technology-startup

4 Great website testing ideas

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Optimizely has a solid list of 71 different website testing ideas – check it out here. (Side note: this content has existed for a long time, but they recently re-shared it with me. Re-sharing solid blog content like this is a great nurturing tactic!)

I have tried a number of these 71 tips with varying levels of success. Below are the top four that have worked for me. What works on one site may not work on another, users’ behaviors change over time, and mobile will have totally different success than desktop (and don’t even get me started on tablet.) So even if you’ve tried some of these before, it’s worth considering retesting at some point.

Here are the four most successful testing tactics that I’ve found, as listed on the Optimzely blog post:

“Buy Now? Purchase? Checkout? Add to Cart? Change the call-to-action (CTA) text on your buttons to see which word or phrase converts more visitors.” I’ve had success with this sort of a test every time. You never really know what a visitor is hoping to see, and different CTAs on particular pages may improve conversion too. Matching CTAs with on page content often is helpful.

“Test multiple CTAs per page against one CTA per page.” I sometimes joke that every other line of copy should be a CTA button… that’s extreme, but having different CTAs in different places on the page may help a visitor find the ‘thing’ that entices them to move forward in your funnel.

“Test different types images on your landing page. People versus product is a good place to start.” Sometimes this fails for me, but recently I’ve had good success. Always worth a test, but sometimes the results are so small there is no statistical significance. Big tests are often better here, so I’d start with huge differences in images before testing if the female customer beats the male, etc.

“Test removing navigation to any pages outside the checkout funnel.” I call this a prisoner page, and it works for SEO and other bottom of the funnel pages… but it can also backfire if someone isn’t ready to commit. Sometimes adding high conversion navigation links (vs. what you may have on your regular site nav) can help the prospect find out more info, but also stick to pages that convert, keeping the conversion rates high.

Tweets that got traction

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A few of my tweets from Q4 2014 got some traction (what I mean is that Buffer shows that they had a decent click volume).

In no particular order:

Not sure this will be good for productivity: Facebook Wants to Move Into the Office http://buff.ly/1FaYm2e via @WSJD

Squirrel cuts off power to part of Silicon Valley http://buff.ly/1FjNGyg via @usatoday Do rodents hate Apple?

I don’t love this UX icon, but hey, it exists: http://buff.ly/1x1rWpt Brief History of the Hamburger Icon

Really funny take down of staffing at a cutting edge ad agency: http://buff.ly/1ABcoLI #agency

Interesting piece on micro VCs

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I’ve obviously been a little busy recently, so haven’t been blogging at all. Hears to a less busy 2015 with more time for blogging!

I recently read a good article on micro-VCs. This market has really expanded, but who knows if it’s actually the return of the old school venture capital fund (size, focus) or if it’s a new thing.

The author makes takes the position that “The concentrated return profile of Venture Capital makes it virtually impossible to envision a scenario where more than 50 firms produce the necessary returns to earn alpha returns, particularly when an inevitable market cycle shift is factored in.” He thinks only 50 of these funds will still exist in 2020. I’m not sure I really agree with this, mainly because successful entrepreneurs like to become VCs and I think it’s likely that people will keep finding ways to start new, tiny funds.

Regardless, the article is a great overview of the market. Worth a read.

Really cool use of data for venture

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I thought this CB Insights post was great – using data to see which AngelList syndicates were the most active/powerful.

If you don’t know what AngelList syndicates are, the article explains: “Towards the end of 2013, AngelList announced its syndicates program which allows angel investors to raise committed capital and charge a carry for the performance of each deal that their backers participate in.”

Danger of going too cutting edge with UI

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My buddy, Anand (he does mobile for Hubspot) turned me onto a great post that really resonated with me:

RT @anandrajaram: Side Drawer Navigation Could Cost Half Your User Engagement http://buff.ly/1hY1NPy

Turns out hamburgers are bad for engagement!

hamburger ui elementI’m not surprised by this – the hamburger (image source and more info on the hamburger design element here)  is too cutting edge for most people. Nobody knows what it is! Just because mobile geeks get it doesn’t mean it will help improve ordinary people’s interactions with a product. This highlights a major danger in going too far with cutting edge design techniques, and not designing for the standard user.

Great data visualization post

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One of the first things I do when I start a consulting project with a company is work on dashboards – What are the KPI’s and how are they being measured/tracked/presented. Do the decision makers have constant, in-their-face access to the metrics they need to make decisions.

I intend to write a longer post on dasbboards for direct marketing, but for now I’d like to share a great post on data presentation tips:

7 Data Presentation Tips: Think, Focus, Simplify, Calibrate, Visualize

Avinash Kaushik is a data guru and a data driven marketing thought leader. You should follow his blog!

Smart post on growth hacking

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The term “growth hacking” has kind of jumped the shark. But something I’ve really noticed since I’ve been consulting with a number of companies is that my marketing consulting looks a lot more like product consulting. Understand what people are doing with a product, figuring out which actions make a good user (as in establishing KPIs), getting my arms around what causes a person to not be retained (sometimes it’s a channel problem, sometimes it’s a product issue)… that’s what I’ve been doing with my marketing consulting.

I loved this piece on TC by Justin Caldbeck. This quote, from the end of the article, really hit home:

The problem right now is that many companies seem to be operating under the total misconception that growth fixes all. That leads them to bring on self-proclaimed “growth hackers” who rapidly acquire more customers through spammy viral techniques, but when those customers don’t engage, or — worse — have bad experiences and tell their friends about it, that growth curve crashes. By that point your growth hacker is on to his or her next gig, and you’re left with what you had to begin with: a product that either hasn’t found its audience yet or hasn’t yet given people a reason to engage with it.

So if you’re thinking about hiring a growth hacker, find someone who’s a great product person and who really knows user experience and understands user value, not just someone who knows all the tricks to ratcheting up your growth curve.

The PC is dead

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PC is dead: RT @BenBajarin: Apple sold more iPads at 26m than the #1 PC vendor (Lenovo at 14m) sold last quarter.

Of course, that doesn’t seem to be helping my Apple shares this morning. 🙁