Category : Content Management Systems (CMS)
What is A/B Testing – Multivariate Testing for Websites
A/B testing—or multivariate testing—is an experiment that you can use to increase the productivity of your website. A/B testing shows visitors alternate versions of the same web page simultaneously and randomly, to help the website owner find out what elements of the page need to be fixed.
Although A/B testing can be applied to any website, it is most often used for testing e-commerce websites, because you can directly track conversions, and see just how certain elements of a page are limiting or increasing sales.
E-Commerce Website Testing
You can test just about everything on an e-commerce website, but it isn’t necessary or feasible to test everything at once. There are three key areas that get tested the most often, and are usually the most important parts of an e-commerce site. These are the call to action buttons, the product placement and the shopping cart.
A/B Testing E-Commerce Call to Action Buttons
The call to action button is probably the most A/B tested aspect of an e-commerce website. You can analyze the results of different colors, fonts, sizes and more through A/B testing. The different options will show up for different visitors, and you can test their reactions through conversions. The call to action button that does the best can be placed permanently on the site, and we can continue on to test a different aspect.
A/B Testing Product Placement
How do the products on your website invite a customer to click through and purchase? You can A/B test products by putting them in a different placement on the page, making images larger or smaller, or even renaming some of the products.
A/B Testing the Shopping Cart
They’ve followed your product placement, clicked your call-to-action, but then they abandon your shopping car. Why? There are a number of reasons that people abandon their shopping carts online, and we list a few below:
- Login
No one wants to remember another password! A/B test giving them the option of just checking in as a guest, against having to set up an account.
- Asking for too much information
You don’t need to know their birthday in order to sell them a product! Try A/B testing an option where they only have to fill in the essentials, against the option where they have to fill in everything.
- Using a trustmark
If the customer doesn’t trust you—they won’t buy from you. Try A/B testing with a McAfee trustmark, and see if your customers respond well.
A/B testing is a great tool to see what works and what doesn’t on your website, and it’s a feature that Smart Solutions offers to all of our customers. Get the most out of your website, and let us know if you want to try out some A/B testing on your site.
If you don’t currently have an e-commerce website, but are considering one, we’d love to help you convert your site to e-commerce! Give us a call or send us an email, and we’ll set up a meeting to discuss it.
Internet Explorer 6 is Dated
As you might have heard, Microsoft is ceasing support for Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) as of July 13, 2010, when it stops support for Windows XP SP2. This isn’t bad news. This nine year-old browser is showing its wear and doesn’t cut it with today’s web standards.
The higher-performing and more design-savvy websites of today require the latest versions of modern browsers for the best user experience. Considering both realities—support and performance issues—we want to encourage our customers to ask their viewers to upgrade to Internet Explorer 8, Firefox or Safari for a better web experience. Supported browsers for admin include the latest two versions of Internet Explorer and Firefox
Our team doesn’t mind supporting older browser versions and understand some government agencies and companies use it. However, since working with IE6 is becoming ever more difficult, an extra fee for its support will be necessary moving forward.
We appreciate your understanding. If any additional browser-related questions come up, don’t hesitate to contact our team. Or, if you’re interested in the latest browser trends and statistics, check out:
http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php
http://gs.statcounter.com/
How Mind Mapping Helps Smart Solutions’ Clients
For awhile now, our team has utilized Mind Mapping, from the tools from a great client, Mindjet. Mind Mapping has assisted in organizing client’s site architecture while easily and quickly highlighting areas of weaknesses for content structure. Recently, KM World Magazine interviewed Smart Solutions and posted an article, titled Enriching Web Sites and Engage Customers Better.
Excerpt:
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Firms that rely on advanced Internet services for their marketing, customer relations and other business processes are turning to knowledge management solutions that measure customer response to Web sites, in order to improve traffic and to identify customer preferences so they can retain them and boost sales.
