Eliminate Guesswork From Your Markting Strategy and Convert More Sales

Eliminate Guesswork From Your Marketing Strategy And Convert More Sales With FREE And Simple Split
Testing.
Charles Kangethe
Copyright Charles Kangethe 2011 The right of Charles Kangethe to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998. All rights reserved.
Disclaimer No part of this e-Book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphics, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author, Charles Kangethe. Please contact support@wealthcreatingprogram.com to request permission to use quotes from this material. Please note the exception granted in the notice of distribution. This report has been written to provide information to help you split test your web sites and convert more prospects into customers and sales. Every effort has been made to make this report as complete and accurate as possible. However, there may be mistakes in typography or content. Also, this report contains information on Internet marketing and technology valid only up to the publishing date. Therefore, this report should be used as a guide not as the ultimate source of Internet marketing information. The purpose of this report is to educate. The author does not warrant that the information contained in this report is fully complete and shall not be responsible for any errors or omissions. The author shall have neither liability nor responsibility to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this report. The author has no connection, other than as a user, with any products or services discussed in this e-Book.
Notice of Distribution
This E-book is offered FREE of Charge to anyone who would like to read it. You are welcome to distribute it freely as well, as long as it is distributed intact with no changes and NO MONEY IS CHARGED FOR IT.
Table of Contents
Introduction.............................................................................................................................. 7 Definitions .......................................................................................................................... 10 Convert More Sales. ........................................................................................................ 10 Split Testing..................................................................................................................... 10 Manual Split Testing. ....................................................................................................... 11 Automated A\B Split Testing............................................................................................ 12 Multi Variate Testing ....................................................................................................... 13 Creating An Account ............................................................................................................... 15 Testing .................................................................................................................................... 17 A\B Split Test Or Multi Variate Test? ................................................................................... 17 A\B Split Testing. ............................................................................................................. 18 Advantages of Google Website Optimizer for A\B Split Tests ........................................... 21 Multi Variate Testing. ...................................................................................................... 22 Advantages of Google Website Optimizer for Multi Variate Tests .................................... 28 Conclusions ......................................................................................................................... 29 Bonus Chapter ........................................................................................................................ 30 Headlines ............................................................................................................................ 30 First Paragraph.................................................................................................................... 31 Increase Your Credibility And Build Trust ............................................................................. 32 Testimonials .................................................................................................................... 32 Qualifications .................................................................................................................. 32 Media Recognition. ......................................................................................................... 33 Contact Information. ....................................................................................................... 33 Your Offer. ...................................................................................................................... 33 Thank You ............................................................................................................................... 34
To hard working wealth creators everywhere.
About the author Charles, is a serial founder and owner of profitable Brick and Click businesses. Currently, he owns and runs ventures that range from a hotel services business to a software and digital products, design and marketing, online business. A frequently published author, he has an extensive portfolio of business articles, many of which are online, dating back several years. Charles was educated at Warwick University, rated as one of the top 10 universities in the UK, where he read Economics graduating in 1985. A varied and colourful professional working life followed. He started as a door to door insurance salesperson, before becoming a senior IT project manager within Investment Banking, where he spent over fifteen years. On leaving banking, he taught economics at a college in Suffolk, before taking a position with an employment organisation helping ex-offenders find employment after completing their prison sentences. He now lives in Bournemouth UK with his partner Sue and works full time on his business interests, coaching and mentoring entrepreneurs and writing.
Charles Kangethe - 2012 www.wealthcreatingprogram.com
Introduction
The Internet and e-Commerce have many advantages over brick bound businesses. However, they suffer from one glaring problem which until fairly recently has been very difficult to overcome. Websites, e-Commerce and mail order are unique in that, as selling platforms there is no face to face contact between the seller and the buyer! This is a big problem because building credibility and trusting relationships with your customers, which is the absolute bedrock of all transactions, is very difficult if your business is wholly Internet based. Imagine the scenario. Our hero ontrepreneur, lets call him Splitter, has secured or manufactured a product that is going to make him a millionaire. Splitter has gone to a web designer and together they have come up with the best web site since a certain B. Gates was a little boy. Splitter gets his web site hosted on a super fast server so that his customers do not have to wait more than a nano second before the pages load and offer up his product. He has his back office team, (his wife and dog,) ready to fulfil all the orders that will come flooding through. He has not forgotten to set up an easy payment gateway at Paypal and he checks and double checks everything. Let the good times roll! He initiates a marketing strategy to promote the new e-Commerce site. He writes and submits articles with his URL to directories. He gets stuck into social media networking and gradually he starts to build up a steady, if small, stream of traffic to the site. Great! The days turn into week, the weeks into months and then before you know it his anniversary is up. He checks his Paypal account and there is the grand sum of zip. Zero. Nada. Ouch! What happened?
