by Ana Hoffman 49 comments

35 Headache-Free Split Testing Resources to Increase Your Conversions and Sales



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split testingSometimes the best way to learn something is by letting other people do the dirty work, make mistakes, learn from them, and then publish their results so that you and I can reap the benefits.

This strategy works great when it comes down to split testing your site to increase your conversions and sales.

Last week, you had a chance to watch 3 great videos about me learning from my mistakes.

Here are 35 of my favorite resources, tools, and posts I constantly refer to as I tweak Traffic Generation Cafe to maximize the profit with the traffic I already have.

My Favorite Website Conversion / Split Testing Blogs

recommended split testing blogs

If a blog specializes on improving website conversion rates, it’s logical to conclude that their blog design will reflect their findings.

So here’s my narrow list of blogs I keep an eye on:

  • VisualWebsiteOptimizer.com – yes, Visual Website Optimizer is a paid split testing service (which I’d only recommend if you know your way around CSS and HTML), but they also provide invaluable split testing results on their blog.
  • SocialTriggers.com - even though Derek Halpern’s blog is not directly about traffic conversion, almost every posts he writes will give you a golden nugget or two on how to get your readers to take action – whatever it might be.
  • ConversionVoodoo.com – my new absolutely favorite conversion blog. I can spend hours sifting through their blog posts for ideas…
  • SparringMind.com - Greg Ciotti writes about actionable & practicable strategies that are backed with actual evidence.
  • ConversionXL.com – another awesome read on improving conversions; authored by Peep Laja and recommended to me by one of the readers, Leon.

My Favorite Website Conversion Posts

There’s a wealth of information in these posts: ideas, guidelines, tutorials – you name it.

Of course, you should always remember to test these ideas on your own blog.

What works for one niche, site, audience might not work for another.

I have to show you this image from the post above; surprising?

heat map split testing

Split Testing Case Studies

There are some sites that specialize in publishing case studies for various split tests.

I found a lot of ideas for Traffic Generation Cafe by perusing split tests done on other sites.

Split Testing Tools & Resources

1.   Google Website Optimizer

Website-optimizer-ab-split-testing-resources-tutorials

Here’s a great guide on how to use it:

2.   Visual Website Optimizer

Visual-optimizer-ab-split-testing-resources-tutorials

Visual Website Optimizer is a premium A/B split testing tool with a point-and-click test designer and WYSIWYG editor for creating variations.

If you want some serious split testing done on your site, this is definitely the tool to use.

3.  WordPress Plugins

Yes, there are split testing plugins as well.

A/B Test for WordPress is a free plugin that makes it easy to set up and perform A/B split testing on any WordPress site.

A very simple and effective plugin to run A/B split test – the very one I am currently using to split test my How to Increase Website Traffic One Perfect Bite at a Time optin page.

Split Testing Marketing Takeaway

I know, there’s a lot to digest.

One tweak a week?

traffic generation cafe

Images: Breathtaking Photography by Aleksey&Marina

VizCraft: Visual Thinking


traffic generation cafe comment below

{ 49 comments }

Fersamal March 6, 2012 at 2:11 am

It is great to shed light on this topic. Thanks Ana for providing such a pure gold resource. I’m going to follow now. I have never split tested my website. I will try it out. I hope split testing could be great techniques to compare the effectiveness of a website layout or its graphics.

Ana Hoffman March 6, 2012 at 4:11 pm

Something we should all be doing, Fersamal.

Matt February 17, 2012 at 10:54 am

In sales there is a cliche, always be closing. I think the same is true in regards to online marketing and blogging, always be testing.

Ana Hoffman February 17, 2012 at 7:29 pm

Never stops; that’s for sure.

Jeevanjacobjohn February 16, 2012 at 6:20 pm

Wow, this is really a great list of resources (I don’t even know where to start).

Thanks for the list of sites (I do read many of them but some of them are new to me).

I never tried Google optimizer (when I get to the second step, it just seems too complicated for me). I guess I should give it a try (Thanks for the list to the Optimizer user guide).

What are your thoughts, Ana? Have you tried Google’s tool?

I installed the Headline split test plugin but didn’t see any posts in WP post editor to insert the second title.

Ana Hoffman February 16, 2012 at 7:46 pm

Yes, I’ve tried Google Website Optimizer in the past, and yes, it looked a bit too complicated.

