer

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1. How-To Customize Your Google Analytics Dashboard

First, log into Google Analytics and view your dashboard. You can close several of those default metrics if you do not want to use them as your KPIs.

Second, find the report you want to display on your Dashboard. For our site, semvironment.com, we added these reports: Reverse Goal Path, All Traffic Sources, Goals Overview for each goal, etc.

Finally, when you are at the report that you want to see in your dashboard, simply click on the “add to dashboard” button underneath the report title. Now you can see the report in your dashboard!

2. Google Analytics KPI Gadget for iGoogle

YouTube Intro:

Analytics KPI for iGoogle - Without having to log into your Google Analytics account, the widget provides a snapshot of your key performance indicators using the red and green indicators you are used to from Google Analytics.

3. SAP Business KPI Community

YouTube Intro:

KPI Wiki - In today’s business world benchmarking has become increasingly important. That means that virtually every company wants to compare its performance to the market leaders. As a result you need a common KPI language.

4. KPI Library

KPI Library - The free KPI Library is a community that provides an extensive library of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

5. Visual Revenue

The difference between a KPI and a Metric - How does one decide if a Metric qualifies as a Key Performance Indicator? and if so, what are the characteristics of an excellent online marketing KPI?

Online Video Analytics - KPIs - These online video metrics affect your KPIs but are not KPIs by themselves.

6. VKI Studios

Key Performance Indicators (KPI) for e-commerce websites - Quick list of the most effective and actionable KPIs for an e-commerce website.

7. Wikipedia

Key performance indicators - Key Performance Indicators (KPI) are financial and non-financial metrics used to help an organization define and measure progress toward organizational goals…

8. Visitask

Using key performance indicators (KPI) for effective project management - Key Performance Indicators are quantifiable measurements that reflect the critical success factors of an organization. Based on beforehand agreed measures, they reveal a high-level snapshot of the organization.

Developing key performance indicators in projects - Key performance indicators should preferably meet the following essential criteria: Be direct (no complex calculations), Be objective, Be adequate, Be quantitative, Be practical, Be reliable.

Bonus PDF from the Web Analytics Association (WAA)

Web Analytics Key Metrics and KPIs (PDF) - In the interests of discussion clarity and Web site reporting standardization, this document defines key metrics and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for Web Analytics.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed or get email updates whenever we write anything new!

If you are using the new javascript code for Analytics, you should head over to ROI Revolution and download the latest exact keyword data tracking script so you can enjoy exact search terms that will show up in the user defined field in Analytics. ROI Revolution posted the update yesterday so it’s nice and fresh!
semvironment posts related to this update:

AdWords/Analytics Keyword Data Fix - Thanks Jeff!

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Per ROI Revolution’s request, here are the credits for this post - at the top instead of the bottom:

If you have any questions, you can find the source that Jeff found and shared with us here - credit rightly belongs to the Unofficial Google Analytics blog at ROI Revolution for authoring the fix. <—Bold was added for emphasis…I already had that sentence written at the bottom of the post. ROI Revolution may credit others in that post…
This fix was found and shared with us by Jeff because he saw that we documented some problems that were caused by the extra wide use of the tip found here. <—- If you read that post you will find out exactly where we found that tip at the bottom of that post…

Jeff James kindly stopped by the blog to tell us that he continues to receive his specific keyword data through a script fix that captures the specific keyword data from the cookie. I was on to that but I was trying to take the data from a different part of the cookie and I suck at writing javascript…I guess I should always leave quick fixes up to the pros - after all, I have to admit that I’m not a programmer but I can fake my way through some of it - clearly not all of it.

Thanks for finding and sharing this fix Jeff!

Here is the fix:

Download/Save this file: ga_keyword.js

Don’t forget to upload the file to the proper directory/location on your website and change the code below accordingly!

Rewrite your analytics code so it looks like this on your landing pages or throughout your entire website if it’s easier:

<script src="http://www.yourwebsite.com/ga_keyword.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
_uacct = "UA-XXXXX-X";
urchinTracker();
sleuth();
</script>

sleuth(); displays the exact keyword data under the cross segment option User-Defined Value.

So, after implementing this fix, you should see most of the exact keyword data under the cross segment menu. I recommend taking this route but you can find the cross segment menu in almost any detailed page of Google Analytics:

Traffic Sources -> Keywords -> Under the text that says “Search Sent * Visits via * Keywords” you will find a drop down that has the word “Segments:” next to it -> At the bottom of that list you will see “User-Defined Value”…click that and there you have it, your newly exposed exact key term data from Analytics!

I hope Google doesn’t poop on this fix too…

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Ian Lurie of Portent Interactive wrote in his blog (Conversation Marketing) that “A higher bounce rate is bad. A lower one is good.“. Overall, that post is a good one and your bounce rate should be considered with the rest of your user metrics but I don’t believe it can have the weight that Ian’s post implies it should have.

Two Reasons Why A High Bounce Rate Can Be Good

1. How long did that person stay on the page before bouncing? Most popular Analytics packages (Google Analytics) have a problem - the average time a user spends on a page, given that it is the only page they land on, is not recorded. I would say that an average of 15 to 20 minutes on a page with detailed instructions that drive somebody to a form of action that is not a click through the site is extremely successful even though the bounce rate would be almost 100%. A good example is our NUDE series posts - we receive 100+ visits to those every day and the bounce rate is around 90%…I haven’t implemented the fix I linked to a couple sentences ago but I do have a live chat program that let’s me view the footprint of a visitor and the time they spent on that particular page. The average time spent on those pages is around 12 minutes and I’m certain that those visitors walked away with something very engaging and valuable. At least I like to think they got something valuable out of it.

2. Advertised landing pages can have a high bounce rate and a high conversion rate. This will require some testing on your part but we have found that taking away some or all of the main navigation on a landing page will give the user two options - convert or leave. In our tests, for some of our clients - not all of them, removing most of the navigation on a landing page tripled or quadrupled conversion rates! We will often start with a 2% conversion rate and end up with an 8% or 10% conversion rate with the other 90% bouncing off the page. Even if you had an extremely high overall conversion rate of 30 - 40%, your bounce rate would still be 60 - 70% for that particular page.

We can conclude that given different circumstances, you might consider a high bounce rate good or bad but it is never truly definitive as a whole…it is definitive for parts of the whole as demonstrated in our post.

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Ian Lurie at Portent Interactive wrote about Analytics having auto-tagging issues earlier this week - I believe the issue started around January 9.

It looks like the problem was resolved around January 14 but if you tried implementing the AdWords keyword Data Exposed through Google analytics trick last week and it didn’t work, I recommend giving it another shot because the problem was probably Google Analytics auto-tagging.

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