I guess Splitter didnt convert too many of the prospects who visited his site into paying customers!
Eliminate Guesswork From Your Marketing Strategy And Convert More Sales With FREE And Simple Split Testing.
They came to him from the links he built into his articles, from the social media networks, from classifieds, and from search engines. They came to him all right, but he did not build credibility nor did he build trust. That is the high level reason they left without buying from him. Understand this deeply. Understand it until it hurts.
If you cannot build a credible, trusting relationship with your customer, you will NEVER become one of the Internets big dogs of successful marketing!
Furthermore, if you do not start to build that credibility and trust very quickly when your prospect arrives at your website, you will lose them probably forever!
Let me ask you a question. The high level reason Splitter failed to convert prospects into customers was the lack of credibility and trust. But, did you spot the root cause of the problem our ontrepreneur failed to confront and beat? Yes? Good. No? OK, let me spell it out. In Internet marketing there are three key elements. 1. The Product 2. The Offer The price and associated bonuses. 3. The Creative The website copy, fonts, formatting, images and positioning of these items on the page. Our ontrepreneur has a product. Now let us assume that the product is a good one. I know we should never assume, but if we do not make a few assumptions, this e-Book will go on for ever. Being a good student of what the Internet gurus have told him in their never ending e-mails, Splitter secured the sole rights to a compatible bonus product as his freebie giveaway. His own product plus the bonus puts him ahead of others selling similar products. He has his USP. The web designer he retained did an excellent job
and gave the site a professional look and feel. There are navigation menus around the site as well as relevant images that load quickly. And, although he is not a copywriter, he did a decent job with the web copy. This is where the problems started. During the year of trading, Splitter did everything to drive traffic to his site and with some success it must be said. But, he did not test his site to ensure that prospects were being engaged by what they found when they got there. Why did he fall into this very common trap? Splitter is a wannabe marketer. He has good ideas, but the thought of doing a lot of work does not really excite him. That is why he chose to start an online presence instead of renting premises in town to sell his product from a brick outlet. He figured it would be easy. Get the site up, put the offer on and bingo, millionaire! He made the same assumption made by 99% of ontrepreneurs. They ASSUME that they have the offer and the creative just right to convert prospects into customers. How do they know this? Well have you heard these kinds of comments? I did English at school, I can write good copy. I have studied great copy from a library book. I know what works. This product is so good, it moves itself. The simple answer is this. On the Internet, you do not get to meet your prospects and customers. You have very little chance to ask them what they like or do not like about your website. You do not always know if your offer is over or under priced. Any AND all conclusions you arrive at about your offer and your creative, without any testing is PURE GUESSWORK. Guesswork, like throwing dice, is more often than not the first step to failure. Please read that many, many times. And then read it once more. If there is one thing that guarantees you will look at your Paypal account and find little in there it is a failure to test, test and then test some more. This is the secret that differentiates the big guys from the minnows of the Internet marketing world. The big guys are ALWAYS testing. The failure to test is the root cause of why Splitter, a wannabe marketer, had a bad year. OK so what sort of testing will help Splitter in his hour of need? Before we look at this question and answer it at length, we need to define and describe a few concepts.
Definitions
Convert More Sales.
If your website sells a product or services, your definition of converting more sales, is easy. You want to engage with prospects who visit your website and turn more of them into cash paying customers, more frequently. But, what if your website is an information portal, providing free and paid information to visitors? You know the type of thing. A directory of other important websites in a particular sector or an article directory hosting publications from Splitter and his friends. What is your convert more sales, proposition in this case? You could define it as getting more prospects to leave their e-mail addresses for future opt in mailings and perhaps back end upsells. You might define it as getting them to sign up to a renewable, fee paying, membership part of the site where they receive specialist info products unavailable elsewhere. And what if your website is a gateway to another site? What does convert more sales, mean in this case? It could be increasing the click through rate to the other website. It could be the amount of time the prospect spends on the landing page reading and understanding your business. You can define your convert more sales, proposition in almost any way that makes sense for your online business. You have a website and you have some traffic. I know. Another assumption! You, have to decide what you want that traffic to do on your website. That thing they do more of, is your convert more sales, proposition.
Split Testing. This type of testing has its pedigree going back to the early 20th Century with one of the Worlds most famous ad men, Claude Hopkins. The concept of split testing is quite simple. It means that you take your original creative, also known as the control, and test it against alternatives. Why would you want to do this?
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Because it is the ONLY way to identify what rocks, MOST of your prospects and makes them part with their cash to buy your product or service. You will never sell to everyone, but you can sell to a lot more than you are now if you test out what works for the majority of visitors. When you, or Splitters web designer creates original copy, if you do not test it for all variables, you can only guess as to whether it is the best copy for converting your traffic and prospects into customers. You have no way of knowing if the attention grabbing headline is drawing readers into the body of the copy. You do not know if your introductory paragraph is turning hot prospects off and wasting all the time, effort and money, you have spent getting them there in the first place. What about that image you painstakingly developed and put up in the top right hand corner of the table? Is it doing your product offer any favours? Well if you do not test, I can guarantee you will not know for certain. You will be guessing. It could be that removing that image or placing it somewhere else may assist your convert more sales, proposition. But you will not know without testing. By testing alternative creatives against your original, over time you get statistics, that tell you clearly what prospects like and dislike about your website. You stop guessing and start homing in on what they want. Your credibility rises and your trust building with prospects improves as you communicate more sympathetically through your web copy and creative. As your credibility and trust relationship building improve, so too does your conversion of sales, rate. Let us now look at variants of online split testing. (Offline splits work slightly differently but the big principles are the same.)
