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Test everything and then test again.

Imagine for a second that you could increase conversion by 1% by just changing one element on your website. Consider changing your headline, the button color, button text, your lead image, adding trust symbols, form fields, testimonials etc.

With just 1% conversion increase, the time you invest in the changes is really worthwhile.

Now imagine you changed 10 elements on your website. Surely the prospect of a 10% increase will make testing worth your while…

Start off by looking at your headline; is it up to scratch - could it be more punchy? Consider making your action button bigger and the text bolder. Try changing wordy paragraphs into bullet points.

Try it out, one element at a time - and always be testing.

Google Website Optimizer is a free product that lets you set-up and run various tests on your website. The two most commonly used are A/B and Multivariate testing.

A/B-testing is used when you want to compare web pages side by side. An A/B test is perfect for seeing if one design performs better (leads to more conversions) than another one (or two, or three).

Multivariate testing is perfect for testing smaller changes. With Multivariate, you can run one test that will tell you which page has the best performing page elements. For example; you might have 2 versions of the headline, 4 different hero images and 3 different button colours. A Multivariate test will tell you how your visitors respond to these element changes.

The scope and success of any test will be closely targeted to the traffic your website is getting. The smaller your site is, the more basic your tests should be.