How to Get Started and On Your Way to Becoming an Expert with Google Website Optimizer – Free Resources

Landing page optimization and conversion rate improvements are no longer simply buzzwords. The rising cost of driving online traffic means marketers are paying more for less return on their ad dollars. To keep up, online marketers must roll up their sleeves and dive into conversion optimization. Optimizing your landing pages and your website is a proven means of increasing your conversion rates and realizing improved ROI. Google’s Website Optimizer makes it available to anyone who wants to start testing.

1. Always Be Testing: The Complete Guide to Google Website Optimizer

The easy-to-understand, in-depth information in Always Be Testing: The Complete Guide to Google Web Optimizer, by FutureNow’s Bryan Eisenberg and John Quarto-vonTivadar, will help you understand how to set up website optimization tests and improve your conversion rates. Learn the theory behind the testing, understand Google Web Optimizer click reports, discover the “why” of clicks, and decipher the valuable data.

By the time you finish reading this book, no matter what your skill level, you will have learned how to set up tests and improve crucial page components with the help of real-world case studies and examples.

If you haven’t read the book yet, perhaps you’d enjoy reading a sample chapter (PDF, about 2.5 Mb)

2. FREE *3rd Party* WordPress Plug-in For Google Website Optimizer

Future Now, Inc. worked very closely with blog integration specialists, ContentRobot, to create a WordPress plug-in that integrates Google Website Optimizer into a WordPress blog or blog-powered website. Using the plug-in makes it easy for anyone using WordPress to test headlines, copy or images. To learn more about the plugin, visit the official Website Optimizer Plugin for WordPress page. A direct download is available from ContentRobot and mirrored on GrokDotCom.

3. Getting Started with Multivariate testing?

There are several factors that hold people back before they begin A/B or Multivariate testing. If your organization isn’t testing, hopefully we can help you realize that testing isn’t scary. In fact, what our clients have seen once they do start is that NOT testing is what’s really scary. Read Start Multivariate Testing: 7 Critical Questions.

4. A/B Split Testing on Lower-Traffic Sites

Dr. Ralph Wilson of Web Marketing Today spent a few minutes interviewing FutureNow’s Bryan Eisenberg about testing on sites that have little traffic. You can view the video below. You may also be interested in reading more about the hierarchy of optimization when you are done viewing the video.

A good follow up to this is Top 7 Tips for Optimizing Low-Traffic Websites.

FREE Webinars About Google Website Optimizer

5. Landing Page Optimization: Headlines & Calls to Action

In this webinar, Bryan Eisenberg and Tom Leung, Product Manager for Google Website Optimizer, discuss how to improve your headlines and calls to action, including several case studies. They also discuss how to get testing started in your big organization. View the Landing Page Optimization: Headlines & Calls to Action webinar.

6. Landing Page Optimization: Confidence and Trust Building Elements

In this webinar, Bryan Eisenberg explored how a business might focus on testing confidence and trust building elements, a few good industry examples, a few really bad industry examples, and finished by providing valuable insight into structuring your tests. Tom Leung, from Google, then takes over, walking the audience through how easy it can be to setup a test in Google Website Optimizer. He finished with a hands-on demo of creating a test. View the Landing Page Optimization: Confidence and Trust Building Elements webinar.

7. I Know I Should Be Always Be Testing But…

Join Bryan Eisenberg and Elastic Path co-founder Jason Billingsley for this information packed webinar. You can read the recap or view the video.

8. Phone Webinar – Website Optimizer: What Should I Test?

Whether you are an e-commerce retailer or a business-to-business site, we are sure you will learn great tips for how to improve your landing pages through testing.

9. Podcast: Bryan Eisenberg Interviews Avinash Kaushik

As part of the research for our book, Always Be Testing, I had the pleasure to chat with several people about testing and how testing lives in their corporate culture. This one, with Avinash Kaushik, Analytics Evangelist for Google, blogger at Occam’s Razor and author of the incredibly popular Web Analytics an Hour a Day is not to be missed. Take some time to listen to my interview with Avinash.

Click here to listen to Bryan Eisenberg chat with Avinash Kaushik

(To download the interview for use on your ipod, etc., right-click here and “save as”.)

10. Podcast: Bryan Eisenberg Interviews Bernardo de Albergaria

Take some time to listen to my interview with Bernardo de Albergaria, VP & GM of eCommerce, Citirix Online, as we discuss testing and building out a data-driven/testing culture. He is responsible for selling products and the online experience for products like Gotomeeting and GotoMyPC.

Click here to listen to Bryan Eisenberg interview Bernardo de Albergaria

(To download the interview for use on your ipod, etc., right-click here and “save as”.)

11. Podcast of Interview of Tom Leung, Business Product Manager of Google Website Optimizer

On GrokDotCom.com Tom Leung discusses the ins and outs of Google’s latest product to help websites and advertisers.
Part 1

Click here to listen to Part 1 of Tom Leung, Google and Bryan

Part 2

Click here to listen to Part 2 of Tom Leung, Google and Bryan

To download Part 1 of Google Website Optimizer interview the MP3 click here

To download Part 2 of Google Website Optimizer interview the MP3 click here

12. 64 Tips for Getting Started with Google Website Optimizer

Are you looking for some testing ideas? Anthony Garcia, co-author of Which Sells Best? and Contact Me or Submit? provides you with 64 Tips for Getting Started with Google Website Optimizer.

13. Subscribe to the Conversion Rate Marketing Blog – GrokDotCom

GrokDotCom is a marketing blog that is focused on marketing optimization, improving online conversion rates, search engine marketing, web analytics, word of mouth, persuasive website design, and of course landing page optimization. You have many subscription options; you can get the latest content by email (your choice of daily, weekly or monthly) or by RSS. Choose your subscription options…

Some blog posts about A/B & Multivariate testing include:

How to Prioritize Your Optimization

Testing Add-to-Cart Buttons: Stuck in the Middle With You

Google Website Optimizer: 7 Powerful Tests

Push Your Customers’ Buttons

Hitting the Landing Page Optimization Wall

Does Your Testing Organization Have A Gag Reflex?

Hidden Secrets of the Amazon Shopping Cart

Big Impact, Small Changes on Amazon

Speed! Why Optimization Should Be Sexy

How to Get Buy-in for Conversion Rate Optimization

Why You Can’t Copy From Amazon

14. Subscribe to the Official Google Website Optimizer Blog

The official Google Website Optimizer blog, will keep you up to date product news, and industry insights.

15. Google Website Optimizer website

Website Optimizer, Google’s free website testing and optimization tool, allows you to increase the value of your existing websites and traffic without spending a cent. Using Website Optimizer to test and optimize site content and design, you can quickly and easily increase revenue and ROI whether you’re new to marketing or an expert. Sign up at: Google.com/Websiteoptimizer.

16. What is Continuous Improvement?

Join Dr. Ralph Wilson, Jim Sterne and I, as we explain in this 7 minute video what “continuous incremental improvement” means and how to get started with it.

What other resources have you found useful?