Manual Split Testing.
Before FREE tools, like the one we will look at became available, better marketers used to pay a fortune for commercial products or they used to engage in simple, manual split testing. Manual split tests are typically what are known as A\B Splits. An A\B Split test consists of an original webpage which runs for several days, weeks or months, depending on the volume of traffic going to that website. The higher the traffic the shorter the run period needs to be and vice versa. During the run, statistics are manually compiled to determine the conversion of sales proposition for that website. At the end of the original run period, a new alternative page is loaded and run for an equivalent period.
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The difference between the original and the alternative pages is held to one single item such as headline, offer, introductory paragraph or image. The reason the change is limited to only one item is because, if you made more than one change and the alternative converted more sales, you would not know what change to attribute the increase to. At the end of the alternative pages run period, a manual comparison of the conversion rate statistics takes place. If the new page achieved better conversion results, it becomes the new control and another alternative is created with a different modification in one item. If it was worse then it is discarded and the cycle starts all over again. The main problems with manual A\B split testing are: 1. It is sloooooow, testing only one change at a time over a period that can be up to several months long. 2. It is inefficient depending as it does on manual recording of statistics. It sounds like the definition of tedious work. Can you see why Splitter was not very keen on doing this type of testing? Unfortunately, because he did no testing at all he had a miserable trading year!
Automated A\B Split Testing.
It was not long after split testing became a tightly guarded secret amongst the early Internet marketing superstars, that a clever technology type decided, We can automate A\B splits. And so the first automated tools started to appear. Initially they were crude and quite technical but without exception, they were all expensive. They did exactly the same thing as manual A\B splits, but with a twist. Using the expensive techie software, the ontrepreneur created many alternative test pages and embedded some code in the HTML before loading these pages onto his server and starting the test. The split test software would use the embedded code to serve a different page on a rotational basis to website visitors. It would also compile statistics on the fly about which page was converting more sales. Web masters and ontrepreneurs would then review these statistics and make changes to the website to ensure they were showing the best performing page to visitors.
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The limitations of the manual A\B split test had been overcome. Now the tests were quicker and the statistics more accurate. However, a few new problems cropped up. Firstly, the new tools were expensive. A recent search revealed that even today a simple A\B split testing tool will set you back just under $150.00. Splitter made no money in his first trading year. $150.00 in that context is a lot of money! Secondly, even though the tools make testing quicker you are still only ever testing one condition against the control at a time. Many different conditions on a website influence visitor behaviour. Changing one condition per page and comparing it against the original or control is still a long process even with an automated tool.
Multi Variate Testing
Advances in software based testing linked to statistical algorithms eventually led to multi variate or multi variable testing. In this form of testing, a single page is marked up with code tags. Each tag allows the software to rotate a pre defined variation of that section of the webpage. Therefore, with multi variate testing you can test an almost unlimited combination of changes to a webpage. You can have several headline changes served up to your visitors with several different image locations and many different first paragraphs and so on. Each combination served up is statistically analysed for conversion rate using algorithms that go by names such as Taguchi. As the test is running you can review ongoing results on the fly to determine which combination of headline, offer, images and copy is converting more sales. Brilliant! Except that for this level of sophistication and quick results you must pay a new higher level of premium. Another recent trawl through the available software uncovered one gem selling for a little under $1,000.00. That was for an outright purchase that you can host on your web server. However, the software is such a highly technical piece of kit it requires the creator to install it for you! For a more user friendly package which you are not permitted to host on your own server, the annual ongoing subscriptions are about $600.00 per annum. Yikes! So again, we have a cost issue despite the undoubted advantages of multi variate testing software.
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The next chapters of this e-Book will look at how to use software that has combined A\B and multi variate split testing capability. It is easy to use and requires no great technical ability and best of all it is FREE. Did you get that? 1. It does all the testing you want and need 2. It gives you statistical evidence on the fly about what is working and what is not in easy reports 3. It is FREE. A billion dollar company has created the software, so you can assume, (yes, I know,) that it is well written and supported. That software is Googles Website Optimizer.
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Creating An Account
You must log into Googles Website Optimizer and set up an account before you can use the software. This simple process requires that you sign up to an agreement which is standard fare these days.
Figure 1 - Sign Up \ login page for Google's Website Optimizer
When you have set up your account, you will be taken to your account page where there are numerous aids and links to help. If you are not very clear on technical matters, I assure you this looks far more scary than it really is. In any event, techie or not, it is always a good idea to read the material on such pages so that you get a feel for what you will soon be able to do with your new software. Assuming (oh not again,) you have read the really quite useful help topics, you are now ready to plunge into the world of the big guys. You are now ready to eliminate guesswork from your marketing strategy and begin to convert more sales.
A word of caution. Testing is not an end in itself.

