Website Optimization E-Book

Rich Page

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 650

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

Step-by-step instructions for executing a website testing and optimization plan Website optimization is can be an overwhelming endeavor due to the fact that it encompasses so many strategic and technical issues. However, this hands-on, task-based book demystifies this potentially intimidating topic by offering smart, practical, and tested instructions for developing, implementing, managing, and tracking website optimization efforts. After you learn how to establish an optimization framework, you then dive into learning how to develop a plan, test appropriately and accurately, interpret the results, and optimize in order to maximize conversion rates and improve profits. * Zeroes in on fundamentals such as understanding key metrics, choosing analytics tools, researching visitors and their onsite behavior, and crafting a plan for what to test and optimize * Walks you through testing and optimizing specific web pages including the homepage, entry and exit pages, product and pricing pages, as well as the shopping cart and check-out process * Guides you through important optimization areas such as optimizing text and images * Addresses advanced topics including paid search optimization, Facebook fan page optimization, rich media, and more * Includes a companion website that features expanded examples, additional resources, tool reviews, and other related information Full of interesting case studies and helpful examples drawn from the author's own experience, Website Optimization: An Hour a Day is the complete solution for anyone who wants to get the best possible results from their web page.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Advance Praise for Website Optimization: An Hour a Day

Foreword

Introduction

Chapter 1: Setting the Website Optimization Scene

Introduction to Website Optimization

The Rise of Website Optimization: The Aftermath of the Dot-com Bubble Bursting

The Differences between Landing Page Optimization, Conversion Rate Optimization, Website Testing, and Website Optimization

The Difference between Website Optimization and Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Chapter 2: Set Up and Improve Usage of Key Web Analytics and Testing Tools

Week 1: Learn the Importance of and Set Up an Analytics Tool

Monday: Understand the Need for Web Analytics Data to Help Website Optimization Efforts

Tuesday: Select a Web Analytics Tool for Your Website

Wednesday: Implement Your Web Analytics Tool and Test to Make Sure It’s Working Correctly

Thursday: Know How to Set Up Your Website Conversion Goals

Friday: Set Up Key Segments of Visitors to Monitor and Target

Week 2: Find Your Website Conversion Rate, Success Metrics, Benchmark, and Set Targets

Monday: Check Your Current Traffic Levels and Set Targets

Tuesday: Check Your Website’s Overall Conversion Rate and Set Targets

Wednesday: Check Your Repeat Visit Rate and Set a Target

Thursday: Find Specific Success Metrics for Your Website Type and Benchmark

Friday: Set Targets for Your Success Metrics

Week 3: Learn the Importance of and Set Up a Website Testing Tool

Monday: Understand the Importance of Having a Testing Tool

Tuesday: Familiarize Yourself with the Available Website Testing Tools

Wednesday: Determine a Budget and Understand Possible Technical Barriers for Tool Selection

Thursday: Implement Your Testing Tool, Setup, and QA Test Campaigns

Friday: Understand Web Testing Tool Terminology, Concepts, and Reports

Chapter 3: Lay the Foundations for Optimization Success

Week 4: Learn Key Optimization Fundamentals to Help You Succeed

Monday: Identify Your Company’s Current Website Optimization Performance

Tuesday: Evangelize and Create an Analytics and Optimization Culture

Wednesday: Prepare a Better Initial Website Optimization Strategy

Thursday: Create Detailed Test Plans

Friday: Consider Test Outsourcing—When and Why

Week 5: Understand and Create an Optimization Organization

Monday: Find an Executive Sponsor for Your Optimization Efforts

Tuesday: Gain Buy-in from Key Stakeholders

Wednesday: Assemble a Dedicated Optimization Team

Thursday: Integrate Testing and Optimization Web Processes into Your Company

Friday: Communicate, Review, and Iterate

Week 6: Learn Testing Best Practices to Improve Your Success

Monday: Use an Insightful, Hypothesis-Driven, and Iterative Testing Approach

Tuesday: Learn Strategies for Creating Effective Tests

Wednesday: Learn the Power of Targeting and Personalization for Improving Conversions

