Category Archives: AB Testing ideas

Brilliant Testing Ideas in 6 Simple Steps

By on May 15, 2013

The great thing about website optimization is that it’s easy. Insanely easy. It always goes exactly like this:

A/B Testing Workflow

  1. You have a brilliant idea. (Even your boss loves it.)
  2. You set up the test. (In seconds.)

    thumbs-up
  3. You run it. (In a day.)
  4. You get statistically relevant results. (From your massive volume of site traffic.)
  5. You share the results with your team. (And get a raise.)rain
  6. You implement the winner. (And eat some cake.) 
  7. You win the nobel prize for web genius. (And eat some more cake.)dog1

Not quite, you say? I’ve seen tons of companies have fantastic success with A/B testing but even I’ll admit it doesn’t always go like the process outlined above.

Today, I’d like to share a few strategies to help you with one of the hardest parts about A/B testing: getting that brilliant idea.  Continue reading →

About Ryan Lillis:

Ryan Lillis is a Website Optimization and Digital Marketing strategist. Formerly with Adobe/Omniture, Ryan joined Optimizely in August 2012 because he was blown away by Optimizely's testing platform and believes it represents the future of website optimization.

Posted in AB Testing ideas, Best Practices | 2 Replies

71* Things to (A/B) Test

By on April 30, 2013

The hardest part of A/B testing is determining what to test in the first place. After having worked with thousands of customers who do A/B testing every day, one of the most common questions we still hear is, “Where do I begin?”

lol

Conveniently, website testing inherently generates more questions than it answers. Your first test can lead to a whole litany of follow-up tests and iterations. For when you’ve exhausted all of those, or if you’re just getting started, here are 71 ideas (some more serious than others…) for testing your website.

(*Why 71, you ask? Optimizely just reached 71 employees! We’re serving up one idea for each member of our team.)

Continue reading →

About Robin Johnson:

Robin is a Content Marketer at Optimizely. As the company's token North Dakotan, Robin enjoys snowball fights, Coen brothers' movies, and making fun of San Franciscans who own winter jackets.

What Candy Land Can Teach You About Optimizing Mobile

By on April 9, 2013

Remember the board game Candy Land? Sweet-toothed contestants traveled down a path of colored squares on their quest to reach the Candy Castle. If you were lucky, you landed on the Gumdrop Pass or Rainbow Trail – shortcuts that helped you bypass your opponents to reach the finish that much faster.  Draw the wrong card, and you’d get lost in the Lollipop Woods or stuck in the Molasses Swamp. An unfortunate turn of events that could prevent you from reaching Candy Castle altogether.

candyland2

Now, think of your mobile site like Candy Land. Just like the Candy Castle, users enter your site looking for something specific. To help decrease bounce rates and take users to the pages they’re looking for faster, here are a few A/B tests to get started optimizing your mobile experience.

Continue reading →

About Ryan Lillis:

Ryan Lillis is a Website Optimization and Digital Marketing strategist. Formerly with Adobe/Omniture, Ryan joined Optimizely in August 2012 because he was blown away by Optimizely's testing platform and believes it represents the future of website optimization.

Avoid Sidewalk Catastrophes: Optimize Your Mobile Website

By on March 28, 2013

Trips, falls, and head-on collisions. These days, a quick stroll down the street is an accident waiting to happen. It’s easy to point fingers at uneven pavement, crazed skateboarders, or fanny-packed tourists, but the truth of the matter is clear: smartphones are the culprit. Young, old, commuter, tourist, sometimes even bikers (yikes!) – everyone is face down, glued to their mobile device. While the act of walking-and-browsing can be aggravating, it speaks to a very important truth: mobile web is pervasive. Improving your mobile website will not only help prevent sidewalk catastrophes, it will also help create an optimized experience that generates more clickthroughs, revenue, and conversions.

Here’s where mobile testing comes in.

Mobile versions of target.com, reddit.com and taskrabbit.com

Mobile versions of target.com, reddit.com and taskrabbit.com.


Continue reading →

About Ryan Lillis:

Ryan Lillis is a Website Optimization and Digital Marketing strategist. Formerly with Adobe/Omniture, Ryan joined Optimizely in August 2012 because he was blown away by Optimizely's testing platform and believes it represents the future of website optimization.

How to Redesign Your Website Redesign

By on March 8, 2013

Welcome back to Conversion Rate Optimism, Jeff Blettner,  a web designer and conversion optimization specialist at Formstack. Having just completed a complete redesign of formstack.com, Jeff spoke with me about the role AB testing tools played in the process.

Formstack_old-v-new-crop

Optimizely: How big of a role did A/B testing – actually doing it, or knowing you were going to do it – play in this redesign for Formstack?

Jeff: Very large role. Everyone has an opinion on what a website should say or include, and sometimes those strong opinions lead to disagreements in planning or design. When we reached those spots, resolution was a lot easier when we knew that post-launch, we could A/B test our different hypotheses to see what is the better approach.

Continue reading →

About Cara Harshman:

As a Content Marketer at Optimizely, Cara is constantly looking to tell innovative stories about how businesses are using A/B testing to become more successful. Have a data-driven story that deserves to be told? Email her at cara [at] optimizely [dot] com. Before joining the team in 2012 she was reporting the news in Madison, WI.