The following is what you need to know...

When the free trial ends use the following Coupon Code to save $300 off the regular price.  Your Coupon Code is:

WebFormOptimizer

Read the following and then click the link at the bottom of this post to Signup.  It's Free!  And you save thousands over any of our competition!

What does it do?  Web Form Optimizer splits web site traffic between variations of a web page (also known as A/B Testing).  It tracks the visits and submits in pages and analyzes this data to determine the winning page.  It turns more visitors into customers!  It has the potential to drastically increase your online revenue after running a few tests!

How does it do that?  A unique Online Form Builder allows you to create Web Forms that either present information or convert a visitor into a customer.  Web Form Optimizer is a separate tool that allows you to insert Forms into a Landing Page via a point & click interface (see Step 3 below).  Creation of a Landing Page is accomplished in 3 Steps! 

Other systems limit the number of visits, require you to rebuild the winning page, and then you will need to integrate it into your site. When you create variations of a Page in Web Form Optimizer and one of them becomes the winner, the system locks in the winning page and serves that to all visitors!  There is No Script and Web Page Redesign, is Not Required!  Our system takes an 'easy chair' approach...Once the page is built (takes a minute) you can just sit back and relax, while the system serves variations, to your visitors.  Web Form Optimizer even emails Status Updates automatically over the course of the Experiment!

Web Form Optimizer 3 Step Setup:

 

 

 

Do I need to work with Script?  No!  Web Form Optimizer requires No Script!  It's the only A/B Testing tool on the Internet where No Script is required!

Do you Host the pages created with Web Form Optimizer?  Yes!  No Web Site required! 

What will it cost me to use Web Form Optimizer? Other A/B Testing Tools run $249 per month and much higher for Unlimited Visits. They all require script, and you will need page layout and html hand coding experience and you may require an Information Technology team to assist with the posting of the experiment to your existing site.  And then if you run another test to improve on the results of the first experiment, you need to repeat the process.  Yikes!  Our No Script system is Free during the beta and it eliminates hand coding and page redesign! It's all point and click!

How much setup time will it take?  Web Form Optimizer is the first tool of its kind to take a completely fresh approach which will save you time and remove the headache with other systems (they all require script).  You create content in our unique Online Form Builder.  Simple Forms will take just a few minutes.  Setup of an Experiment and an A/B Landing Page takes less than a minute!  It really is fast!  Again it's all point and click (see 3 Step Setup images above). 

Are there any limits during the Beta?  Special pricing will be announced for Beta testers at a future date.  To qualify for the special pricing you will need to run at least one Experiment with two Landing Pages for an A/B Test.

 Online Form Builder: Includes Unlimited Forms, Fields and Submits.  Results from a Web Form are sent to your Inbox as an HTML Table and includes a Comma Separated Value attachment for import into Excel or any other data management tool.  Online result storage and download in bulk will be available to a paid plan, once pricing is announced.  
 

Results Manager:

 

Online Form Builder Statistics:  Visits and Submits are captured for each Web Form.  There are over 60 statistics captured.  Online Graphs are available during the beta.

Statistics Manager:

Web Form Optimizer is limited to one Experiment and two Landing Pages.  A Landing Page can house any number of Web Forms.  The ability to remove a Landing Page during the Beta has been disabled.

Web Form Optimizer Statistics:  Web Form Optimizer automatically sends Status Updates to your Inbox at 10% milestones.  You set the Control Visits and Submits for a Web Form Optimizer Experiment.  These are the number of Visits you would typically have in a month and the number of visitors you convert into a customer.  For example if you had specified 400 visits and 4 submits in a month, Web Form Optimizer will send a Status Update after 40 visits (10%).  The next Status Update will occur at 80 visits and so on. 

 Testing Limits? The goal of beta testing is to identify bugs and to resolve them asap, in the hope to offering a better user experience.  Features may change after the beta.  During the Beta, Web Form Optimizer will notify you via email before we implement functionality changes that affect the Online Form Builder or Web Form Optimizer.