Thursday: Avoid Common Mistakes When Creating and Running Your Tests

Friday: Learn How to Analyze Results and Determine a Test Winner

Chapter 4: Understand Your Visitors and Their Needs—the Keys to Website Optimization

Week 7: Create Personas and Use Cases for Your Main Visitor Needs

Monday: Put Yourself in Your Visitor’s Shoes to Help Create Personas and Use Cases

Tuesday: Create Some Simple Personas for Your Visitors

Wednesday: Create Use Cases for Your Website

Thursday: Re-create the Use Cases on Your Website and Grade the Ease of Doing So

Friday: Learn How to Get Even Greater Value from Your Use Cases

Week 8: Create a Unique Value Proposition and Clearly Promote It

Monday: Understand Your Current Unique Value Proposition from Your Visitor’s Perspective

Tuesday: Survey Your Visitors to Help Create Your Value Proposition

Wednesday: Learn from Competitor Websites to Improve Your Value Proposition

Thursday: Create or Improve the Unique Value Proposition for Your Website

Friday: Effectively Promote Your Unique Value Proposition on Your Site

Week 9: Understand Your Visitors’ Intent by Visually Analyzing Them

Monday: Learn the Importance of Visually Analyzing Your Website Visitors

Tuesday: Check Click Heat Maps for Your Key Pages

Wednesday: Use Eye Tracking Tools to Understand Visitors’ Eye Flow

Thursday: Use Visitor Recording Tools to Gain a Complete View of Your Visitor’s Experience

Friday: Implement Tools and Gather and Review Visual Analysis for Insights

Week 10: Generate Insights from Visitor Satisfaction and Feedback Tools

Monday: Learn the Importance of the Voice of Your Visitors and Asking for Feedback

Tuesday: Survey Your Website Visitors to Gain Feedback and Insights

Wednesday: Use Website Feedback Rating Tools to Gain Further Insight

Thursday: Gain Feedback on the Usability and Task Completion Rate of Your Website

Friday: Make Use of Web Chat Tools to Gain Additional Insight

Chapter 5: Build the Foundation of a Better Converting Website

Week 11: Understand and Improve Your Website’s Layout

Monday: Understand the Impact of Your Web Page Fold

Tuesday: Understand the Impact of Your Website Design on Eye Flow

Wednesday: Check Your Website in Different Browsers and Resolutions

Thursday: Learn Other Website Layout Best Practices

Friday: Check How Your Email Marketing Efforts Look

Week 12: Improve Page Load Speed

Monday: Understand the Negative Impact of Slow Page Load

Tuesday: Check How Fast Your Web Pages Load and Diagnose Issues

Wednesday: Limit and Optimize Your Usage of Slow-Loading Website Elements

Thursday: Reduce the File Size of Your Images and Videos, and the Length of Your Page Code

Friday: Optimize the Delivery of Your Website Content

Week 13: Optimize Your Navigation Menus and Links

Monday: Learn the Importance of Navigation Menus and Links

Tuesday: Optimize the Contents, Usability, and Location of Your Navigation Menus

Wednesday: Optimize Your Usage of Navigation Drop-Down or Fly-Out Menus

Thursday: Improve Your Usage of Website Navigation Links

Friday: Learn Other Best Practices to Help Visitors Navigate Your Website

Week 14: Optimize and Learn from Your Internal Site Search

Monday: Offer a Good Internal Search Tool

Tuesday: Optimize Your Internal Site Search Location

Wednesday: Optimize Your Internal Site Search Functionality and Usability

Thursday: Optimize Your Internal Site Search Results

Friday: Analyze Your Top Internal Keywords for Additional Insights

Chapter 6: Learn the Power of Influence and Persuasion on Visitors and Conversions

Week 15: Influence Your Visitors by Optimizing Your Calls-to-Action, Headlines, and Text