Testing your websites is all about one very simple thing. It is about improving or increasing your conversion rates.
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Some software out there almost seems to justify its existence on how many different tests it can do. These tools use increasingly complex statistical algorithms and report outcomes by giving complicated views and slices of reports. This is fine if techie testing is your main priority, but as I have said, testing is not an end in itself. In the tradition of Claude Hopkins, the tests have to benefit your bottom line not your technical ego.
Testing has a very real and very practical purpose. It is about comparing web creatives and offers, to improve and increase your sales conversion rates. Nothing more or less!
You set the tests up, you monitor the results, and you change your website to better converting combinations of conditions. Simple! Googles Website Optimizer gives you major league testing features without bogging you down in testing for testing sake. This is one more huge plus for this software.
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Testing
A\B Split Test Or Multi Variate Test?
The first question you have to decide on is are you going to perform an A\B split test or a multi variate test. If your website is a simple one page landing and sales page in one, you may choose to do A\B splits. If your website has many different pages, with many different convert more sales, propositions you may feel more comfortable using the multi variate features as these give more testing flexibility. If undecided, you can start with the simple A\B split test and then progress to multi variate testing once your control is converting well. In this situation, your multi variate tests would serve to fine tune what your A\B tests had revealed as, credible and trust building, web pages. (Do you remember those two factors of successful marketing?) Googles Website Optimizer allows you to choose between simple automated A\B split testing or more sophisticated multi variate testing.
Figure 2 - Test Type Selection Screen
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A\B Split Testing.
Google suggests you use this A\B Split Test if the following conditions apply: 1. You can publish an original control page AND an alternative test page or pages 2. You want to test the overall look and feel of the page.
Note - These are recommendations and not prescriptions. You have the choice to use multi
variate testing, if that suits your purpose better, even if these conditions apply. The A\B split tests require you to start with an original or control web creative. You then create several different alternatives in which each alternative varies from the control by one condition. This is so you can tell what specific change is generating increases (or decreases) in converting sales.
Figure 3 - Setting up an A\B Split Test
The four stage sequential set up process is 1. Determine a name for your experiment. 2. Select your control or original test page.
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3. Create several alternative test pages. Vary each by one condition so you can tell what change has contributed to a change in your convert more sales, proposition. For new testers, I suggest you use something like Excel spreadsheet to list out all your test conditions. Use a column to list the test name and next to that add a test description. For example Test 1, Heading change <original hdg> to <new hdg 1 This allows you to construct your experiments quickly and to have a check against which to monitor the test results easily. 4. Identify a conversion page this is the page that visitors will go to which signals a successful conversion. You then elect whether you will embed a small piece of code into the HTML of the pages or whether your webmaster will do this work.
Figure 4 - Screen to elect who will add code to web pages
Now, before you throw your hands up in the air, the level of computing skill required here is little more than an ability to Copy and Paste.
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If Figure 5 - Software creates code to Copy and tells you where to Paste it in the pages
If you can Copy and Paste and can find your web pages on your local machine, you can achieve this task yourself easily and quickly. The software will generate the code you need to copy AND it will tell you where to paste it. See Fig 5 above. Unless you really struggle with basic computing techniques and have zero knowledge of HTML, you do not need your webmaster or anyone else to do this task for you. If however, you choose to let someone else handle this task for you, the software will give you a URL they can use to log in and complete the work before loading the pages back up to your server.
Figure 6 - Link a webmaster would receive to with instructions to add page tags
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When you (or your webmaster) have finished Copying and Pasting the code in your test pages, you load them back up to your server and then the software validates that you have done everything correctly.
Figure 7 - Verify pages after inserting the code and loading them back to host server
Once you trigger the test to start, the code tags serve the control and the alternative pages to visitors on your site in a random, rotational basis. The software starts to track and calculate which page is converting best and shows you the results on the fly in clear easy to read reports. A visitor to your site will always be shown the same page they saw on first visit because the code incorporates cookies to recognise returning visitors. Being a Google creation you can be sure this code will not affect your web pages ranking on the search engine either. This is excellent introduction to split testing and an important part of this hugely important marketing strategy. Advantages of Google Website Optimizer for A\B Split Tests 1. Automated software tool, accurate statistics with clear reporting. 2. Test multiple pages simultaneously. 3. Created by Google and fully compatible with their other software such as Google Analytics. 4. Does not adversely affect your Google page rank. 5. Simple to implement and requires no technical expertise if you are comfortable with very basic HTML editing and can copy and Paste. 6. It is FREE