Smart Solutions, a software and Web development company, was working with a local nonprofit firm that wanted to redevelop its Web site to gain new members and achieve higher attendance at events, many of them fundraisers.
“The non-profit wanted to drive traffic to the site, then have visitors engaged in a meaningful way,” says Smart Solutions President Mark Knowles. Smart Solutions was using MindManager 8 from Mindjet for meetings and to collect relevant information from the Internet and other resources. A feature of the software enabled Knowles to map the existing structure of the nonprofit organization’s Web site.
“By exporting the navigation structure of the site into MindManager, we were able to see the relationships between different [pages and elements],” Knowles says. MindManager displayed the navigation structure as different branches from the same tree, and it was easy to see that some branches weren’t grouped together properly, according to Knowles. That meant that it was difficult for users to navigate.
“The site was static. That tends to happen because Web sites are built organically, a page at a time. After a while, they become disorganized,” he says. “People would come there, but they would leave quickly.”
That’s if they found the site at all. According to Knowles, part of the organization’s problem was branding. People could find the site if they knew what to look for, but they would likely miss it if their search was less specific.
Google, Yahoo and similar services use site navigation as part of their search parameters, according to Knowles. “That’s part of the SEO [search engine optimization] puzzle,” he says.
Once the site was revamped, it was much more intuitive and easier to use, with the nonprofit organization benefiting as a result. Some wording was changed as well, helping to catch the attention of the search engines.
As a result, the site has seen a 25 percent increase in traffic and a 40 percent increase in conversions (memberships and attendance at events), Knowles says.
Full Article
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Mind Mapping, as well as the other products we use and love, help our team deliver client solutions for increased web traffic and conversions on their web sites.
Linkbuilding Techniques for SEO – June SmartGroup Recap
Thank you to all that joined for this month’s discussion on link building! This is such an important topic as links are the currency of the Internet. Links are like the business referral you get from a networking event and add value to your site from a spider’s perspective and traffic/awareness from a human visitor. Participants learned the value of links and worked together to come up with a list of where to start making requests and ways to build link bait to their site. Below is the presentation available for viewing for those that would like a recap.
Sign up for next month’s July topic: The Beauty and Etiquette of Blogging.
Bend Oregon SmartGroup Adds Valuable Insights to Website Success
SmartGroup is a local usergroup setup for our Smart Solutions clients and prospective clients. We’ve covered monthly topics such as: SEO Basics, Newsletter Best Practices, Everything Images, Local Search, etc. Throughout the presentations, now offered in a both a day and evening session, we offer insights to best practices and tips and tricks to help our customers succeed.
Although our clients get the benefit of using the advice within our system, truly the SmartGroup is valuable to anyone in Bend, Oregon looking for some additional information about building successful websites and is open to come to a presentation. SmartGroups are free and beverages and snacks are provided!
Since we are on the phone daily answering client’s questions for best practices, we decided to bring education into a group setting and have the opportunity for our clients to learn from each other and discuss various web topics.
So, join us for the SmartGroup (the last Tuesday of every month) and position your business at the forefront of your competition. Signup now or view upcoming topics online!
Quick Web Design Tips To Remember
Web design has changed. The novelty of going to the World Wide Web and exploring this new medium has worn off significantly. No longer are users visiting a site and reading through lines and lines of text or watching humorous animated gifs (does anyone really miss the Dancing Baby?) online.
Nielsen & Loranger’s extensive research uncovered four questions users ask when arriving at any given web site: what site have I arrived at, what are the benefits the organization offers, what does the organization do and/or what are the newest offerings, and where do I go next to find what I’m looking for?
What site have I arrived at?
The URL has been entered, but the name of the organization, logo, and tag line should be displayed in a prominent place. This information should remain in the header and carried throughout the site.
What does the organization do and/or what are the newest offerings?
State it clearly and prominently on the home page. It should not be buried in 500 words of content. Images used should also support what the organization does (i.e. a landscape architect shouldn’t have a photo of a city skyline).