Monday: Review and Optimize Your Headlines and Subheaders

Tuesday: Review and Optimize Your Call-to-Action Buttons and Links

Wednesday: Learn Other Best Practices for Improving Your CTAs

Thursday: Shorten Long Sections of Text and Convey Key Points

Friday: Make Sure Your Website Text Is Easy to Read, Understand, and Relate To

Week 16: Influence by Optimizing Your Images, Promotions, Videos, Rich Media, and Advertising

Monday: Optimize Your Usage of Images

Tuesday: Optimize Your Promotional Banners

Wednesday: Optimize Your Onsite Advertising

Thursday: Optimize Your Video Usage

Friday: Use Rich Media Website Greeters to Increase Engagement and Influence

Week 17: Harness the Power of Social Proof, Reciprocity, and Scarcity

Monday: Build Social Proof by Optimizing Your Testimonials

Tuesday: Build Social Proof by Optimizing Your Usage of Ratings and Reviews

Wednesday: Other Best Practices to Help Improve Your Social Proof

Thursday: Use Scarcity to Influence Your Visitors

Friday: Influence Your Visitors by Using Reciprocity

Week 18: Influence by Making Your Visitors Feel Safer and Building Trust

Monday: Optimize the Display of Security and Trust Seals and Symbols

Tuesday: Make Use of Supporting Text and Pages to Build Trust and Security

Wednesday: Reduce the Risk of Purchasing for the Visitor

Thursday: Optimize Your Customer Support and Contact Options

Friday: Learn Other Best Practices for Increasing Levels of Trust and Security

Chapter 7: Optimization Best Practices and Test Ideas for Different Page Types and Flows

Week 19: Focus On and Optimize Your Home Page

Monday: Learn How Your Home Page Is Being Judged and Check the Bounce Rate

Tuesday: Find Out What Your Visitors Click and Do on Your Home Page

Wednesday: Shorten and Declutter Your Home Page

Thursday: Give Your Visitors a Few Clear Choices to Meet Their Needs and Your Goals

Friday: Learn Other Testing Ideas for Your Home Page

Week 20: Optimize Your Product, Service, Lead Generation, and Other Key Pages

Monday: Optimize Your Product Pages

Tuesday: Optimize Your Service Pages

Wednesday: Optimize Your Lead Generation Pages

Thursday: Optimize Your Category Pages

Friday: Optimize Your Pages That Compare Product or Service Options

Week 21: Optimize Your Shopping Cart and Checkout Flow

Monday: Check Your Shopping Cart and Checkout Flow Conversion Rates

Tuesday: Optimize Your Shopping Cart Page

Wednesday: Optimize Your Checkout Flow

Thursday: Optimize Your Order Review and Confirmation Pages

Friday: Learn Other Advanced Shopping Cart Best Practices

Week 22: Identify Other Key Pages and Flows for Optimization

Monday: Identify Issues with Top Entry Pages and Optimize

Tuesday: Identify Issues with Top Exit Pages and Optimize

Wednesday: Identify Issues with Your Other Top Conversion Flows

Thursday: Look for Issues with Traffic Sources Leading to Your Conversion Flows

Friday: Identify Other Pages with High Impact on Conversion to Optimize

Week 23: Optimize Your Website’s Mobile Experience

Monday: Check the Percentage of Mobile Traffic, Conversion Rate, and Bounce Rates

Tuesday: Check What Your Website Looks Like on Mobile Devices

Wednesday: Understand the Need for a Mobile Version of Your Website

Thursday: Optimize the Mobile Version of Your Website

Friday: Consider Making an App Version of Your Website

Chapter 8: Keep Them Coming Back—Optimize for Repeat Visits

Week 24: Focus on and Generate More Repeat Visits

Monday: Learn the Importance and Benefits of Repeat Visits

Tuesday: Check Your Repeat Visits and Analyze for What Causes Them to Come Back

Wednesday: Obtain More Visitor Email Addresses to Market to and Encourage Repeat Visits