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For the remainder of this e-Book I will discuss multi variate testing as this gives you more options for testing more conditions simultaneously. This quickens your testing cycles and that must be good for your ability to convert more sales. After all, when you have a low visitor or traffic throughput to your new site, you cannot afford to lose those prospects because you have a disengaging creative. Remember this was the problem with Splitters website.
Multi Variate Testing.
To start, you select multi variate testing from your account dashboard. See Figure 2. Google suggests you use a multi variate test if these conditions apply: 1. Your test page receives more than approximately 1,000 visits per month. 2. You want to test multiple changes in different parts of the page simultaneously. Note - These are recommendations and not prescriptions. You have the choice to use A\B Split testing if that suits your purpose better, even if these conditions apply. The multi variate option in Googles Website Optimizer requires that before you begin you sit down with your team and make a few decisions. 1. What aspects or conditions, (headlines, copy, images, offer,) of your website do you want to test? Google Web Optimizer calls these conditions sections. 2. What is your convert more sales proposition? Do you have more than one such proposition? 3. What sort of traffic volume do you have on your website and consequently how long do you want to run the tests for? 4. Identify a page where a conversion success is recorded, if your visitor gets there. This is typically a Thank you page shown to your customer after they have completed a purchase. But, remember from our definitions, your convert more sales proposition can be anything you want to test and not just hard cash sales. You are interested in setting a test that shows what is getting your visitors to do what you have defined as convert more sales best.
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This pre-planning allows you to set up test, what the Website Optimizer calls experiments, with much more clarity of purpose.
Figure 8 - Planning before setting a multi variate test
Once you and your team have decided on what sections to test and why you want to test them, you are ready to add the experiment to the Web Optimizer. The following figure demonstrates the type of information required.
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Figure 9 - Multi variate test setup
The five stage sequential process for setting up and initiating a multi variate test is: 1. Determine a name for your experiment. 2. Select your control or original test page. 3. Identify a conversion page this is the page that visitors will go to which signals a successful conversion. 4. Add the tags (code) to the pages This is a Copy and Paste job. 5. Trigger the test.
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Figure 10 - Software generated code for copying and pasting into named places on test pages
On completion of the setup the Optimizer generates the code you or a webmaster must copy and paste to your test pages. The software tells you in detail where the code must be pasted. If you are competent with very basic computer techniques such as Copy and Paste and have a little HTML experience, so you can for instance find the <HEAD> tag, you can do this work yourself without problem. On completion of the copy and Paste exercise, you just load your test and conversion pages back up to your server and then ask the Optimizer to verify the site. This ensures you have added the code correctly. See Fig 7.
Figure 11 - Example code copied and pasted into test page
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The figure above shows example code that goes into you test pages to track your conversion rates. The figure below shows the in stream section tags that are wrapped round each situation or condition you want to test. This code allows you to set the different variations for your test. Each section you want to test is wrapped with the code in blue and given a unique name.
Figure 12 - Examples of test situations
In this particular experiment, there is a test section on the pages headline, an image and on the pages call to action. These in stream HTML tags allow you to set several different variations of headlines, paragraphs, images and so on for testing automatically. Each new visitor will see a different combination of the sections you have defined.
Figure 13 - Setting variations for each section
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Figure 13 shows the screen where after defining your sections you can add and edit as many variations of that section as you want to test. In this case, the test is for a headline which will be tested against different alternatives to see which one pulls visitors into the copy most effectively. Each new variation for a given section, in this case the headline section, must be given a new name so that a track can be initiated for it when you trigger the software.
Figure 14 - Naming a section's variation test. A section can have several variations undergoing test simultaneously
When you have added all variations you want to test for all the sections you have defined, you can preview the combinations that visitors will see when they visit your site.
Figure 15 - Two headline variations
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Figure 15 shows two headline variations. The top heading is the original or control. The bottom is a variation on the heading section that the web owner wants to test. Each will be shown at random to visitors and over time statistics will emerge showing which one converts more sales.
Figure 16 - Example report page
A running experiment will generate statistics on the fly which you will be able to review from a report page as in figure 16. Clicking on the links drills down deeper to more information about how the different tests are performing. A visitor to your site will always be shown the same page they saw at first visit because the code uses cookies to recognise returning visitors. This code will not affect your web pages ranking on the search engine either. Advantages of Google Website Optimizer for Multi Variate Tests 1. Automated tool, accurate statistics with clear reporting. 2. Test as many variations and combinations of creative as make sense for improving your conversion rates. 3. Created by Google and fully compatible with their other software such as Google Analytics.