How do I provide Feedback?  From within the Online Form Builder or Web Form Optimizer, click the Feedback tab, enter your question and click the Submit button.  The system captures your Username and Email address automatically.  Depending on the Feedback, you may receive a response from Web Form Optimizer Support. 

How do I get Online Form Builder Help? Click the Help tab in the Online Form Builder.  Content in the tab changes everytime you click something in the tool.  There are also all kinds of Tutorials available here and many are available below the list of Forms in the Online Form Builder.

How do I get Web Form Optimizer Help? Each step in the Web Form Optimizer wizard includes Help in the Left Pane of the tool.  There are also all kinds of Tutorials available here.

How do I signup? Click the the following link to signup:

Web Form Optimizer Signup

Enjoy the free beta!

Sincerely, 

Web Form Optimizer Support

This tutorial assumes you have reviewed the Web Form Optimizer Basics available here.

In this tutorial I am going to show you how to launch a Mobile Web Form from any paper based medium, like an Ad, Newspaper, Magazine, etc.  Then we are going to create a Landing Page that is viewable in an iPad, iPhone, Android or Windows 7 mobile device! 

Let's get started!

1.  Add a Flexible widget to a Web Form in the Online Form Builder.  Click the Cube and then the Edit Flexible Widget button.  In the HTML editor click the Template icon and select the Medium Text template (as shown).  Update the text to Signup! and click Save Changes in the left pane.  Our Web Form design is updated.

 

2.  Add a Textbox widget and click the Cube to open the Textbox Settings.  Update the Caption to Email:.  Click the Position checkbox which will position the Caption above the textbox.  Click the Required checkbox and Email validation radio button.  Click the Save Changes button to update the Form design.  Our Form now has a textbox that will not submit unless the Email textbox is populated and is in the proper format.

4.  Click the Button Maker widget to add a Button to our Form design.  Click the Cube to the left of the widget.  From within the Button Settings click the Submit radio button.  Change the Button Text, Font Size, Font Color, Top and Bottom Color, Button Width and Height to suit your needs. 

5.  Click the pencil next to the Submit button in the Form design and update the Form name to Mobile1 and then click Save Changes.  Click Theme in the lower left hand corner of the Online Form Builder and select Licorice.  Our Form design is updated. 

 

6.  We are now going to create a Landing Page for a Mobile device...Click the Form tab. Then click the Web Form Optimizer! bar to launch the tool.  Click a pencil next to an existing Experiment to put it into edit mode and then click Next in the wizard.  Create a New Landing Page in Step 2 of the wizard. Click the pencil next to the page to put it into edit mode.  Change the Effect from None to Transparent . Click Next in the wizard.

 

 

7.  You are now on Step 3 (the final step) of Web Form Optimizer.  If you have many Web Forms scroll to find Mobile1.  Click the Header radio button and remove the Submit button checkbox (as shown).  When we remove the Submit button the height of our Form requires a slight adjustment.  Click the Form name and Web Form Optimizer opens up a new browser window or tab with our Form.  Wait until the Form is completely visible and then return to Web Form Optimizer. Click the Update icon next to the Height textbox.  Click the Save button in the lower right hand corner of the wizard.

Before:

After:

 

8.  Click the Share tab.  Then click the link to test the Landing Page. Send the URL in the browser to an Email Address.  Click the link from within your Mobile device to test the page.

9.  Enter the URL for the Landing Page into a QR Code Generator  and click the Generate button. The tool creates an image for the web page (like the one shown below):

 

Download the image and with your favorite paint program print a copy.  With your iPhone or Android device scan the QR Code and your phone will load a Landing Page variation! 

Now you can create a QR Code and place it on your Business Card or Advertising and when scanned by a mobile device, it will launch a Mobile Web Form in a Landing Page!

Web Form Optimizer has been tested on Apple iPad, iPhone, Android and Windows Smart Phones.  I hope you enjoyed this tutorial!

iPhone:

iPad:

This tutorial assumes you have reviewed the Web Form Optimizer Basics available here.

In this tutorial I am going to show you how to insert a YouTube video into a Landing Page.  The Button Maker available in the Online Form Builder has an option to launch a dialog with content from another site, centered over the page. The button can be placed anywhere in a Web Form...