Thursday: Create Content That Encourages Visitors to Come Back More Often

Friday: Retarget Your Repeat Visitors via Contextual Banner Ads on Other Sites

Week 25: Optimize Your Registration or Sign-Up Pages to Get More Repeat Visits

Monday: Check the Performance of Your Registration or Sign-Up Pages

Tuesday: Focus on the Benefits of Signing Up or Registering

Wednesday: Optimize Your Sign-Up and Registration Forms and Pages

Thursday: Optimize Your Newsletter Sign-Up Forms

Friday: Test Other Ways to Increase Completion Rates on Your Registration or Sign-Up Pages

Week 26: Optimize Your Email Marketing Efforts to Get More Repeat Visits

Monday: Learn Best Practices and Test Ideas for All Email Marketing Methods

Tuesday: Run Email A/B Tests to Find the Most Engaging Emails

Wednesday: Create and Optimize Your Confirmation Emails

Thursday: Create and Optimize Your Follow-Up Emails

Friday: Try Using Advanced Email Optimization Techniques

Chapter 9: Review and Learn From Your Results, and Keep Testing and Optimizing

Week 27: Review and Learn from Your Optimization Efforts So Far

Monday: Revisit Your Success Metrics and Targets

Tuesday: Review Your Use Case Completion Rates and Resurvey Your Visitors

Wednesday: Rerun the Website Optimization Checklist

Thursday: Review What You’ve Learned from Your Test Results to Create Better Future Tests

Friday: Review and Improve Your Internal Testing Process Performance

Keep Optimizing and Testing: Your Website Is Never Perfect!

Appendix A: Website Optimization and Testing Tools

Appendix B: Test Idea Tracker

Appendix C: Test Results Tracker

Index

Advance Praise for Website Optimization: An Hour a Day

Attempting to achieve digital success without a robust experimentation and web analytics strategy is like trying to go to the moon on a bike. It will take a long time, might even be impossible. In nine exciting chapters Rich shows you, soup to nuts, exactly how to leverage usability, testing, and web analytics to transform your organization and achieve magnificent success!

—Avinash Kaushik, author of Web Analytics 2.0 and Digital Marketing Evangelist, Google

Rich Page has done the impossible with this book. Before reading it I'd have sworn no single book could explain conversion optimization and provide a road map for how to do it properly. I stand corrected. If you want to learn how to supercharge your website business performance, this is the book you've been waiting for. It’s practical, actionable advice from a master practitioner. You could pay an optimization consultant $100K, or you could buy this book.

—Lance Loveday, CEO of Closed Loop Marketing and author of Web Design for ROI

These days, there are thousands of guys who say they are “website optimization experts.” Ninety-nine percent of them couldn’t improve a web page—much less a site—if their lives depended on it. Rich Page is different. He’s among the one percent, and this “optimization bible” proves it. Jam-packed with proven tips and tricks on how you can improve your website without breaking the bank, you'll find everything you need to know about how to set benchmarks, develop meaningful tests, design shopping carts and lead forms for maximum conversion, enhance your performance, and much more. This isn’t a book from someone who did a bunch of research on Google; it’s written by someone who has done the work and knows the answers.

—Amy Africa, CEO, EighyByEight

The value of site optimization is clear. It is an absolute must for all companies serious about the digital channel, but most companies struggle with how to make it core to their digital strategy. Rich does a great job of identifying the needed steps to build a successful optimization strategy. This book is a must-read for companies serious about site optimization whether you are new to the game or have tried it with limited success in the past. Follow his steps and avoid the common mistakes that will derail your efforts!

—Jason Burby, Chief Performance Marketing Officer, ZAAZ/Possible Worldwide

Website Optimization: An Hour a Day should become a bible for any individual or business wanting to get maximum value from their own or their clients’ web properties. A focus on optimization is a no-brainer for companies at a time when competition for customers has never been greater. The an-hour-a-day approach is perfect for those who want to take a systematic and step-by-step approach to understanding how they can optimize their websites. The book is full of useful tips and insights, which will help you turn a sea of data into meaningful insights which will improve your business performance and bottom-line. The book will inform both the more experienced digital practitioner, as well as those who are new to the arts and science of conversion rate optimization.

