Most businesses today do not take advantage of how important it is to test regularly. The key for any business wanting to achieve online success is knowing how to communicate to your target audience and knowing that all parties do not act on the same principles. This also allows you to figure out your online ad spend in an effective manner.

The average online conversion today is 2%, which means that 98% of your ad budget is not being used effectively. The key is really to keep the testing simple and uncomplicated and once you have established your benchmarks then you can start to divert from your Control Page. This can be a simple process and or a more complicated one but the key is simply testing, testing and more testing of the right things and you will increase your online conversion. Here are some tips, by no means complete, that will help you to get started in the right direction.

Test Protocol for A/B Split Testing for Landing Pages:

1. Develop Your Capabilities and Select the Right Tools
A/B split testing tools vary from simple CGI scripts to sophisticated software applications.
Even without sophisticated A/B testing capability, sequential testing offers you an opportunity
to learn many insights about your pages.

2. Identify Your Established Control Page
Your control page will be the page against which you test all subsequent optimization efforts. If
you are just getting started with A/B testing, your control page will be your current landing page
before any optimization. When a new page performs better than the existing control page, it
then becomes your control page in subsequent testing.

3. Establish Your Testing Goals and Parameters
What are you trying to accomplish with A/B split testing? Are you after more subscribers, a
higher conversion rate, or a greater return on investment on your PPC campaigns? Your goals
will determine your testing parameters, which will determine the potential success of your
testing efforts.

4. Determine Your Sufficient Test Interval
This time period should allow you enough time to gather sufficient data to gauge real insight
about your A/B tests. Identify the number of unique visitors and/or conversions needed to
establish good data and then determine how long it will take you to generate this traffic. This
number will vary from business to business, but should give you enough data to confidently
declare a "winner."

5. Create 1‐3 Radical Redesigns
KEY POINT: These pages are not subtle optimizations changing only one or two elements on the
page, but are wholly different pages representing a radically different approach.

6. Evaluate These Redesigns in A/B Split Tests
Test these alternate landing pages against the control page. Ideally, each page will be tested
against every other page, but if that is impractical, test two pages at a time and keep the best as
your control for subsequent testing. We like to use heat maps to help track the impact of all the
key elements and its potential impact.

7. Based on Results, Determine Your True Control Page
The radical redesign method will be more likely to generate a quantum leap in improved
conversion rate than optimizing a mediocre page with little potential. Once you have identified
the best general approach, you are now ready to optimize individual elements on the page.

8. Optimize with Traditional Variable‐Specific A/B Testing Variables
to Test:

• Headline
• Call to Action
• Page Copy
• Graphics
• Color
• Configuration of Page Elements
• Etc.

Testing and measuring all results for your website will give you enough data to know how to make the appropriate changes, get rid of what isn't working, and implement the things that are driving the best results. Without any type of data analysis or testing, you are shooting in the dark. We have a saying that goes like this, "Even a blind squirrel catches an acorn now and then". Don't you think it would be better to see what is going on well in advance and leave the guessing to your competition?