Let's get started!

1.  Add a Button Maker widget to a Web Form in the Online Form Builder.  Click the Cube to the left of the widget.  From within the Button Settings click the Dialog radio button.  Change the Button Text, Font Size, Font Color, Top and Bottom Color, Button Width and Height to suit your needs.

 

2.  Selection of the Dialog radio button reveals some extra settings.  Update the Dialog Title to World's Easiest! From within YouTube click the Embed option and paste the URL (in bold) into the provided textbox .  Update the Dialog Height and Width to match the video dimensions.  For example the YouTube code for this tutorial is:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/wPIpyV76nWE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

3.  Click Save Changes to update the Form design. 

4.   Now let's put this simple 'play' button in a Landing Page.  Click the Form tab.  Click the Web Form Optimizer! bar to launch the tool.  In Step 1 click a pencil to put an Experiment into edit mode and then click Next in the wizard.  In Step 2 click a pencil next to a Landing Page and then click Next in the wizard.  In Step 3 (the final step) select a Location radio button for the 'play' button and deselect the Submit button checkbox.  

Example:

 

5.  Removing the Submit button from the Web Form changes the Height of the Form.  Click the Form name.  Web Form Optimizer opens up a new browser window or tab with the Form. Wait until the Form is visible. Return to Web Form Optimizer and click the Update icon next to the Height textbox.  Click the Save button in the wizard.

6.  Click the Share tab and click the link to test your Landing Page(s). 

 

In this Landing Page I selected a right radio button location.  Content in a left or right location is placed in a stackable accordion.  An accordion places Forms in a column, each separated by its Form name.  The center location places each Form name in a Tab from left to right.

 

When the user clicks our 'play!' button a dialog is centered over the Landing Page, and YouTube downloads the video.  For those interested, I created this video with PowerPoint 2010.  I hope you enjoyed this tutorial! 

 

This tutorial assumes you have reviewed the Web Form Optimizer Basics:

Basics

Web Forms can either convert a visitor into a customer or if the Submit button is hidden, it can present information to the visitor.  In this tutorial we will create a Web Form to represent a Header in a Landing Page.  From within Web Form Optimizer we will hide the Submit button.  We will also outline the special formatting Web Form Optimizer applies to a Header or Footer in a page.

1.  Once you login, your list of Web Forms appear in a table.  Click the New Form? bar to insert a generic Form name.  Click the Form name to launch the Online Form Builder.

 

2.  Click the pencil next to the Submit button and change the Form Name to Header.  Click Save Changes.

 

3.  Click the Flexible widget button in the left pane.  The widget is added to the Form design.  Click the Cube to edit the widget.  Click the Edit Flexible Widget button.  Click the Template icon in the upper left hand corner of the HTML editor and select Strong(as shown).

 

4.  Change the Strong Background text to Web Form Optimizer - The World's Easiest Landing Page Builder with A/B Testing!  Highlight the text and change the font to 16 (as shown).  The larger font we will make our Header stand out from the rest of the page.

 

5.  Click then Center icon (as shown) so our Header will span the width of the Landing Page.  Click the Save Changes button to update the Form design. 

 

6.  Click the Theme accordion in the lower left hand corner of the Online Form Builder.  Click the Licorice theme, and the Form design is updated.  Click the Preview button at the top of the Online Form Builder to test our Header.  Our Web Form currently has a Submit button but we will soon take care of that...

 

7.  Click the Form tab and then click the Web Form Optimizer! bar to launch the tool.  Click the pencil next to the Experiment to put it into edit mode.  The Experiment is highlighted with a yellow background.  Click the Next button in the lower right hand corner of the wizard.

 

8.  You are now on Step 2 - Select Page.  Click the pencil next to the first Landing Page.  Click the Next button in the lower right hand corner of the wizard.

9.  You are now on Step 3 - Select Forms.  Click the Header radio button (as shown).  Click the Submit checkbox to remove the checkmark (as shown). 

