Summary: Test early in November & use the increasing traffic to help you get through tests quickly, giving you insights that could help increase conversions throughout the busy Christmas period.

Conversion specialists understandably focus a lot of their attention on making it easier for visitors to use websites so that they can become customers. That should be a long term focus for all website owners. However, there are also short term, quick advantages to website testing. A tool like Google Website Optimiser can be used to test offers against one another and how those offers impact on conversions.

In the run up to Christmas, many retailers will be thinking about how they can get visitors to buy from their websites. One way of doing this is by introducing special offers to encourage visitors that they are in the best place to buy what they are looking for. But how do we know which offers are going to generate the best returns? We test them of course!

In 2009, Blume2000.de - a popular German florist - tested two offers in the early part of the Christmas season. It was a simple A/B test of two different Christmas offers. They tested whether people would prefer combining flowers with a CD of Christmas music (Version A) or a slightly more expensive offer of flowers with a box of chocolates (Version B) .

Despite being more expensive, their early testing showed that people were more interested in the chocolates combination (Version B). They saw a 6% rise in their conversions as a result of this simple test. You can see the case study (in German) here.

Start Testing Now

As you can see from the Insights for Search graph below, shoppers in the UK steadily grow their interest in Christmas Gifts from early October and by November a website owner will likely be seeing enough of an increase in traffic that they can make some quick tests and get conclusive feedback more quickly. This means your testing is finished before the really busy season starts.

So, what now? Prepare to test your Christmas offers while traffic is heating up but before the really busy season starts so you can make the most of the results!

You can learn how to run an A/B test using Google Website Optimiser here.

Posted by Shane Cassells, Google Analytics team

When looking at Google Analytics reports, sometimes it’s difficult to visualise how visitors navigate on a given website page. To make this visualisation easier, some users keep the website open in another browser tab so they can reference it while looking through reports. Others rely on the Site Overlay report in Google Analytics, which, admittedly, hasn’t worked as well it could.

Today, we’re happy to share with you a bit of what we’ve been working on to address this problem. We’re releasing a new feature into beta: In-Page Analytics. With In-Page Analytics, you can see your Google Analytics data superimposed on your website as you browse.

Take In-Page for a spin and let us know what you think. In-Page Analytics is still in beta, so some things in the report may not work perfectly yet. There’s a lot left to do, but there’s even more that we want build going forward. In-Page is currently available for all English users of Google Analytics. We also have a demo video that walks you through the feature and how you might use it.

You’ll find the In-Page Analytics report in the Content section in your Google Analytics account, and it replaces Site Overlay. You can read more about In-Page in the Google Analytics Help Centre. Let us know what you think and how you’re using it!

Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Google Analytics Team

IN SUMMARY: It’s not what you say but how you say it. Answering simple questions can reduce your bounce rate and increase conversions. Test putting bullet point answers to frequently asked questions (FAQs) on relevant pages of your website.

Let’s see how we can make our landing pages more relevant, reduce our bounce rate and increase conversions with just a couple of minutes work.

It is very common for us to visit websites which have paragraphs of text which rarely answer our most basic questions. Those questions are often answered on separate FAQ pages despite representing what a website owner is most frequently asked or expects to be asked by a prospective client.

So, why hide the answers?

Let’s look at an example:

Imagine I bake cakes for all occasions and I sell them online. Here is an example of my homepage with an introduction to who we are:

“We in the Cassells Family have been baking cakes for more than 25 years & at this stage we’ve gotten pretty good at it. Frederick Cassells started his first bakery in Bath back in 1985 and we haven’t looked back since.

Today we bake cakes for every and all occasions including Birthdays, Weddings, Christmas & many Corporate Events. In 2006, we moved our business online so that we could bring our delicious cakes to people throughout the UK. We have sold more than 1,000 cakes since then & our bakers have been doing all they can to meet your demands and your desires.

We hope that you enjoy our site and that we can be of service to you whatever your occasion. We offer a Freshness Guarantee on all of our cakes!”

The above is a pretty typical example of what we can expect to find upon landing on many websites. Lots of text but little substance. A user who has questions is unlikely to find the answers on that landing page. It’s reasonable to assume that many users are in a hurry to order a cake at the last minute and if they don’t find the answers to their questions quickly they probably won’t stick around.

Quick bullet point answers to FAQs on all relevant pages can help to reduce bounce rates and encourage visitors to become customers. It also helps to keep users in the conversion funnel instead of diverting them to pages from which they may just leave the site – like a separate FAQ page.

Let’s look at some of the typical FAQs I could expect as an online cake shop:

• What occasions do you have cakes for?

• Will my cakes still be fresh on delivery?

• Do you deliver next day?

• Do you do custom messages on cakes?

• What are your shipping options?

• Are your prices competitive?

These are just some of the more obvious questions that we could be answering. Now let us test a change to our homepage so that we address some of these issues:

What have I done?

• While I still have an introduction, it’s much shorter and no less informative but it focuses my users on what I want them to do - how to order a cake.

• By using big bullet points to summarise the answers to the most common questions, I have made my landing page about the user and why they should buy their cakes here.

• I have made it easier for users to see why they should stay on my site and how to continue to the next step of my conversion funnel. And they can easily read it in 8 seconds or less.

So, what now?

Look through your site and see where you have too much text that your users probably won’t read. Test summarising the main points into concise bullet points.

Remind people of the answers to their most frequently asked questions the whole way through the conversion process.

Posted by Shane Cassells, Google Analytics team

We’ve received very positive feedback from advertisers using Search Funnels - the new set of reports launched in Conversions.  Advertisers are beginning to understand the path to conversion beyond just the last click and are now able to give credit to assisting keywords and ads that customers saw and/or clicked before converting.  Each buying cycle is different and Search Funnels is eliminating the guesswork over the roles your keywords are playing in the path to conversion.

And here’s the first round of improvements, as requested by you.

Longer, customisable Conversion History Windows
A buyer may take longer to research and buy a vacation package rather than purchase movie tickets, for example. The funnel for various conversion types can differ greatly in regards to time to purchase and number of clicks to purchase. Now, you can adjust the time span, or Conversion History Window, to 30 days (default), 60 days or 90 days prior to a conversion to see the Search Funnel data leading to that conversion. With this feature, you can look further back into the history of your conversion paths.

Only show complete conversion paths
A percentage of surfers clear cookies from time to time, which can influence search funnels data by causing conversion paths to appear shorter by eliminating some upper funnel assists  - impressions or clicks on your keywords - that may have occurred prior to cookie deletion. For instance, if a buyer clicks on one of your ads, then clears cookies, then goes on to click another one or your ads before making a purchase, the click prior to cookie deletion will not show up in your Search Funnels reports.

Now, you can sanitize the search funnel data you’re looking at by checking a box in your reports called “Only show complete conversion paths.”  This optionwill filter out conversions that are from paths that are potentially biased by cookie deletion.  As such, while you will end up analysing fewer conversions overall, you will be seeing truer, more complete conversion paths.  Use this option to strengthen your overall funnel analysis and understand how buyers are finding your products.

These new features were created based on feedback we received from Search Funnels users and we hope you find them useful as you experiment with, analyse, and optimise your portfolio of keywords.

Posted by Evelyn O'Keeffe, Google Analytics team