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4. Does not adversely affect your Google page rank. 5. Simple to implement and requires no technical expertise if you are comfortable with very basic HTML editing and can copy and Paste. 6. It is FREE
Conclusions
1. The difference between successful Internet marketers and the rest is TESTING. 2. If you do not test your web creative and offer, you are GUESSING at what converts more sales. 3. Guessing means, you cannot change your web sales copy effectively to convert more of your precious visitors into cash paying customers. 4. A\B Split Testing is a simple straightforward comparison of two or more web pages to see which converts better. 5. Multi variate testing takes the concept a stage further and allows testing of many combinations of conditions on a page to identify which combination visitors respond to better. 6. Googles Website Optimizer allows you to set up easily and quickly A\B and Multi variate tests. 7. Googles Website Optimizer is big league software with full functionality but use of the product does not require advanced technical ability. 8. Testing has a hard edged practical purpose. It determines what combination of offer and creative converts more sales. Testing for the sake of testing a products many complex features, is a waste of time if it does not lead directly to increased knowledge of what converts better. 9. Googles Website Optimizer is FREE.
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Bonus Chapter
We have covered testing of your website creative settings in some detail. You understand that not testing leaves you in the minor leagues of Internet marketing with the likes of Splitter. But before you begin your testing, you must have at least one original creative as a control. This bonus chapter gives you some very general guidance for writing your own initial copy. However, once again, this is just the start you must test, test, test and then test some more. And now there is no reason not to with easy to use automated and FREE major league software.
Headlines
Headlines are probably the most important part of your web creative. It takes a fraction of a minute for a visitor to decide whether they want to read the rest of your copy. The engagement they have with your headline is critical to this unless you are selling something they cannot do without for living and you are the only outlet in the world! (If you have that can I have some too please?) Your sales pages are your 24/7 face to the World. Like a good host or hostess, those pages must engage and encourage quick credibility with your visitors. The trust will come later. The back button on web browsers is your biggest enemy and visitors know how to wield that weapon well. Your headline must grab them strongly enough to lead them into any sub headings and then into the first paragraph. If they get past that point, you have a good chance they will at least skim through the rest of the creative and get to see your offer. If you have done the rest half way well, you may make a sale, but the starting point is a strong headline. What elements make for a good strong headline? You can engage with visitors by headlining their want for: 1. Saving or making money. 2. Better health.
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3. Eliminating and getting rid of problems. 4. A quicker way to do things. 5. Secrets and little known ways to do something revealed. Once you have your headline using these formulaic approaches, play around with the formatting. Have you ever noticed how newspapers and magazines use headline formatting to encourage you to read the story? Sizes of font, colours, punctuation are all seemingly irrelevant attributes but research has found repeatedly people react to these differently depending on the setting. For instance, which of the two headlines (same words) below strikes you on first look as more powerful? Get rid of your boss and achieve financial freedom. GET RID OF YOUR BOSS, AND ACHIEVE FINACIAL FREEDOM Your main headline pulls the reader into the sub headings if any exist. These should be crafted using the same approach as the main headline, and build on the main headings story line. The sub headings pull the reader into the first paragraph.
First Paragraph.
The headings set the tone for credibility. The first paragraph begins to set the tone for trust. This is where you start to involve emotionally your visitors with your business. Emotional involvement begins with what is often described as the sizzle. Successful marketers know that you must sell the sizzle not the steak. You sell the destination not the journey. Sell the dream not the sleep. To do this, you must get emotional content into your top paragraph as quickly as possible. Encourage your visitors to engage their imagination and think of what might be, using your product or service, rather than launching into the products features straight away. Your copy will have time in later paragraphs to spell out the benefits of your product or service, but at this early stage where you are building rapport with your prospect you must develop early credibility and trust. This comes from emotional contact which makes them feel as though you know them personally and are talking to them and them alone.
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Is this difficult? Of course it is. That is why a good copy writer can charge 100s of dollars per hour to write a small creative. They know the power of their words and their constructions and even they would be the first to say you should test different copy. For non professional copy writers, like Splitter and his web designer, the next best thing is testing. When you have made your initial stab at copy writing, you must use automated split testing software to test the propositions. Test until you are sure you have the best converting combination of headlines, top paragraph and offer.
Increase Your Credibility And Build Trust