 

10.  When we hide the Submit button the Form Height changes.  Web Form Optimizer containers will resize to fit the Height of the content; but to keep things nice and tight we need to adjust the Height of the Form...Click the Form name.  Web Form Optimizer (WFO) will launch the Web Form in a new window or tab.  Wait till the page is completely loaded and visible.  WFO captures the latest Height and stores that in a cookie.  Return to Web Form Optimizer and click the Update icon next to the Height textbox.  The Height is updated.   

Before:

After:

 

10.  Click the Save button in the lower right hand corner of the wizard to Save Changes.  Click the Previous tab and select the next Landing Page.  Click the Next button in the lower right hand corner of the wizard.  Click the Header radio button (as shown above in the After image).   Click the Save button in the lower right hand corner of the wizard to Save Changes.

That was very easy.  Both pages will use the same Header.  Click the Share tab and the link to load a Landing Page variation.  Click the browser refresh icon or press F5 on your keyboard to load the next Landing Page variation. 

Notice how the Header expands to fit the width of the page and our 'title' is centered over the accordion container (as shown below).  Also note that the Form name does not appear in a Header or Footer location.  Each Landing Page can have one Header or Footer. This was a simple tutorial that shows you how to create a Landing Page Header.  With this knowledge you can create a Footer.  As you can imagine, this is just the tip of the iceberg...You can create all kinds of content with the Online Form Builder and then use it to Present information in a Landing Page!

I hope you found this tutorial helpful!

In the following we will build a Web Form that will convert a Visitor into a Customer.  We will then add a slight variation to a duplicated version.  From within Web Form Optimizer we will configure an Experiment with two Landing Pages and then launch an A/B test to find out which Page performs the best!

1.  Once you login, Web Forms appear in a table under the Form tab.  If this is the first time you have used the tool, click the New Form bar.  A generic form name is inserted into the list.

 

2.  Click the Form name to edit the Web Form.

3.  We are going to add a Label to the Form design that is color coordinated to the selected Theme.  It will be our call to action! Click the Flexible widget on your left.  It's added to the Web Form design.

 

4.  Click the Cube to the left of the Widget. Click the Edit Flexible Widget button.  An HTML editor appears.  Click the Template icon (as shown).

 

5.  Select the Medium template from the dialog.

 

6. Update the Medium Background text to, "Order Now and your first 3 Months are Free! Save $150!".  Click Save Changes in the left pane and your Web Form is updated.

 

7.  Click the Textbox widget.  It's added to the bottom of the Web Form design.  Click the Cube to edit it.  In the Textbox Settings pane on your left, update the Caption to Email Address:, click the M radio button for a medium font size, and click the Soft radio button for a Soft background.  Click the Required checkbox and the Email validation radio button.  Click Save Changes and your Web Form is updated.

8. Click the Pencil to the left of the Submit button. In the Submit Settings we can update the Submit button text, Form Name, Redirect URL, Submit Limit, Expiry Date and Email Results to information.

 

9.  Update the Form Name to, "Special Offer Ends Soon!".  In the Redirect URL textbox enter the full URL to your web site (Example: http://webformoptimizer.com).  Click Save Changes to update the Submit settings for our Web Form.

 

10.  At this point our Web Form is ready for the Web Form Optimizer; however we need another variation for an A/B Test.  Let's create a Copy of the Web Form with a slight variation.

11.  Click the Form tab. 

 

12.  Click the plus icon to create a duplicate of the Web Form.  The duplicate appears at the top of the table.  Notice how the Version Number for our duplicate has changed to a 2.  Click the duplicate Form name to edit it.

 

13.  Click the Cube to the left of the Order Now... text.  Click the Edit Flexible Widget button.  Update the text to,  "Save 33%! Order Now!".  Click Save Changes to update the Web Form.

14.  Click the Theme accordion in the lower left hand corner of the Online Form Builder.  Click the Licorice theme.  The Theme is automatically saved and the Form design is updated.

15.  Click Preview at the top of the Online Form Builder to test your Web Form.   

 

16.  Click the Submit button to test the Email validation.  Close the new window and return to the Online Form Builder.

 

17.  Now that we have two slightly different Web Forms, it's time to setup an Experiment in the Web Form Optimizer.  Click the Form tab.  Click the Web Form Optimizer! bar to open the tool in a new browser window.