—Linus Gregoriadis, Research Director, Econsultancy

Optimization is a hot topic in our industry today, and many people don't know where to begin. Choosing the right tool for the job is tough enough, let alone having to come up with the appropriate tests and strategies for your business. Fortunately, Rich has provided a fantastic resource in Website Optimization: An Hour a Day. This book has something for everyone, regardless of your level of familiarity with optimization. The amount of tips, action items for you to implement right away, and example tests will not only help you move forward but it will also help you build the business case internally for a successful testing program. If optimization is on your wish list this year in your organization, this is the book for you.

—Bill Bruno, CEO, Stratigent

Rich Page provides a detailed road map for creating a powerful conversion improvement practice at your company. Get this book before your competition does!

—Tim Ash, Chair of Conversion Conference, CEO of SiteTuners, and author of Landing Page Optimization

Page has done an outstanding job of thoroughly covering the landscape of the many aspects of measuring and improving the performance of your website. This is a must-read both for novices who need to understand the process and experts who want to ensure they aren’t missing anything. Solid and comprehensive!

—William Sears, Senior Manager, Search Engine Marketing, Walt Disney Interactive Media Group

Website Optimization: An Hour a Day is great for any online business that wants to learn how to better test and improve their website, and lays out some great foundations that optimization novices and even experts will find useful. It’s definitely worth a read if you are in online marketing—you'll find it hard to put down!

—Kimen Field, Senior Product Manager, Adobe

Ecommerce is changing the global economy and it’s amazing how few companies have deep insight into their web business. You can quickly identify the winners and losers based upon the emphasis they place on analytics. Rich carefully builds on this and creates a testing and optimization plan to help you take your business to the next level. With a combination of practical suggestions and current optimization theory, this book defines the basics that will help eliminate the guess work. The most important aspect that Rich clearly illustrates is that optimization is not a one-time activity, it’s a change in your website culture and process. Success can be hard to achieve, but Rich will give you the confidence to define a strategy that keeps your web business achieving goals.

—Brian Rogers, Director of Global eCommerce, 5.11 Tactical

You’ve got a website and you haven’t optimized yet? What are you waiting for?! Block off an hour a day and, for the next 27 weeks, follow Rich Page's detailed, step-by-step guide for getting started with website optimization. It could be the most profitable hour of your day.

—Chris Goward, President of WiderFunnel Marketing Optimization and author of You Should Test That!

About time! Optimization has been shrouded in a mist of ineffective tips and advice from people who think it's easy for way too long. Rich's book stands out by honestly stating that optimization is actually hard and that intent doesn't equate to success. He then breaks down the multiple required disciplines in a way that makes it accessible for any web/marketing practitioner to increase the ROI of their online business.

—Oli Gardner, Co-founder of Unbounce.com

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Dear Reader,

Thank you for choosing Website Optimization: An Hour a Day. This book is part of a family of premium-quality Sybex books, all of which are written by outstanding authors who combine practical experience with a gift for teaching.

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Sybex, an Imprint of Wiley

Acknowledgments

First of all, huge thanks go to my mentors and inspirations in the world of website optimization and web analytics. Without their words of wisdom and help, I would not be where I am now. First, a special “bow down” and big thanks to Tim Ash, who has been a great mentor to me and who also gave me the great privilege and honor of helping him write the 2nd Edition of Landing Page Optimization: The Definitive Guide to Testing and Tuning for Conversions (Sybex, 2012). Without first doing that, I don’t think I could have written this book!

Huge thanks and respect then go to the authors who kickstarted my passion for website optimization and web analytics: Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg (their Call to Action [Thomas Nelson, 2006] was a real optimization eye opener to me), Avinash Kaushik (who “converted” me into a web analyst with his fantastic Web Analytics: An Hour a Day [Sybex, 2007] and his blog), Steve Krug (for his pioneering Don’t Make Me Think [New Riders, 2005], and Jakob Nielsen (for his great books that began my love affair with website usability many years ago).