Testimonials.
Credibility and trust are the absolute gold standard bedrock of web marketing. People buy from those they inherently like and trust. The easiest sale you will ever make is a repeat sale to an existing customer. They have previously bought from you and therefore know you and trust you. You are a credible source of products and services. The second easiest sale you will ever make is to a referral. If a customer tells their friends, they are more likely to buy from you as well. This is where the power of testimonials kicks in. A testimonial with full names of your customer, applied to your web copy with permission from the customer, is a valuable referral for visitors even though they do not necessarily know the customer. People like to feel part of a group and when making a purchase of more than a few dollars in value, they want to know others have bought and recommended the product previously. It gives them a safe feeling.
Qualifications.
If you have qualifications, academic or experiential, add these to your about us pages. Prove you are an expert in your sphere. Even if you have only attended a weekend course that gave you the right to add certain letters after your name put them out there.
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People like to deal with experts and specialists.
Media Recognition.
If your product or service has won awards or been represented in the local or national media you must add this to your site. Recognition of your product or service by peers in your industry or by objective outsiders who have credibility is an important marketing strategy for building credibility and trust. Contact Information.
Do not hide behind an e-Mail address with no physical address in sight and then ask a visitor to part with a great deal of money. The first thing they smell is a rat with this kind of marketing. Not exactly, what you want! You must have a physical address to build confidence in your prospects. Now, if you are concerned about giving your home business address out, rent a disguised mail box and give that out instead. A disguised mail box does not appear to be a mail box. The operator has an address that makes it seem like a normal office or building address.
Your Offer.
Make this realistic. If you have a product available on eBay for pennies and you are asking for 100 of dollars, you are not being real. You must offer your product and service at a price that gives your prospect value for money. Add FREE giveaways to your products and services to enhance their value in the eyes of your prospect. The freebies must be valuable in their own right and not junk. Write up the benefits of the bonus gifts with as much care as you do your own product. You never know people may buy your product just to get at the bonus! While on the subject of your offer, make it easy for your prospects to buy from you. Have sensibly placed buy now buttons and ensure all payment options are covered. Be thoughtful in how your online store presents itself to a mature buying public and then test to convert more sales.
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Thank You
Thank you for taking the time to read this e-Book on split testing. It is my intention to coach and mentor entrepreneurs both off and online to achieve the best they can for themselves. Testing separates superstar marketers from also-rans. At one time, it was a closely guarded secret and even those in the know needed deep pockets to buy the test software they needed to convert more sales. Now with tools like Googles Website Optimizer we have all been given a huge lifeline to a marketing strategy and all for the grand sum of zilch. Failure to use this strategy is folly because it leaves you guessing in the dark about what works best for your business conversion rates. I hope you found this information interesting and instructive. I would love to hear your views and perhaps answer any questions you might have about anything to do with business. My support e-mail address is support@wealthcreatingprogram.com where you can write to me with observations and questions. Finally, if you liked this e-Book you may care to have a look at another of my programs for anyone who wants to become financially independent. Just visit www.wealthcreatingprogram.com for full details.
To your wealth,
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Table Of Figures
Figure 1 - Sign Up \ login page for Google's Website Optimizer ............................................... 15 Figure 2 - Test Type Selection Screen ...................................................................................... 17 Figure 3 - Setting up an A\B Split Test...................................................................................... 18 Figure 4 - Screen to elect who will add code to web pages ...................................................... 19 If Figure 5 - Software creates code to Copy and tells you where to Paste it in the pages .......... 20 Figure 6 - Link a webmaster would receive to with instructions to add page tags .................... 20 Figure 7 - Verify pages after inserting the code and loading them back to host server ............. 21 Figure 8 - Planning before setting a multi variate test.............................................................. 23 Figure 9 - Multi variate test setup ........................................................................................... 24 Figure 10 - Software generated code for copying and pasting into test pages.......................... 25 Figure 11 - Example code copied and pasted into test page..................................................... 25 Figure 12 - Examples of test situations .................................................................................... 26 Figure 13 - Setting variations for each section ......................................................................... 26 Figure 14 - Naming a section's variation test. .......................................................................... 27 Figure 15 - Two headline variations ......................................................................................... 27 Figure 16 - Example report page ............................................................................................. 28
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Eliminate Guesswork From Your Markting Strategy and Convert More Sales