 

Step 1.  Select an Experiment... Click the New Experiment? bar to create an Experiment with a generic name. Click the pencil to put the Experiment into edit mode.  The Experiment is highlighted with a yellow background.  Click the Next button in the lower right hand corner of the wizard.

 

Step 2. Select Page...Click the New Landing Page? bar to insert a Landing Page with a generic caption.  Click the pencil to put the Landing Page into edit mode.  The Landing Page is highlighted with a yellow background.  Update the caption to Web Form Optimizer. When the Landing Page loads the browser title or tab reflects the Landing Page Caption.   Click the Next button in the lower right hand corner of the wizard.

 

Step 3. Select Forms...This is the final step in creating a Landing Page.  Next to each Web Form is a set of radio buttons.  Each button represents a Location in a Landing Page.  Click the Center radio button to place version 1 of our Web Form into a Tab container.  Click the Save button in the lower right hand corner of the wizard.

 

Click the Previous button in the wizard to return to Step 2 - Select Page.  Click the New Landing Page? bar.  Click the pencil to put the second Landing Page into edit mode.  Update the caption to Web Form Optimizer. Change the Theme to Mint Chocolate.  The container in the Landing Page will use this theme.  In the Background textbox enter, "images/test1.png".  This is an image stored on our web server. You could enter any URL to an image.  The Landing Page background which will scale to fit the page.  Click the Next button in the lower right hand corner of the wizard.

 

Click the Left radio button to place version 2 of our Web Form into an Accoridon container.  Click the Save button in the lower right hand corner of the wizard.

 

At this point our Experiment is ready for testing.  Click the Share tab and in the Test Experiment accordion click the link to test a Landing Page.  A new browser window or tab opens with a Landing Page.  While logged into the system, a Landing Page Notification appears in the top right hand corner of the page.  This allows you to identify which Landing Page is being served and offers the latest statistics for this page.

 

Click the browser refresh icon in the address bar or press the F5 function key on your keyboard to load the next Landing Page. 

 

Web Form Optimizer loads the next Landing Page.  Notice the differences in pages. This version has a Mint Chocolate theme applied to the Landing Page container and notification.  In the background our test1.png image has scaled to fit the page.

 

Return to the Web Form Optimizer tab.  Click the Embed the Landing Page... accordion on the Share tab.  Follow the instructions to embed the Experiment into a web page on your site or blog. Your Experiment is ready to turn visitors into customers!

Tutorial Complete!

When the page loads, Web Form Optimizer (WFO) will serve one Landing Page variation to a visitor.  That visitor will always see the same Landing Page.  When a visitor views the page, Web Form Optimizer will record that as a Visit.  If the visitor clicks a Submit button on the page, WFO will record that as a Submit.  If a Landing Page variation exceeds the number of Control Visits and Submits (conversions) as defined in Step 1- Select Experiment, it becomes the Winner of the Experiment.  For more information on how Web Form Optimizer determines a Winner, click here.

Web Form Optimizer has an innovative feature...The Button Maker allows you to create a link to launch another web site, open a dialog that houses content from anywhere on the Internet or submit a Web Form.

The following outlines its very unique features.  Each change in the Button Maker Settings updates your Button in the Web Form Builder!

1. Click the Button Maker widget. It's added to the Web Form.
2. Click the Pencil next to the Button to edit its settings.
3. Click a Button Type.
   • Click Hyperlink.  Update the URL.  When the Button is clicked it will open the web site in a new browser window.
   • Submit Form.  When the Button is clicked it will submit the Web Form resulting in a Landing Page Conversion.
     
   • Dialog.  When selected a dialog is resized to fit its content which appears in an Iframe.  You could launch a YouTube video, Google Map or any web page!
     
4. Button Text: Change the Text as required.  Changes in the Button Maker Settings updates the Button in the Web Form Builder!
5. Font Size: Either enter the desired Font Size in the text box or click inside the box and press the Up or Down arrows on your keyboard. 
   