What are the benefits the organization offers?
Get to the point. What separates you from the other thousands of sites offering the same services or products? 70% of users are experienced enough to scan a page for the information they are looking for. Adding visual cues as to the benefits of your site will bring you closer to converting that user into a customer.
Where do I go next to find what I’m looking for?
The navigation should be visible and instinctive to use. Drop down menus work well for easily referencing sub pages. Calls to action should be clearly defined with verbiage like, ‘Buy Now’, ‘Call Us Today’, ‘Fill Out this Form’, or include a video with a big play button icon. The less users need to think or read, the more open they are to suggestion.
If you keep these questions in mind while designing your website, you will be on your way to lowering your bounce rate, increasing user time on the site, and raising your conversion levels.
For further reference in designing user friendly sites, see Prioritizing Web Usability.
When will CMS catch up with SEO?
Interesting that the entire first page of Google results for SEO Friendly CMS returns blogs and forums, filled with folks trying to figure out what solution they should use for their business or their clients. See the SERP here.
The consensus seems to be that there isn’t really a CMS out there which was actually built with SEO in mind. It appears that some can handle certain aspects like titles and Meta tags, but the overall vote is that you need to build your own CMS to be fully SEO friendly.
Similar to what is found on David Naylor’s blog, a majority of forum and blog contributors seem to agree that WordPress is the best SEO CMS option available. One problem… WordPress is not a CMS! Don’t get me wrong, WordPress is a great tool… for blogging! I may smack in a loose nail with the butt of a flashlight, or screwdriver, if a hammer isn’t readily available – But if I were building a house, I’m pretty sure I’d invest the $20 for a hammer. You need the right tool for the job. For businesses, WordPress is not the right tool for managing a website.
Unfortunately, too many SEO’s are just SEO’s – and that’s it. They didn’t come from a marketing or business background. Many didn’t even come from a technical background. They simply found themselves doing SEO and created a career out of it. That’s perfectly fine – But without a cursory understanding of business, they still hold to the ‘do whatever it takes’ method of band-aiding tasks and processes and using tools and methods that were not created for sustained efficacy.
But really, what were these SEO’s to do? Nothing existed that would do what they need it to do. No commercially available CMS, free or paid, gave them the flexibility required to effectively optimize a website for organic search, while still giving a business the ability to work in a non-rigid web environment. No CMS gave full HTML access, complete design control, total URL creativity, and complete flexibility over:
• Unique page titles
• Meta tags
• Sitemaps
• Internal links
• 301 redirects
• Image and Alt tag control
I admit I am completely biased about this because I use this tool and work closely with them, but I implore you to check out Pixelsilk. This is not just an SEO friendly CMS – it’s a full on SEO-enabled CMS; the first of its kind, I believe.
It’s everything a CMS should be, and any feedback that they’ve already received from top SEO’s is already being implemented. To be fair, feel free to read up on other CMS’ at either www.cmsreview.com or www.cmsmatrix.org. You may find Pixelsilk on these very soon as well.
Warning…Warning…The Coolest New Product of the Year Announced!
But you’ll have to be at SMX to see it!
Well, that’s not entirely true – you can also see it at www.pixelsilk.com; but you’re going to want to be at SMX to really get to know the geniuses behind this leading-edge…some would say “futuristic”… SEO-enabled Content Management System.
Pixelsilk will also be hosting the SMX Meet and Greet party at the Santa Clara Convention Center on February 9th; 6 – 7:30pm. Don’t miss the party – especially when Pixelsilk is buying the beer!
Here are the details:
When: Monday, February 9th, 2009
Where: Santa Clara Convention Center, Main Lobby Bar
Time: 6:00 to 7:30 pm
What to Bring: Your SMX Pass, Business Cards…and your drink tickets!
Discount Offer:
We welcome our clients and friends to join us for this special occasion. Use the coupon code: smx10pixelsilk when you register for SMX West 2009.
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