It requires the kind of time busy bloggers just don’t have. lol

That’s why I love this collection of posts; we can borrow tested ideas and apply them to our blogs.

Bruno February 14, 2012 at 3:09 pm

A treasure trove of evergreen information!
Thank you, Ana. You’re the best.

Ana Hoffman February 14, 2012 at 9:16 pm

You are welcome, Bruno.

Ming February 14, 2012 at 2:16 am

Tons of great resources! Thanks Ana. I especially love to try out the 2 WP plugins you mentioned above. So far, I am using Google Website Optimizer to split test the landing page, which is pretty amazing to me consider a free tool can help so much!

Next, will do some testing with my blog once I finalize the theme.

Cheers,
Ming

Ana Hoffman February 14, 2012 at 10:30 am

You are very welcome, Ming.

Danielle Parsons February 9, 2012 at 8:26 pm

Ana, I have never split tested my sites. I moved from html files over to Wordpress last year and have noticed my traffic has improved ever since you selected me as the winner of the Thesis theme offer you have.

I like your cleaner design now. Hope your move goes smoothly. I just went through a big move last fall. ;)

Ana Hoffman February 10, 2012 at 7:33 am

So glad to hear that, Danielle! And thank you.

Groshan Fabiola February 9, 2012 at 4:43 am

Hey Anna, I would like to mention you that I have never tried split testing anytime before. But now I would surely try it after reading your post. You have given immense information to get me started with this. I think it will help me out with increasing the conversion rates and get the desired sales. Thanks for sharing this!

Ana Hoffman February 9, 2012 at 8:44 am

You are very welcome, Groshan.

Jack February 7, 2012 at 4:52 am

I’ve checked Visual Website Optimizer prices. You’re using the free/trial version or you’ve finished testing it?

Jay February 6, 2012 at 2:18 pm

Hi Ana,

I know I really should be split testing………..just always seemed so daunting! Thanks for getting me into gear – these sites should help :)

Cheers – Jay

Ana Hoffman February 7, 2012 at 7:27 am

I know what you mean, Jay; it does seem to be quite a project.

That’s why I found these posts so useful: they really cut down on the amount of work we’d have to do otherwise.

Ana Hoffman February 6, 2012 at 7:35 am

Indeed, Andrew.

Ian Belanger February 6, 2012 at 7:26 am

Hey Ana,

As usual, you have over-delivered again. Thank you for putting together all of your favorite blogs and posts about split-testing and website optimization.

I have just added the KISSmetrics GWO report to my arsenal. Now I just need to find time to read it :)

Thanks Ana and have a great day!!

Ana Hoffman February 6, 2012 at 7:50 am

I know, Ian – time is something we don’t ever have enough of!

Jonathon February 5, 2012 at 11:36 pm

One Tweak Weekly. Good catch phrase. Testing, testing, split-testing and yet more testing is the name of the game. Best wishes for your move to San Fransisco. There’s some nice golf courses in that area so when you tire of driving traffic you can go drive golf balls:)

Cynthia Ann Leighton February 5, 2012 at 1:30 pm

A treasure trove of evergreen information!

Thank you, Ana. You’re the best.

I’m way far behind you in getting started so this will all be useful to me as I build away.

blessings,
Cynthia

Ana Hoffman February 5, 2012 at 10:00 pm

I recently realized how much impact the design has on conversions, Cynthia.

That gave me a nice kick in the back!

Sheena February 3, 2012 at 8:46 pm

Thanks, Ana! You have provided us with another handful of resources. I have gotten many links to great websites and tools from your blog and I’m always grateful! I always learn new things and get new resources every time I visit TGC. There is a lot to learn about blogging and internet marketing. We should never stop learning and trying new things to keep up with the dizzying pace of internet technology.

Ana Hoffman February 4, 2012 at 8:04 am

Glad to hear that, Sheena!

Shefiu Francis February 3, 2012 at 7:25 am

Hi Ana,

Thanks for the resources. I actually stumbled upon the visualwebsiteoptimizer.com site recently, as I was researching for quality conversion tools. It’s good that you’ve combined many useful options into one blog post for bookmarking. It suits me fine, as there’s certainly a lot to get through.

Eddie Gear February 3, 2012 at 5:26 am

Excellent list of resources Ana. I’ve bookmarked all of them. Thanks. I think that you must have an archive filled with these resources.

