Visual Website Optimizer: A Better Way to Perform A/B Testing
Marketing is rough. No matter how you slice it, finding your target demographic, supplying them with advertisements that work, and actually moving products or creating new services is a tough gig. Furthermore, without the right kind of data you might as well be throwing shots into the dark: Gaining valuable marketing and advertising information that’s guaranteed to produce results is often much tricker than actually producing the advertisements and campaigns. Thankfully, though, if you rely on web services, or your website itself to create traffic, you have a unique tool on hand to deal with the marketing conundrum: A/B testing.
What is A/B Testing?
The best way to think about A/B testing is through ye olden, brick and mortar advertising techniques. Let’s imagine you own a bakery on one end of town, and another branch at the far side of the city. Your advertisements have not been driving as many sales as you might like, so you decide to create a new campaign. However, you’ve got two fantastic ideas, and you’d like to know which is more appealing to the end-consumer. Obviously, you could do some polls, but a better way would be to simply initiate one campaign at one branch, and the other at the second store. By closely monitoring which branch enjoys an increase in sales and traffic, you’ll have a very good idea about which campaign is worth pursuing.
In much the same way, A/B testing allows you to use your website and emails to perform similar tests. With the technology at hand, you can change the banners and graphics of your site in multiple variations, and then market those changes to targeted groups of visitors. By monitoring which set performs the best, you can decide which direction(s) should be a permanent addition.
RELATED: Future Uses and Growth of Cloud Computing
And if you hadn’t guessed by now, we’ve got a great place for you start, if you’re interested in using A/B testing: VisualWebsiteOptimizer.com.
What is Visual Website Optimizer Is, and How Does it Help?
When creating variations of your Web content to perform tests, you’ll quickly find yourself up to your eyeballs in complex HTML editing and performance code. Visual Website Optimizer makes the creation process much simpler, allowing you to visually and directly edit any element of your site. Once the changes have been put into action, you can then specify your target goals and groups, as well as what you’d like those individuals to do.
It’s fluid, dynamic, and supremely easy, especially when compared to other A/B testing platforms. Still don’t believe us? We don’t blame you. With that in mind, let’s dive a bit deeper into the visual editor at the heart of the software.
Cutting and Pasting Made Easy
With Visual Website Optimizer, creating variations of your site is simple. All a web master needs to do is load the site into the software’s WYSIWYG editor (that’s a complex acronym for “visual HTML editor,” a bit like WordPress) and then get cranking. Any aspect of the site can be altered, whether it’s a photograph, banner advertisement, piece of text, or link. These changes are integrated directly into the variation, and if you have a need for more complex modifications, Visual Website Optimizer also fully supports direct HTML editing. However, none of this is too inventive, is it? After all, programs like WordPress do make it easy to alter code.
RELATED: Generating Traffic with Search Engines
If that’s what you’re thinking, you’re right. However, the beauty of Visual Website Optimizer is in its visual nature: You can directly see the changes as their made, and as each and every modification is stored as a unique variation, you’re free to review all of these modifications in real time. This is an unbelievably powerful platform, especially if you’re not into digging through lines of code on your day off.
The Tests Are Golden
Additionally, Visual Website Optimizer also makes it easy to define and monitor tests. Each and every variation of your website can be attached to a specific goal: Whether this is an increase in page visits, clicked links, or even just form submissions, Visual Website Optimizer allows you to track it. And again, all of this functionality is served up with a wonderfully visual presentation. You’re free to look directly at the tests as they’re being performed. And trust us, there’s nothing cooler than having your goals laid out directly on your screen, resting in front of your eyes.
We also appreciate the mountain of available testing formats, as Visual Website Optimizer covers just about every measurement you could ever hope for.
RELATED: The BlackBerry outage – How Critical Was the Failure?
To provide a short list, Visual Website Optimizer offers:
- Multiple conversion goals
- Heat map reports of visitor clicks and views
- Segmented and targeted group dynamics
- Cross-domain tracking
- Revenue monitoring
- Integration with Google Analytics
- Multiple permission-based logins for collaboration with your new schemas
And with an HTML test editor, the sky is the limit, if you’d like to create your own parameters. You make it, Visual Website Optimizer will track it: Guaranteed.
But How Does it Compare to Google?
If you’ve been in the business long, you’ve likely heard of Google Website Optimizer. The software provided by the Big-G provides a roughly equivalent experience to Visual Website Optimizer, but with a few notable differences.
Sure, both softwares will track your website variations, providing you with analytical data to use in your next marketing campaign. But only Visual Website Optimizer provides you with a rich and visual editor to create your new variations. Google, on the other hand, relies entirely on your knowledge of code, as well as your ability to successfully implement market segmentation and targeting.
Visual Website Optimizer instead does most of the work for you. The software allows you to visually compare changes, attach hardwired goals to those modifications, and then effortlessly track the results. Sure, there’s a $49 per month charge attached, but where Google Website Optimizer might be free, it can never provide the same quality of experience as Visual Website Optimizer.
Learn more about Visual Website Optimizer at http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/.