6. Font Color: Click the text box and select a color from the color picker. 
   
7. Top Color:  Click the text box and select a color frome the color picker.  The top half of the Button is updated with a Gradient fill.
8. Bottom Color: Click the text box and select a color frome the color picker.  The bottom half of the Button is updated with a Gradient fill.
9. Button Width: Click inside the box and press the Up or Down arrows on your keyboard to adjust the Width of the Button. 
   
10. Button Height: Click inside the box and press the Up or Down arrows on your keyboard to adjust the Height of the Button. 
    
    • Note: The button Height is dependent on the Font Size so even if you entered 0 in the box the Button border will reside outside of the Button text.
11. Radius Size:  Click inside the box and press the Up or Down arrows on your keyboard to adjust the Button radius/border shape.
    
12. Blur Size:  Click inside the box and press the Up or Down arrows on your keyboard to add Shadow to the Button.  A higher number gives your button 'depth'.
13. X Offset:  Move the Shadow Left or Right. Available Range is -10 (left) to 10 (right).
    
14. Y Offset:  Move the Shadow Up or Down. Available Range is -10 (up) to 10 (down).
15. Click Save Changes to update your work.

Tips:

1. When users visit a page, their eye first looks in the top left hand corner of the page.  You can group any number of Widgets and anchor them to the Left or Right side of the Web Form with our Go Wide widget.  Click the Go Wide widget.  Move the Start tag above the first widget in the group.  Move the End tag below the last widget in the group.  Click the Pencil next to the Start tag and select either Left or Right.  Click Save Changes to update the Web Form.  Click Preview...Widgets inbetween the Start and End tags line up on the same row! 

Try WebFormOptimizer today!

It’s a fact of life that when people hire a web designer, they don’t just want a website, they want a website that does something! There can be a world of difference between these two things. The "action" they need the website to take for them can be one of several common things: selling products for their business (an e-commerce site), generating sales leads, and/or providing free information in the hope that the visitor will make a purchase from the company at a later date.

Here we look at how to determine which aspects of your web design work is most effective to help the client’s website achieve its aims, by a process known as split testing.

What is Split Testing?

Split testing (also known as A/B testing), is software that splits the traffic between two or more variants of the same web page, measuring whether there is a difference in the effectiveness of that page in achieving the website’s goals. Every time a visitor takes the desired action on a website, such as making a purchase or submitting a form, it is called a conversion.

Web designers might check whether:

• A landing page with a graphic of a person encourages better conversion rates than one with a graphic of the product
• A different positioning of the shopping cart button encourages more people to click it
• A form with fewer elements, or different elements, encourages more people to finish filling it out.

Just about every aspect of a website can be split-tested.

For most websites, A/B split testing will be the optimum method of improving a website’s conversion rate over time.

Why Bother With Split Testing?

Split testing is what separates elite web designers from the rest because it provides them with the knowledge of which combination of website elements will produce the optimum results for the client and they can demand a higher rate as a result. Split testing can help:

• Get visitors to stay longer on the website
• Get visitors to interact more with the site
• Get visitors to engage in a promotion by providing an email
  
• Get more visitors to buy from the site

Split testing also helps ensure that when it comes to advertising, you are maximising each and every dollar. If your website doubles its conversion rate from 1% to 2% using split testing techniques, you have just doubled your revenue using the same marketing budget. You will be able to spend more on advertising your site and earn a better return on investment (ROI) from each dollar you spend. Sounds like you’d be crazy not to, doesn’t it?

It becomes even more exciting when you start to examine the numbers. Many untested websites have conversion rates that run around 0.25%. This means that it takes 400 visitors to get one sale. With split testing, you don’t need to increase the number of visitors, just the rate at which they convert. Many success stories tell of conversion rates upwards of 10%. That would be the equivalent of a 40-fold increase in visitors, all of a sudden giving you 40 sales or sales leads out of 400 visitors, instead of 1.

Who Should Be Split Testing?

Ideally, the web designer should start split-testing as soon as the site launches, as they are the ones who have designed the site and have all of the source files on hand. Even if the owner feels that the website is performing well enough, the benchmark for "good" performance could be moved even higher through using split testing. Just keep in mind that split testing does require an established traffic flow because you need people visiting your site to be able to split-test web pages.