Thanks also to some of the genius website optimizers and bloggers whom I have learned a lot from: Linda Bustos (for her outstanding GetElastic blog and her fantastic tech editing on this book), Chris Goward at WiderFunnel, and Amy Africa at EightbyEight.

A big “cheers” also goes out to all the consultants, account managers, product specialists, and clients whom I have had the privilege of working with and learning from in my website optimization role at Adobe. Also a mention and thanks to my great boss at Disney Online, Erik Tarui, for the support and helpful knowledge of testing he gave me during my time there.

And last, I would like to express my great appreciation for the wonderful team at Sybex who helped me put this book together, including Willem Knibbe, Pete Gaughan, and Kathi Duggan. Without them, the words in this book would still only be in my head, itching to get out.

Oh, and I guess I should also give thanks to Starbucks for their free wireless Internet and also their good coffee keeping me awake during the countless hours I spent working there on this book!

About the Author

Rich Page has been analyzing and improving websites for over 10 years, and is currently a Conversion Solution Specialist at Adobe, where he helps major Fortune 500 clients improve their testing and optimization strategies. Before this, he worked for Disney Online in their web analytics and optimization team.

Rich comes from a background in online marketing, website usability, and web analytics, and has previously worked in roles like these for Z57 Internet Solutions, Gartner, and several startup web companies. He has considerable expertise with Adobe SiteCatalyst and Test&Target, in addition to Google Website Optimizer and Google Analytics.

Rich graduated with a master’s degree in Information Technology from the University of San Diego, where he did a thesis on website usability. Rich also holds a bachelor’s degree in Management from Royal Holloway University of London, where he did a pioneering thesis on e-commerce. For the last five years, he has been the author of a popular blog about web analytics and optimization topics at his website (www.rich-page.com) and is a regular speaker at the Conversion Conference and other industry conferences.

He has spent much of the last 10 years living and working in sunny Southern California and is currently living back in London, England, for a while. In his spare time, he is a passionate classic rock fan, loves to play tennis, and is a karaoke aficionado.

Foreword

When my brother Jeffrey and I first began evangelizing for conversion optimization in the late 1990s, most companies had dreams of the “new economy” and accompanying fantasies of “eyeballs” being the most important metric; we naively saw this as a C-suite responsibility. Today, most organizations have many people responsible for driving traffic but virtually no one responsible for converting that traffic into revenue. In the offline world’s equivalent, there is an executive responsible for sales (conversions) and an executive responsible for marketing, but online marketers have no counterpart.

E-commerce managers may be responsible for revenue, merchandisers for the product selection and presentation, user experience and development teams for the experience, and analytics for measurement; but it’s unclear who owns the crucial multi-disciplinary function of conversion.

I have seen a handful of companies with individuals who have conversion in their title, but they are quite rare. In those companies that do, their conversion people have access to tools and resources that demonstrate a very different corporate metabolism than those that don’t have them. These companies are also passionate about being customer-focused and data-driven, testing continuously, understanding lifetime value, and are quick to act.

Most companies aren’t structured to make conversions a core responsibility. They may assign “conversions” to the PPC manager or even the director of analytics, but they only look at it from their narrow vertical and they aren’t given the resources needed to gather the insights, to create and modify landing pages, and to set up personalization and go beyond landing pages into complex testing of customer paths.

Increasing sales conversion rates offers a greater ROI than what you can get from optimizing your traffic; either from paid or earned media. The math is simple— even if many never do the calculations. Companies with higher conversion rates almost always have better marketing efficiency ratios (net contribution/marketing expenses). The upside is that these companies make more money, and that’s a good thing. The downside is that it’s hard work to accomplish better marketing efficiency ratios. These companies are led differently; they have higher levels of collaboration and higher standards of accountability.

The top performing companies consistently convert visitors to sales at rates in the double digits. They’ve been doing that for years, while the vast majority converts at low single-digit rates. The gap between the top performers and the middle of the pack continues to grow.