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Eliminate Guesswork From Your Markting Strategy and Convert More Sales

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Eliminate Guesswork From Your Marketing Strategy And Convert More Sales With FREE And Simple Split

To hard working wealth creators everywhere.

Charles Kangethe - 2012 www.wealthcreatingprogram.com

Charles Kangethe - 2012 www.wealthcreatingprogram.com

Charles Kangethe - 2012 www.wealthcreatingprogram.com

Charles Kangethe - 2012 www.wealthcreatingprogram.com

Charles Kangethe - 2012 www.wealthcreatingprogram.com

Manual Split Testing.

Charles Kangethe - 2012 www.wealthcreatingprogram.com

Automated A\B Split Testing.

Charles Kangethe - 2012 www.wealthcreatingprogram.com

Multi Variate Testing

Charles Kangethe - 2012 www.wealthcreatingprogram.com

Charles Kangethe - 2012 www.wealthcreatingprogram.com

Figure 1 - Sign Up \ login page for Google's Website Optimizer

A word of caution. Testing is not an end in itself.

Charles Kangethe - 2012 www.wealthcreatingprogram.com

Charles Kangethe - 2012 www.wealthcreatingprogram.com

Figure 2 - Test Type Selection Screen

Charles Kangethe - 2012 www.wealthcreatingprogram.com

A\B Split Testing.

Figure 3 - Setting up an A\B Split Test

Charles Kangethe - 2012 www.wealthcreatingprogram.com

Figure 4 - Screen to elect who will add code to web pages

Charles Kangethe - 2012 www.wealthcreatingprogram.com

Charles Kangethe - 2012 www.wealthcreatingprogram.com

Charles Kangethe - 2012 www.wealthcreatingprogram.com

Multi Variate Testing.

Charles Kangethe - 2012 www.wealthcreatingprogram.com

Figure 8 - Planning before setting a multi variate test

Charles Kangethe - 2012 www.wealthcreatingprogram.com

Figure 9 - Multi variate test setup

Charles Kangethe - 2012 www.wealthcreatingprogram.com

Figure 11 - Example code copied and pasted into test page

Charles Kangethe - 2012 www.wealthcreatingprogram.com

Figure 12 - Examples of test situations

Figure 13 - Setting variations for each section

Charles Kangethe - 2012 www.wealthcreatingprogram.com

Figure 15 - Two headline variations

Charles Kangethe - 2012 www.wealthcreatingprogram.com

Figure 16 - Example report page

Charles Kangethe - 2012 www.wealthcreatingprogram.com

Charles Kangethe - 2012 www.wealthcreatingprogram.com

Charles Kangethe - 2012 www.wealthcreatingprogram.com

Charles Kangethe - 2012 www.wealthcreatingprogram.com

Increase Your Credibility And Build Trust

Charles Kangethe - 2012 www.wealthcreatingprogram.com

People like to deal with experts and specialists.

Charles Kangethe - 2012 www.wealthcreatingprogram.com

Charles Kangethe - 2012 www.wealthcreatingprogram.com

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