Posted by: Beau Blackwell, Marketing Coordinator

As an online businessperson, one of the most important assets you have is your Web site. While many people spend a lot of time early on building their Web site and getting everything exactly how they want it, they often neglect an important next step to success, which is testing. By testing, I mean consistently trying out new text, images, offers, and site layout, to make sure that your site is achieving your goals as efficiently as possible.

In the past, performing testing and analyzing the results meant spending a lot of money on a Web stats package, or paying an outside consulting firm to analyze your data and make recommendations that weren’t guaranteed to pay off. Fortunately, these days there are free Web-based tools that make it easier than ever for small business owners to understand how their Web site is performing and make adjustments that have a positive impact on their business.

Google Analytics and Google Website Optimizer are two of the more useful free tools available. If you’re not using them, you’re missing out on vitally important business data. I won’t go into details here about how to install or use these tools, as Google has lots of good advice and FAQs to address those issues. Fortunately, these programs are designed with the average website owner in mind and don’t require a lot of technical knowledge to set up and use.

First off, if you’re not using Google Analytics or some other Web stats package, you should be. Google Analytics has revolutionized Web businesses by helping Web site owners understand where their traffic is coming from, and what visitors are doing once they’re on the site, for free.

Second, once you’ve got a good grasp on what is happening on your Web site and what your traffic is doing, you should consider trying Google’s Website Optimizer tool. It’s also free, and integrates easily with Google Analytics. The Website Optimizer allows you to quickly and easily change out text, images, and layout on your site and see what effect the changes have on your site’s ability to convert visitors into customers. Google automatically handles the tedious process of swapping out the HTML code and provides you with a series of reports that will show you the best combination of content for your site.

Rather than merely guessing at what your visitors want, it makes a lot of sense to actually put your Web site design to the test and let the data tell you whether it’s working as well as you’d like. No matter how successful your online business is already, chances are good that your site could convert even better with some simple tweaks. One thing to remember is that even if you make some improvements to your site through testing, keep at it! Every small change you make that improves your conversion rate also helps your bottom line and makes you more money in the end. Since the testing is totally free except for your time, it’s one of the smartest ways you can grow your business. Now get out there and start testing!

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