However, there is great news. Over the last few years there has been an explosion of tools to help companies identify opportunities to improve, as well as tools to create landing pages and to do testing. In your hands is another critical component; Website Optimization: An Hour a Day is the resource you need to learn how to optimize your site daily. The final piece of the puzzle is, will you dedicate your time and resources to getting it done?

Bryan Eisenberg

Marketing Speaker, Advisor, and best-selling Author

Introduction

Website optimization is a newer art that tests and improves websites to better engage and convert their visitors, by combining website testing, analytics, usability, and online marketing best practices. Unfortunately, it’s not something that is quick or easy to do, and you need much more than just a testing tool. That’s where this book comes in!

Website Optimization: An Hour a Day will help you test and improve your website (no matter what type) by navigating you through important steps and common pitfalls and ultimately help you build a long-term successful website optimization program. From learning how to measure success and picking the right tools to learning best practices and high-impact test ideas for many common types of pages, you will develop a much deeper understanding of website optimization every week.

By implementing the best practices and test ideas in this book, you will stand a much better chance of improving your website in several ways, by engaging your visitors so that they come back more often, improving your conversion rates and success metrics, and ultimately increasing the bottom line revenue for your online business. Everyone wins!

And remember that testing and optimizing your website is a journey, not a destination—this unique book will ultimately serve as a great companion and compass to check while you head down the long winding road of website optimization.

Who Should Read This Book

This book is intended for anyone that wants to optimize a website for an online business and generate more revenue from it. Website optimization and testing beginners will find it very useful, in addition to those with more experience who will find advanced techniques to get even more juice from their optimization efforts.

It will be particularly useful for many types of web professionals who want to expand their understanding of the subject and help improve a website, including online marketers, web designers, web project managers, website optimizers, web analysts, web information architects, and web strategists. It will also be useful for web developers to understand the reasons why testing tools need to be implemented on websites.

It’s also beneficial for anyone who is considering moving into this newer website optimization field from a closely related online field like online marketing or web analytics (as I did). As you will read about in Chapter 1, previously there was little understanding of this field, let alone job titles relevant to it. But these days, there are many more opportunities for individuals who are skilled in website optimization and testing; for example, you can much more easily become a director of website optimization or a test manager. And it really is quite amazing to be able to influence what millions of visitors do and experience on websites.

Even “offline” business people will find it valuable to read this book and gain an understanding of optimizing online business, particularly as the line continues to blur between online and offline business worlds.

The best practices and test ideas found in this book are great for all kinds of businesses that are engaged in some kind of online business (or want to be), from individual startups to major Fortune 500 companies. It also doesn’t matter if you have a small real estate agent website or a huge multi-national online store—there are specific sections that cover test ideas for key types of pages found on many types of websites.

What You Will Learn in This Book

You will learn literally hundreds of test ideas and best practices that are designed to optimize any type of website. You will also discover how to make use of many website tools and techniques to become even more effective at optimization. Ultimately, you will learn how to better engage and convert your visitors, improve your website success metrics and conversion rates, and by doing so, make a big impact on revenue and profits for your online business.

What You Will Not Learn in This Book

You won’t learn perfect conversion rates, because there is no such thing—every online business is different and comparing is foolish. It’s much more important to beat your own current success metrics.

For the same reason, you also won’t discover a silver bullet test idea that will improve any website 100 percent of the time. While some tests have a higher chance of impact than others, there is no such thing as a perfect test—you will need to try running and iterating many of the tests found in this book before you find one that has greatest impact.

And although you won’t learn about search engine optimization (SEO) best practices in this book, you will learn about the key differences between website optimization and SEO in Chapter 1.

How Long until I See Good Results?

It’s possible to get some optimization results from using this book fairly quickly, and this can be as short as it takes for you to create and test different versions (plus a few weeks to gather some results). However, it may take much longer to get results (up to many months in the worst case), depending on how much effort is required to prioritize the test, create test variations for it, and implement.