Why is it ideal that the designer does it at the launch stage? Because it is much easier to keep the site as a work in progress after launch, not only visually and structurally, but in terms of its goals. It is infinitely harder for a third party to come along later and change things around, and in many cases, you wouldn’t want them to. That site’s your creation!

Doing the split testing yourself, as a designer, also gives you a real-world feel for what elements will work and what ones won’t. It adds an extra dimension to your sense of aesthetics, removing the guesswork that you necessarily engage in during the design phase. You are no longer doing what you think will create conversions, but implementing what you know produces measurable results. And this knowledge alone will increase the value you bring to your future projects.

Define which element you want to test. In A/B testing, you’ll only test element one at a time. Commonly tested elements are the headline, sub-headline, opening paragraph, image, call to action, and the submit button (look and/or placement).

These are the most commonly tested elements of a web page:

• Headings
• Sub-headings
• Opening paragraph
• Images
• Call to action
• Offers
• Hyperlinks
• Submit button
• The location of different elements
• Colors

The first six elements are the ones which generally have the most impact on conversion rates, and the ones you should test first. Google once tested 41 different shades of blue for their pages. They have the luxury of doing this because they get more traffic than any other website, and they have the drive to do this because performance is their life. They thrive on it! You don’t need to go to this extent but if Google places so much value on it, shouldn’t you?

Knowing When a Split Test is Finished

The number of conversions needed to garner a reliable indication of future traffic varies incredibly with different types of sites. If the business you are designing for is a high-customer volume, low-value spend store, you should test until you have 70 or so conversions for one variant. If it is a low-customer volume, high-value spend store, aim for 20 conversions.

If the set conversion is further from becoming an actual "profit" for the store (i.e. a conversion creates a lead from a visitor, rather than a sale from a lead), you may want to be more certain that one variant is working better than the other. You may also want to test more different variants of the same element, or do multivariate testing … within the limitations of your traffic volume.

Determining statistical significance at the conclusion of a test

For you to have a high confidence level that the test results aren’t just a fluke, you can apply a simple formula to determine whether the difference in results is statistically significant. This rule is:

The numerical difference between the two results must be greater than the square root of the sum of the two results.

Or

Y-X>√X+Y, where Y>X

Sounds like a nightmare from before your high school maths exam, doesn’t it? It is easier to understand with an example:

• If the result of page A was 20 conversions, and the result of page B was 30 conversions, then the difference between the two is 10.
• The sum of the two results is 50
• The square root of that sum is 7 (rounded down)
• The difference (10) is greater than the square root of the sum (7), so the result is statistically significant.

If the two results had been 22 and 28:

• The difference between the two is 6
• The sum of the two results is 50
• The square root of that sum is 7 (rounded down)
• The difference (6) is less than the square root of the sum (7) – the result is not statistically significant.

If the results of your split test are not statistically significant, you can either:

• Keep testing and see if a more definite pattern emerges
• Decide that the element doesn’t make a difference to conversion in this case, and test something else.

Tips for Ongoing Split Testing

Either you, as the designer, or the website owner, should be implementing split testing constantly, on all your high traffic web pages. It takes time to get test results, and in the meanwhile customer preferences and market sensibilities are changing, along with the season and your stock.

It is important to note that not all split tests will be successful. In fact, if you have a 20% success rate where one in five split tests improve the overall conversion rate of the site then you are doing well. The key point to remember with split-testing is that every success forms a new baseline, with considerable website performance improvements achieved after a number of different split tests.

The easiest way to manage all of the split tests is to set one day per month when you review results and then set up tests for the coming month based on those results. Every month you should track your results in a spreadsheet to avoid accidentally re-testing the same elements over and over again. This also provides a point of reference for when you are starting new projects – you can see which placements and copy types are most effective in which industries.

And don’t forget to check what competing sites in the same niche are doing, and test the same elements on your site!

