Get the most out of A/B testing.
Your business will flourish if your website or software is always functional and easy to use. Gartner explains that, “Usability affects how customers perceive and respond to products, services and artifacts of all types, including websites and applications.” It is of paramount importance to carry out regular A/B testing to analyze the functionalism of the website. The test results will help you to know parameters or strategies that work best for your business.
Here are 7 ground-breaking tips to help you maximize your A/B testing.
1. Data Collection –
Gartner recommends using A/B testing as one of its top 10 best design practices. “Validation of creative ideas via systematic usability testing and other mechanisms driven by objective data from users.”
For research to be relevant, you must have enough data. It is difficult to quantify the sample size of each A/B testing plan. The lowest number of conversions or visitors required to carry the test largely depends on the true value of your product and the average number of visitors that come to your site. For example, if you get, 50000 visitors per month, you can use 100 visitors to carry out the variation.
2. Lock out ‘Noise’ –
These are simply factors that do not directly relate to your core objective and goals. If you create an e-book that deals online marketing and manage to sell it to over 500 clients, then down the road you realize that 10% of the clients are actually students taking business courses in a certain university. The 10% is actually an external factor or noise as it does not resonate with your idea or targets. It is highly recommendable to avoid using such visitors in the variation as they will skew your data in the wrong direction. For example, if Honda conducted customer research, any respondents under legal driving age should be ‘locked out’.
3. Get Customer Feedback –
This is one of the surest ways of knowing if your products or service meet the specific needs of the customers. It is wise to collect such information before running any usability tests. A quick online survey that clients can complete in 3 minutes or less can help you collect all the information you need. Use the results to make changes on your business to improve service delivery and quality of your products.
4. Use Analytics –
Google analytics is a tool that is specifically tailored to help website owners know what their visitors or clients are looking for. If you realize that a particular term or phrase such as “service” is commonly used to access your site, then you need ensure that the services section need to be well displayed, updated and comprehensive at all times to convert traffic into sales.
5. Follow Pareto Principle –
This is also referred to as the 80-20 rule. It states, “Focus more on the 20% elements or attributes that generate 80% of the results.” For example, if you have 10 pages and only two get 80% of the total traffic. Focus more on the two pages by optimizing them to ensure that they deliver more results.
6. Be Unique –
One of the common mistakes that entrepreneurs make is by emulating other businesses success stories. Even if your business is similar, it is totally different because the circumstances and models vary. Changing the design of a landing change may lead to an increase in sales in one website but that does not mean that any other business that changes its landing page will get the same results. Bottom line; use tests that are in line with your business model and goals.
7. Trust Symbols –
Did you know that adding a symbol on your website can increase sales? Well, websites such as Blue Fountain media managed to double their leads by just adding a VeriSign on their page. The main benefit of using symbols to test usability is that the risks attached are low.
A/B testing is indeed one of the most trusted and sure ways of gauge usability of your website.
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