If you run an e-commerce website, you know how important it is to provide a smooth and satisfying experience for your customers. However, you may not know how to measure and improve your website performance and conversions. That’s where testing comes in.
Testing is the process of experimenting with different elements of your website to see how they affect your metrics and goals. Testing can help you identify and fix any issues or problems that may be hurting your website performance and conversions. Testing can also help you discover and implement new opportunities and strategies that may boost your website performance and conversions.
There are many types of testing you can do on your e-commerce website, such as usability testing, functionality testing, security testing, speed testing, SEO testing, and conversion rate optimization (CRO) testing. In this blog post, we will focus on the last one: CRO testing.
CRO testing is the process of testing different variations of your website elements, such as headlines, images, copy, buttons, colors, layout, etc., to see which ones generate more conversions. Conversions are the actions you want your visitors to take on your website, such as signing up for a newsletter, downloading a resource, requesting a demo, or making a purchase.
CRO testing can help you improve your website performance and conversions by:
• Increasing your website traffic by attracting more visitors from search engines and social media.
• Reducing your bounce rate by engaging your visitors and keeping them on your website longer.
• Increasing your average order value by upselling and cross-selling your products or services.
• Increasing your customer loyalty by providing a positive and memorable experience for your customers.
To run a successful CRO test on your ecommerce website, you need to follow these steps:
- Define your goal: Before you start testing, you need to have a clear and specific goal for what you want to achieve with your test. For example, do you want to increase the number of newsletter subscribers, the number of product views, the number of add-to-cart clicks, or the number of purchases? Your goal should be measurable and realistic.
- Choose your tool: To run a CRO test, you need a tool that allows you to create and compare different versions of your website elements and track their performance. There are many tools available for CRO testing, such as Google Optimize, Optimizely, VWO, Unbounce, etc. Choose a tool that suits your budget, skill level, and needs.
- Create your hypothesis: A hypothesis is a statement that predicts what will happen when you change a certain element of your website. For example, “Changing the headline from ‘Shop Now’ to ‘Get 20% Off Your First Order’ will increase the number of purchases by 10%.” Your hypothesis should be based on data and research, not on guesswork or intuition.
- Design your variations: Based on your hypothesis, you need to create different versions of the element you want to test. For example, if you want to test the headline, you need to create two or more headlines that reflect your hypothesis. You can use tools like CoSchedule Headline Analyzer or Emotional Marketing Value Headline Analyzer to help you craft catchy and effective headlines.
- Run your test: Once you have created your variations, you need to run your test using your chosen tool. You need to decide how long you want to run your test and how much traffic you want to allocate to each variation. You also need to make sure that your test is statistically significant, meaning that the results are not due to chance or random fluctuations. You can use tools like Optimizely Sample Size Calculator or VWO Statistical Significance Calculator to help you determine these factors.
- Analyze your results: After running your test for a sufficient period of time and with enough traffic, you need to analyze your results using your chosen tool. You need to compare the performance of each variation against your goal and see which one performed better. You also need to look for any insights or learnings that may help you improve your website further.
- Implement the winner: Once you have identified the winning variation of your test, you need to implement it on your website permanently. You also need to monitor its performance over time and see if it maintains or improves its results. You can also run follow-up tests or new tests based on the insights or learnings from your previous test.
By following these steps, you can run effective CRO tests on your e-commerce website and improve its performance and conversions. However, remember that CRO testing is not a one-time activity but an ongoing process. You should always be testing new ideas and hypotheses to optimize your website and grow your business.
If you need help with CRO testing or any other aspect of e-commerce website design and development, you can contact us for a free consultation. We are a team of experts in e-commerce website design, development, and marketing. We can help you create and optimize your e-commerce website for better performance and conversions. Fill out the form below to get in touch with us today!