Repeat business is important for long-term online business success. A website owner can easily get repeat business going by making newsletters and email subscriptions available. Web site owners can do this by utilizing feedburner, a free email subscription tool that provides a way to get newsletters out. Feedburner also provides statistics and tracking of website views.

With these changes made, your web site is now ready for the Google online marketing world. Now it’s time to utilize Google’s site optimizer which offers two different types of web site testing, A/B split tests and Multivariate testing. A/B split testing is appropriate for low traffic web sites, and web page testing.

Multivariate testing is more appropriate when particular pages on a website yield high traffic, as it can be used to test different locations within a web page. Multivariate testing is also able to test multiple locations on a web page at the same time. If you plan on using multivariate testing, you’ll first have to tag and identify links you want tested and set goals for these links.

Now its time to install the Google website optimizer. To start this process, click the Google website optimizer tab and follow the installation wizard. During the installation wizard you will be given options to implement variations and symbols. These implementations will be based on your particular marketing analysis needs. Before you actually implement the website optimizer, you can preview what these changes will look like before you start. After previewing, it’s time to start screening. Make it a habit to analyze the screening results for effectiveness. You can also duplicate the experiment in the event that you want to run it again.

Google’s multivariate test will allow you to observe the effectiveness of your website conversions, and is a good way of tracking web site performance. This will get customer loyalty going and will help with Return on Investment (profit divided by cost).

So what’s the big deal with split testing? You will be able to increase your sales as you will be able to find out which site attracts more buyers. If you’re only getting a 1% conversion rate and then you use a split test and after the split test you’re up to 2% you will have doubled your sales for using something that’s very simple.

The best part about split testing is that you can keep doing it. If you find that your numbers are stationary then you can create another split test. Alternatively you can run a split test every time you get a better idea for a web page and constantly improve your sales.

Unfortunately sales are the driving force behind any business whether that business sells a product or a service. You must therefore maintain and increase them as much as possible. By testing you will gain important knowledge that you otherwise would be unaware of. You will start to know what methods of your advertising are actually working because of the increased sales. Next you will know which sites are the most attractive to customers and why. This is because you can constantly try new pictures, ads, and methods because they are so easy to switch out.

All of the information that you gain from a split test can be used across every site that you have. This will make you more knowledgeable on what works and allow you to utilize it in ways you may have never thought possible. If you are skeptical about trying a split test then you should give it a try because you will never know if it works or not unless you give it a shot. Many marketers believe that the best way to increase sales is to increase your traffic. This technique is effective however what if you can increase your sales with your current traffic? Then when you get more traffic that means you’ll have even more sales then you normally would by increasing your traffic!

Don’t get me wrong here, there are many great service providers and consultants that can and will do a great job of pushing up your conversions through the use of split testing.

However, for most small business owners and webiste operators, I always recommend you undergo the learning curve and actually split test yourself.

Why do I say this?

Well every split test involves a great deal of interpretation, in other words you are constantly figuring out why your target audience reacts to certain elements, and this interpretation gives you some of the best insight you will ever get on your prospects and clients.

The problem with outsourcing your split testing, is that YES you will get a better result and improve your conversions short term, but long term you loose out on being able to connect and gain insight for your market.

Some of my best product and business ideas have come from studying my visitor’s behaviour and it goes without saying that the same will be true for your business.

If you do decide to outsource your slit testing, I highly recommend that you at least become actively involved in the decision making and interpretation process, because without out becoming actively involved you will most certainly be missing a major opportunity.

As a consultant, I have always made an effort to get my clients involved the process, and not only has this proven to be of value from the clients side, but as the split tester, the client often provides valuable insights and experience that adds to the entire split testing process.

Firstly let’s clarify exactly what a landing page is: A landing page is any page that has a specific purpose, such as making a sale or getting a visitor to subscribe.

Whilst the home page on a website can be considered a landing page, because visitors usually have several options from a home page, this is considered too general to be a landing page as per the definition above.

There are essentially two types of landing pages, a sales page (intended to generate sales), and a squeeze or opt-in page (intended to generate leads).

These types of landing pages are typically very easy to test, since the target actions (sale or opt-in) are clearly defined.

However each type of landing page requires a different approach in terms of interpreting the results.

For example in long sales pages, the idea is to keep the visitor engaged in the copy long enough in order for them to be led towards making a purchase.

Whereas, squeeze pages are designed to rapidly grab the visitor’s intention and get them to instantly make a decision to opt-in, so naturally a shorter engagement with your visitors is required.

It is these subtle differences and applications in the split testing of landing pages that can make the difference between a mediocre or major increase in conversions

When one split tests a landing page, it always important to consider the objective (target action) and then to design and interpret your test accordingly.

It is critical to avoid bad advice, because this bad advice, however well intentioned will have a negative impact on your business, and stifle your real opportunity to grow and succeed.

For example many forum posts advocate that you can use Google Adwords to split test by running two of the exact adverts side by side with different destination URLS… this is claimed to be a so called “free method of split testing”.

The problem with this is that many people who test via this method, are actually getting skewed results, because Google Adwords has no way of identifying repeat visitors and sending these repeat visitors down the same conversion path.

In addition to which the ad serving and conversion process factors in a multitude of variables that ultimately removes any statistical validity.

Split Testing like any science is an exact science, and if you don’t follow strict protocols then your test will ultimately have inaccurate results.

So what is conversion mapping?

Conversion mapping is the process of defining the target actions that you want visitors to take within the sales process on your webiste. This process is often referred to as your sales funnel.

In any sales funnel there are potentially several conversion points, and the importance of conversion mapping becomes apparent when you consider that increases across several conversion points have a “multiplication affect” on the overall conversion process.

For this reason it is critical to create a conversion map, and it will also help you discover flaws in your process as you physically map out a mental picture of what you are asking your visitors to do.

If you have not already done so, then I highly recommend that spend some time doing conversion mapping for your websites, as this will help you understand the simplicity or complexity in your system as seen by your visitors.