Once you start split testing you’ll find that what you thought would perform better doesn’t and you’ll be very surprised with some of the results. The best part about split-testing is that the confidence you will gain from split testing will help you with your future web sites because you will have an increased knowledge of what produces results and what doesn’t. Consumer behavior is a specialized field and web designers can get on a steep but exhilarating learning curve for it by engaging in split testing on their own and their clients’ websites.

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Did I get your attention?  If you are reading this then my opening line worked, it drew you into this posting.  

Your site, probably like mine, has nothing to do with whether I'm sexy or not but what we have in common...our requirement to convert Visitors into Customers and potentially generate as much revenue as possible.  To find out how we increase Conversions and generate Revenue read on...

There are only a handful of ways to convert visitors into Customers:  

1. You create a web page and hope to hell that the message is clear and it draws in them in.  
2. You hire a company to create a web site for you, hoping their expertise helps you converts visitors.  
3. You purchase a web site template thinking that its the best way to increase your Customer base. 
4. You create your own home page in HTML and get some help from the techie student.  
5. Is there a fifth option?  Sure...But there is only one that really works!  It's one that nearly every small business owner has never heard of.  Google knows the answer and ta da...  

Answer: You need some kind of Landing Page with A/B Testing!

What  is a Landing Page with A/B Testing?  Now for those of you have heard of A/B Testing then you probably have done all kinds of research to find out how it works and what effort is required to start a test.  And if you are a small business person you probably shook your head (or scratched your head) trying to figure out how to insert script into your web page, analyze statistics, and then pull up your sleeve and rebuild your Landing Page from scratch to match the winning page.

For those of you not familiar with a Landing Page, it's basically a Web Page with a Web Form that Converts a Visitor into a Customer.  The goal of a Landing Page is to generate a Reaction that grabs the Visitors attention.  

So what is A/B Testing?  Basically there is software on the Internet that allows you to create variations of a Web Page which are served to users.  When a user clicks input type elements on the Page, that Hit is saved into a database for future analysis.  Basically variations on the page in one or more web pages, are analyzed to see if one page design increased conversion over another page. 

Sound simple doesn't it...If you said Yes you would be partly correct.  If you did your research, you came across Google Website Optimizer.  It's a great tool if you have developers handy. It requires script to be inserted inside each HTML element in a web page.  When the page loads special tags flip variations of an HTML element to the user.  A click on that variation is recorded in a database for future analysis.  So... if you have a team of developers on standby then you are good to go.  Did I just hear a cough?  Now if you are a small business owner, do you have the time or resources to crack open a page and inject script all over the place?  And even if you could do that, you would have to analyze the winning elements and then rebuild the page to match the Google modifications?  Yikes!  Strike One!

As an answer to Googles 'manual' system, visual tools were introduced to limit the amount of code to inject into a page.  Tools like Visual Website Optimizer load a copy of your web page into a frame on their site. From within that frame you can drag any html element around (images, text boxes, links, etc) placing them into new locations or replace them with other elements to create variations of your Web Page.  When the page is served to a visitor those variations 'flip' into view.  Just like Google, these visual Landing Page Builders capture clicks on HTML elements for future analysis. Sounds pretty good doesn't it?  Sure it does, they eliminated the manual placement of script in the Web Page, well almost...Of course to enable this magic you need to place script into your page.  Darn!  That's not a big deal for a seasoned developer but for a small business owner that may be a show stopper. And just like Google once the Experiment has expired you will need to take the winning variations and build a page from scratch and then post it to your site.  Again you need a developer to put the winning Page into 'production'.  And just like Google, we are back to a manual process! Strike Two!

To increase Conversions and potentially generate Revenue on your page, your page needs to generate a reaction!  That reaction is typically captured in a Web Form.  Whether you use Google or Visual Website Optimizer or any other tool currently on the Internet for A/B Testing, they all recommend some kind of Web Form to capture input from a user.  But like all current Landing Page Builders with A/B Testing they require script, HTML coding and all require a developer to put the winning page together when the experiment ends.  Of course that was so yesterday.

We won't get to Strike Three, I promise. If your are interested in the answer to A/B Testing where there is No Script, Zero, Zilch and a tool that generates the Winning Page before the Experiment Ends!  Click here!