Ana Hoffman February 3, 2012 at 7:13 am

I do, Eddie; that’s why I wrote the post to keep my faves in one place. lol

Dan Brusca February 3, 2012 at 5:16 am

Found your blog searching for commentluv premium enabled blogs and ended up staying for the content ;-) Split testing is big on my todo list for SEO stuff. I’ve always done it for PPC (if you’re paying for the traffic you tend to care more…), but not for SEO traffic. Time to start I think…

Ana Hoffman February 3, 2012 at 7:19 am

Glad you found me, Dan.

And congrats on the brand-new blog!

Jens P. Berget February 2, 2012 at 11:27 pm

Hi Ana,

I have just started doing split testing on AWeber, but so far I haven’t even thought about doing it on my blog. That’s mostly because it sounds like a very time consuming thing to do. I guess it’s not, as long as you know what you’re doing :)

Thanks a lot for the awesome resources, and I hope you’ll have a wonderful weekend.

Ana Hoffman February 3, 2012 at 7:18 am

I know what you mean, Jens – split testing can indeed be time-consuming and busy people like you and me don’t really have the time to sink our teeth into it.

Thus I wrote this post.

All these resources can give you ideas of how to tweak your blog without doing extensive testing.

Kukzee February 2, 2012 at 5:17 pm

Whoa, that’s a long list you got – valuable post that will keep people away from bouncing on the web in search for these tools.

Bookmarked!

One tweak a week. God Bless Ana!

Ana Hoffman February 3, 2012 at 7:15 am

Thank you, Kukzee, and blessings to you as well.

Abhi Balani February 2, 2012 at 8:52 am

WOW. A post, one can take home. :-) I’m really new to all these stuff, Ana. But honestly, I find this is the best place with easy to understand and work on (for me) information.

I’m bookmarking this. I may have to read it more than 2 times to understand completely.

Reading your list one by one.

Really a great share, especially for intermediate bloggers like me. :-)

Did you notice? I don’t call myself a newbie after I got your appreciating comments on my article. :-)

Thanks once again.

Ana Hoffman February 2, 2012 at 3:09 pm

Yes, this one has a lot of meat to digest, Abhi.

Abhi Balani February 3, 2012 at 3:57 am

Ana, I think, your every post is meaty.

A. Tatum Jr February 2, 2012 at 12:04 am

Very nice list you’ve put together. I’ll give it a better go over when I’m not as sleepy lol.

Ana Hoffman February 2, 2012 at 6:57 am

I know the feeling…

Chukwuka Okwukwe Chukwuka February 1, 2012 at 7:30 pm

Thanks for the tool and resources, Ana. :-D

It’s going to take a long while getting done with it.

Regards,
Chukwuka.

Ana Hoffman February 1, 2012 at 8:39 pm

What’s the rush? lol

Leon February 1, 2012 at 12:16 pm

Great list! I too love Socialtriggers for the clear and simple solutions Derek gives. I also recently found out about this blog: http://conversionxl.com/ . The guy who writes on it posts long researched posts to convert traffic better. Have you checked it out?

Ana Hoffman February 2, 2012 at 6:58 am

Great suggestion, Leon – added to the post with the credit.

Rahul kuntala February 1, 2012 at 11:05 am

Hello Ana Hoffman

Massive resources list. Really helpful for all the level of bloggers. Among all of your best website conversion posts, I think “6 Easy-to-Get Insights That Can Boost Conversion Rates on Low-Performing Pages” by KISSMetrics is the best.

One direct question for you Ana – How much time do you spend writing each day? Just curious to know..

Ana Hoffman February 1, 2012 at 12:52 pm

Anywhere from none to a couple of hours per day.

Ryan February 1, 2012 at 9:56 am

I think I’ve said this before but split-testing is very high on my to-do list. I’m trying to gain a high functioning knowledge of Tracking first. Then on to split-testing.

This is a fantastic list of resources.

Thank you,

Ryan H.

Ana Hoffman February 1, 2012 at 10:29 am

True, Ryan – without tracking, split testing is mute.

Mark Aylward February 1, 2012 at 9:16 am

Hey Ana
I’ll have to bookmark this baby because I don’t have 67 hours to spare right now:)
Testing in general is a critical component of business success online and I don’t do enough of it. If you had not included that last line I may have passed out!
Cheers
Mark

Ana Hoffman February 1, 2012 at 10:28 am

I think I put this post together for my own sake more so than my readers, Mark. lol

I wanted to have all these posts easily accessible…

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