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Ever gone online and had a frustrating experience? Maybe you weren't satisfied with the way information was displayed or found it impossible to find what you were looking for. That's the dissatisfying picture that visitors face when shopping on websites that have not been fine-tuned (or "optimized"). The good news is, companies realize that not optimizing their websites lowers their revenue and profits and are now doing everything they can to improve online shopping experiences in a recessionary economy. Increasingly, large online retail businesses are turning to web optimization solutions to enhance visitors' online experiences. Multivariate and A/B testing allows businesses to present different variations of information and discover which variation you prefer while behavioral targeting enables businesses to understand you better as a customer so that they can present you with relevant information, such as coupons. This brand of web optimization can help drive online sales during a time when customers are snapping their wallets shut. One example of a company using web optimization solutions to enhance the customer experience is well-known destination site VEGAS.com, which features a veritable buffet of Las Vegas travel choices -- from hotels to shows to tours to front-of-the-line nightclub passes, and then some. Millions of customers visit VEGAS.com websites each month. The company found that it needed to get a handle on how best to present their vast array of travel choices in order to keep customers online. To do that, VEGAS.com ran a test to understand what combination of online security messaging elements would be most effective in increasing sales conversion rates for site customers. The company simultaneously tested four security elements, three text treatments and their layout on five different areas within the site to understand the winning combination. The winning variation created significant improvements across multiple KPIs (key performance indicators), including site abandonment, visitor page views per session, and overall conversion rates. Overstock.com, the well-known online retailer offering name-brand merchandise at discounted prices, follows a similar approach to VEGAS.com. In relatively little time, Overstock.com increased its conversion rates and average order values by globally testing new product page layouts against current page layouts. Another web site you might have shopped online that takes testing under its wing is CSN Stores, which displays more than one million products on more than 200 web sites in niche market segments. CSN Stores has credited web optimization company SiteSpect with creating 7 percent of its 2007 sales growth, thanks to the SiteSpect's patent-pending A/B and multivariate testing solutions. SiteSpect allowed CSN Stores to quickly and easily run tests to measure visitor customer responses to variations in site content, search functionality, and features. Based on the test results, CSN Stores optimized its search capability to help customers more quickly find the products they wanted, improving the user experience and increasing sales. Also, CSN Stores was able to discover and utilize alternate image sizes that produced higher response rates. Eric J. Hansen, president and founder of SiteSpect, says businesses have many options when it comes to getting started with multivariate testing and behavioral targeting. "We're seeing more and more online retailers move from simple A/B testing, where you test one or more variations of a single idea to see which one your customers click on, to multivariate testing, where you try out variations of many elements," Hansen said. "Multivariate testing reveals not only which combination of elements increased conversions, but also reveals which individual elements influenced visitor behavior versus those that did not." "During a recessionary economy, it is more important than ever for Internet consumers to find what they want and have a satisfying shopping experience," Hansen said. "Web marketers must test and optimize their websites to generate more traffic to a site, keep them engaged, and move them towards actions that generate revenue -- or risk going out of business." == About SiteSpect == SiteSpect enables Internet marketers to optimize website and mobile web effectiveness through testing and targeting solutions. By testing different variations of landing pages, product descriptions, search results, and buy-flows, SiteSpect empowers marketers to fine-tune every part of their website or mobile web offering. For more information, visit www.SiteSpect.com or call 617-859-1900.
Article Source: http://www.new.citynewslive.com
Eric J. Hansen is the president and founder of SiteSpect and chief architect of the SiteSpect solution, the first and only multivariate testing and A/B testing platform that helps marketers fine-tune conversion rates through non-intrusive optimization.. Visit Internet Businesses Doing More With Less In An Uncertain Economy Via Testing and Targeting Solutions.
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