Getting “good” results is another matter entirely. Just creating a test doesn’t ensure you will get good results, and you will need to continually iterate and learn from your tests to gain really good results. You may get lucky and get good results from one of your first tests—or you may have to wait until many more before you get your first good result. The key is to always learn from test results and to not give up!

Also, it’s not as simple as just setting up tests and waiting for results, either. As you will learn in this book, there are many internal processes you need to adopt and barriers to break down, and there are many testing best practices and fundamentals that you need to know before you can truly become effective with your website optimization efforts.

What You Need

Having an understanding of any of the major disciplines needed for effective website optimization is definitely very useful to increase the chances of success. These disciplines are web analytics, web usability, website marketing, and website testing. This book will definitely help plug some of those knowledge gaps that you might be lacking, though.

You will also need to use several tools, including web analytics tools, testing tools, usability tools, and survey tools. In order to use the more advanced tools that you will learn about in this book, you will need to obtain a budget for them (although there are some free options, which you will learn about in this book as well).

And last, you will need patience. Things won’t improve overnight, and as mentioned previously, there is no silver bullet test that will improve every website. You will require a great deal of persistence, innovation, and ability to learn from your test efforts, and by doing this, you will be rewarded with a much greater chance of website optimization success.

What Is Covered in This Book

Chapter 1: Setting the Website Optimization Scene. In the first chapter, you will get an introduction to this art, learn about the history of website optimization, and then learn about key differences between other similar web testing fields.

Chapter 2: Set Up and Improve Usage of Key Web Analytics and Testing Tools. Here, you will learn the importance of analytics and testing tools and how to set them up. You will then learn key success metrics for your website and set targets.

Chapter 3: Lay the Foundations for Optimization Success.This critical chapter teaches you some key organizational and testing fundamentals that you need to learn before you can embark on an effective website optimization program.

Chapter 4: Understand Your Visitors and Their Needs—the Keys to Website Optimization.Learning more about your website visitors is essential to be able to meet their needs, engage them, and convert them better. This chapter covers creating use cases, personas, and a unique value proposition for them, and how to generate important insights from them.

Chapter 5: Build the Foundation of a Better Converting Website.This chapter helps you build a better foundation that will maximize your conversion and engagement rates and includes key website usability and design best practices.

Chapter 6: Learn the Power of Influence and Persuasion on Visitors and Conversions. Here, you will learn some great ways to influence your visitors so that they engage and convert more often on your website that involve building trust and social proof, and optimizing your use of calls-to-actions, images, and other influencers.

Chapter 7: Optimization Best Practices and Test Ideas for Different Page Types and Flows.In this chapter, you will start to learn ideas and best practices to optimize particular types of website pages and conversion flows, from home pages to checkout flows.

Chapter 8: Keep Them Coming Back—Optimize for Repeat Visits.It’s critical to get your website visitors to come back, because repeat visitors are more engaged and convert at a higher rate. In this chapter, you will learn how to do this by optimizing key pages on your website and your email marketing campaigns.

Chapter 9: Review and Learn from Your Results, and Keep Testing and Optimizing.In this last chapter, you will revisit your recent optimization efforts to see how they have been faring, learn from them, set more targets, and continue optimizing.

Appendix A gathers together the many important website optimization tools that are discussed in this book.

Appendix B gives you a worksheet to list and prioritize your test ideas.

Appendix C gives you a worksheet to store your test results and help you learn from past results.

How to Contact the Author

You can contact Rich Page on his blog at www.rich-page.com, and you can also contact him via Twitter at www.twitter.com/richpage.

Legal Disclaimer

The website optimization best practices and test ideas that are discussed in this book represent the views of Rich Page and his experience and knowledge, and not the views of any of the companies that he works for or has worked for, including Adobe Systems and Disney Online.

Chapter 1

Setting the Website Optimization Scene

Before diving into the many website optimization best practices and test ideas in this book, it’s important to first give you some background and history on this subject and also some key differences between this and other types of optimization relating to websites and search engines.