Google website optimiser
08 Aug 07 Filed in:Shopping
If you have a product to sell, idea to promote, or story to tell, you could do worse than adopt a landing page mentality to ensure some positive results. Sounds like a lot of techno marketing fooey? Relax, Google have come to the rescue.
Rather than leaving us wannabe webmasters to sit around debating in a vacuum about what does and doesn't work best for an all-action webpage layout, (that is page not site) Google Website Optimiser helps us get down to some serious and well-constructed testing to determine what page layout will work best.
The biggest single pointer I picked up is the concept of landing pages. If you think in terms of those pages that appear when you click on 100 ways to Improve your Sex Life, you should already be half way towards understanding what you are trying to achieve with the Website Optimiser. Bottom line, any webpage you create can and should generate a response/action from your reader.
The action doesn't need to be a sale, it could be encouraging readers to sign up for your RSS subscription, or take a look at another article, or whatever you have going on with competitions or memes or link trains.
The video presentation spells out the options and key points and variables you need to consider for an effective landing page. Starting from the top (literally) and working down, you can isolate each stage of the psychological process that occurs when we look at a page, and scientifically test what works best as a headline, a sales pitch, a photo and a call for action.
I learnt quite a few things, one of them being, sexy photos draw your eye in to a page, but may draw you away from the call to action - or worse, drive you to perform a different action to the one intended by the webpage designer. Therefore, Ed icons will stay as unsexy as ever.
The video also clarified the meaning of a call for action. I realise that whenever you read an article, all I want is for you to
1- smile
2 - go aaaah
3- sign up to my RSS feed
4- submit an entry to a widget or install one of my widgets.
Simple aims!
If you are curious about web page optimization, take a look at the video.
Rather than leaving us wannabe webmasters to sit around debating in a vacuum about what does and doesn't work best for an all-action webpage layout, (that is page not site) Google Website Optimiser helps us get down to some serious and well-constructed testing to determine what page layout will work best.
It's all in a landing page
The biggest single pointer I picked up is the concept of landing pages. If you think in terms of those pages that appear when you click on 100 ways to Improve your Sex Life, you should already be half way towards understanding what you are trying to achieve with the Website Optimiser. Bottom line, any webpage you create can and should generate a response/action from your reader.
The action doesn't need to be a sale, it could be encouraging readers to sign up for your RSS subscription, or take a look at another article, or whatever you have going on with competitions or memes or link trains.
The video presentation spells out the options and key points and variables you need to consider for an effective landing page. Starting from the top (literally) and working down, you can isolate each stage of the psychological process that occurs when we look at a page, and scientifically test what works best as a headline, a sales pitch, a photo and a call for action.
A couple of useful tips
I learnt quite a few things, one of them being, sexy photos draw your eye in to a page, but may draw you away from the call to action - or worse, drive you to perform a different action to the one intended by the webpage designer. Therefore, Ed icons will stay as unsexy as ever.
The video also clarified the meaning of a call for action. I realise that whenever you read an article, all I want is for you to
1- smile
2 - go aaaah
3- sign up to my RSS feed
4- submit an entry to a widget or install one of my widgets.
Simple aims!
If you are curious about web page optimization, take a look at the video.
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