Four things agencies should know about site testing
The beginning of the year is a great time to take a step back and to re-evaluate marketing plans for your clients. Of course, one key ingredient in a successful marketing plan is the website.
Over the next couple of months, the Google Agency Team will be blogging about how you can work with your clients to review their website and landing page performance for 2010. Today, we’ll discuss how site testing can benefit both you and your clients.
1. Testing is good for PPC management agencies
Whether you specialize solely in pay-per-click management or you also help your clients with website design, the creation and optimization of landing pages for the best possible user experience will help you achieve your performance goals.
We’ve all seen this situation before: you’ve already worked exhaustively to ensure that your search marketing efforts are bringing in relevant traffic, but are still not seeing conversion results. The reason? The current format and messaging on the site does little to retain even the most qualified traffic. Remember that doubling your conversion rate is essentially the same as doubling your traffic at your current conversion rate.
If you’re a design shop, establishing a strong culture of testing will also bring great benefits. As with PPC campaigns, it’s best to consistently monitor current site performance and then optimize based on data. Even if you’ve designed the site yourself, there’s no way to predict exactly how it will perform and as a result, there will always be an opportunity for incremental improvements. Build these expectations in with your design clients. Consider also that market and visitor expectations change frequently (e.g. holidays and the recession). The beauty of testing and re-optimization is that you can address the immediate site issues and help the client adapt to any changing conditions.
2. Testing is good for your clients
Often a major concern from clients is the production resources and money necessary to move forward with testing. But it’s worth it! We all know we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover; but let’s face it, first impressions matter, especially on the internet. If users don’t like what they see at first glance – even if it’s for a superficial reason – they are likely to move on.
Explore the possibilities with your client. We have an extensive library of success stories with Google Website Optimizer that showcase some of the increases in conversion rates for businesses that have done landing page testing. Higher conversion rates mean more sales and/or leads at the same cost. If the client already is doing PPC and has an understanding of the opportunities in online marketing, the importance of providing visitors with the right on-site experience for their goals will be easy to demonstrate. Your client will appreciate your expertise in helping to develop this crucial piece of their marketing plan.
3. You likely have the data to identify site problems
If your client has web analytics data, you can begin to identify site and landing page weaknesses today. In Google Analytics, the “Content” section houses some of the most useful reports.
Start by looking at Top Landing Pages. If the bounce rate of these pages is higher than or close to the site average, you may want to examine possible issues with these pages that would cause a user to leave the client’s site.
To see if visitors are proceeding down the expected path, set up a funnel if you haven’t already to find out if there is kink in the trajectory to conversion (i.e. if visitor volume is dropping off at any point in the process). You can then open your Navigation Summary to see where those visitors are actually exiting out of the funnel.
4. You can test with Google Website Optimizer for free
Remember that while Analytics may help identify issues with the site or landing page, a website testing tool can help you find the solution. With Google Website Optimizer, you can quickly set up a A/B or multivariate test. Website Optimizer can work with almost any site infrastructure or type. It’s free and easy to get started, and a great way to add value to your existing client services.
Be sure to check back soon when we explore more ways to use your Analytics data, industry-specific challenges, and testing strategies. Happy Testing!