You Should Test That!

Chris Goward on building in testing to any type of business

It's simple, if you're not testing to improve results from your site, the leading companies in your sector likely are, which means you're likely to be falling behind. But how do you approach testing in a structured way? Earlier this year, I read Chris Goward's new book You Should Test That and was impressed by the way it blends advice on structured testing techniques with recommendations on how to better communicate the benefits of your products and services. So acting on requests from Smart Insights members to review and feature the latest thinking in book reviews and webcasts from invited experts, we have asked Chris to deliver a webcast on this topic. We hope you can join us this Friday!

From occasional site updates to Evolutionary Site Design

In his role as founder of WiderFunnel, one of the largest agencies focusing on CRO, Chris has been advising businesses to adopt what he prefers to call Evolutionary Site Design through Strategic Marketing Optimisation where improvement becomes part of BAU (Business-as-Usual). Compare this to the more common situation where there is a big gap between major site designs, improvement or testing....

I wondered about the approach for updating sites by readers of this blog? Please share when you, or a typical client, last made a significant update to your site structure, layout or performed a test.

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Our review of You Should Test That

For all the commentary on how to attract visitors to interact with brands through search, content and social media marketing, there is still relatively limited advice in books on marketing techniques to boost conversion, leads and sales. Yes, there have been many useful technical books on how to get the most from Google Analytics, but they don't really get into the marketing issues of how to apply the tool to communicate more effectively with site visitors through changing your value proposition.

You Should Test That starts with a review of the business cases for making improvements and introducing the concepts of conversion optimisation. I liked the recommendations on prioritising pages for testing using PIE. It then goes on to explain how to create Hypotheses with the LIFT model of optimisation which Chris has explained in previous posts on Smart Insights. In these early chapters it explains basic KPIs like the difference between bounce rates and conversion rates, so it doesn't assume any prior knowledge. Individual chapters follow on how to optimise for different components like Value Proposition, Relevance, Clarity, Anxiety, Distraction and Urgency. Each of these is full of examples of where these principles are applied.

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On the negative side, the book is not a quick read with over 300 pages, but personally I'd rather have the examples and detail. There could be a more balanced range of examples, with perhaps more Ecommerce and B2B examples and a way of referencing examples by site style or page type as in van Duyne's Design of Sites book. I'd also like to see more about the challenges of optimising mobile sites, particularly those using Responsive Website Design.

So overall, a good addition to the books available on site optimisation, the best for me since the classic Call-to-Action by Bryan Eisenberg. I like the way it blends analytics with marketing and doesn't just consider specific landing pages for , but also other types of site like Ecommerce or publisher sites. I think the strongest feature is the many examples of companies from large to small that Wider Funnel analysts have worked with to improve conversion which help explain the concepts and inspire ideas. The examples are a big feature of the webcast, so do listen in, to see examples about the latest approaches.