Don’t Settle for Silver: Performance Enhancement for your Website

How well is your website performing? Odds are any business could improve upon its website goals to increase sales, get more e-mail sign-ups or optimize any number of things to boost conversions. Google’s Content Experiment feature allows you to test multiple pages and track conversion goals to make an objective conclusion on how your web pages are performing. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right? But, here are few things that might tip you off to whether your website could use some scientific research.

1. High Bounce Rate

If visitors are bouncing off your landing pages faster than a hot potato, there are lots of factors that could be driving people away. With Google experiments, you can create multiple versions addressing different elements…change the background color, make a submission form bigger, add a photo or video…and get a clear ranking of which tweak worked the best.

2. Low Quality Score

Ever clicked on an ad in Google and found yourself on a hopelessly useless landing page that had nothing to do with the advertisement? We hate that. So does Google. In fact, they penalize advertisers if a landing page does not have content that matches the ad by increasing the costs and reducing position placement.  Before stuffing a page full of keywords, make a few landing pages and see which is most relevant and best improves your Quality Score.

3. Lack of Conversions

Lets say you have a multiple step check-out process concluding with a “Thank You” page. You find that people are starting, but not reaching the final goal. Identify where shoppers are dropping off in the funnel and create alternate pages to help get them to the final buying stage. Same thing goes for forms. Create a few different versions asking questions differently or including various fields and test which performs best.

And, you’re off. Now sit back and wait for Google to track your results in a simple easy-to-read graph!

Tiffany Starnes
Vice President Tiffany is an online marketing professional focused on how to effectively use new media to communicate and achieve business goals.

Google,  Tools