[Show Transcript]

I’m Randy Charach from RandyReport.com and THIS is the show that takes you from internet zero to business hero!

In this weeks report you’ll discover some simple and powerful strategies you can use right away to multiply the profits of your business. Don’t miss a word of this special report because what you’ll learn today will add icing to your cake and raise the bar in all your marketing efforts.

I’m a family man, but today, even if my daughters are watching this show. I’m going to use a four letter word that some people may be repulsed by. It may even stir up some scary thoughts…

I hope to change that. This four letter word has been responsible for literally trillions of dollars in breakthroughs in the past 150 years.

It’s a way of helping your business to always grow, to be two or three giant steps ahead of your competition, and recession proof your income.

So what is this dirty word?

Let’s say you run a hot dog stand. Every day on average you sell 150 hot dogs. You pay the same amount of money for food, your license and other expenses. And you need a breakthrough.

If you could sell an extra 50 hot dogs a day you could pay for a much needed vacation at the end of the month.

What are you going to do?

You’re going to use the four letter word – “TEST”.

Here’s an example:

One week you’re going change what’s written on your sign. Let’s say its “Mouth Watering Hot Dog, Vitamin Water and chips – five dollars”.

You create another sign that says “President Obama’s Favourite Hot Dog here, with water and chips — five dollars.”

You test your new sign against your old one for a week and you see that sales went up 20 hot dogs a day.

Now you try and beat the new results from that sign so you come up with another that says – “President Obama’s Favourite Hot Dog, With Glacier Water and Fat Free Chips – five dollars”

Now your sales go up another 30 hot dogs a day, and you have your Florida vacation paid for. Obviously this is a simplified and glorified example.

But on the internet, this kind of testing is dead simple to do and creates the same surges in sales.
The test the hot dog vendor performed is called an A/B split test. You test one element – called version A – against another element – called version B – and compare results.

So how do you test online?

Well anytime you want your website visitor to take action, you should be testing to try and bump up your results, also known as your conversion.

If you’re selling a report on “How To Build A Toy Rocket North Korea Will Envy” then you simply create two separate web pages. Page A against page B. Think of it as sending customers to two different sales people, and determining who the better sales person is.

You’ll be left with a winner or no significant changes. If you have a winner then you send the majority of traffic to it – this is known as your “control page” and set up another test.

After a while instead of 1 in 100 people buying, 2 in 100 will buy…then 2.6 in 100 and you keep testing and upgrading your control – or winning – piece until you can no longer beat it.

Does this make sense?

Ok, here’s what you need to run these tests on your website…

Google offers for free, their Google Website Optimizer. It’s a great split testing tool, and there are plenty of resources available showing you how to set this up and use it.

Split test as much as possible. You don’t have to be a genius, but you’ll create genius results, raise the bar in your business AND leave your competition choking on your dust.

Let’s keep going here…

Now that you can see the importance of testing, you may be asking yourself, “How do I track all this stuff?”

This is a good question because before you can improve something you need a way to measure it. Think of your web page as a bucket with tiny invisible cracks in it. You’re pouring water in, but somewhere, it’s leaking out.

This is where good tracking software comes in.

Seem complicated? It really isn’t. Most tracking software is simple to use. For instance “Google Analytics” is one of the most popular programs out there. This used to cost around $3,000 to buy until Google purchased the technology and gave it away for free. They’re so nice to us – aren’t they?

Either you – or your web person – simply copy and paste some code generated by the software onto a web page you want to track, and an easy to use display shows you all kinds of cool information.

Tracking software is like special x-ray goggles giving you a look at what’s going on in the guts of your webpage. Here are some valuable facts you can gather about your customers and your business.

Exactly where in the world people who looked at your site are from…right down to the city name – and even the time of day they found your site.

How long people stay on your web page – and where they get confused, bored and leave. This is becoming more and more important. This is because the search engines know how long people stay on your site and it’s becoming a bigger factor in how well your site can “Rank”. Think about it. Good web pages, people read longer. Bad websites, people leave right away.

How people found your website, this is crucial. You can find out what keywords people typed into what search engines to find you, what web sites referred them to you, or if they came from an email campaign. If you find a certain banner ad is working like crazy, then you can pour more advertising money into that ad. If you find a certain ad is not making you any money, then you stop spending money on that ad.

You can track which keywords turn into a sale more often, and what keywords bring the most profitable customers. Some keyword searches are from bargain hunters and some are from people who will spend top dollar. Focus on the top spenders and you’ll raise the bar on your profits.

You can break down exactly how you want people to move through your site, and find choke points where people get lost. It’s like watching your customers walk through a maze you built, finding out where people get lost and then stepping in and putting in some arrows and directions to get them back on track.

Tracking software lets you see what people are doing months after they first visit your site. For instance if someone signs up for your newsletter in October, and then in December they buy something, the tracking software lets you know that sale was conceived in October – a great time to conceive since it’s so cold out – how that person found your site, and how much you spent to get and nurture that lead.

Anyhow.

What good can a doctor do for a sick person if he can’t measure pulse, breathing rate, temperature or other vitals? Your business is the same, when you start measuring vital stats you’ll know with laser precision where to focus resources so your business machine yields $2 for every $1 you put in, and then $3 and beyond.

Our question this week comes from Jim P from Dallas, Texas who wrote:

Hi Randy, what should I start testing for the biggest and fastest results?

Answer:

Great question Jim. Here’s a good starting point. Test your offer.

An offer is your basic proposition such as: You give me $1 and I give you a hamburger.

An offer on your landing page can be:

You give me your email address and I’ll send you a report on how to perform your own brain surgery.
Then test headlines, sub headlines, price, your first paragraph, and your P.S.

Test credibility tools like awards, Better Business Bureau certificates, and pictures. Careful with pictures, some marketers have found that pictures of men with beards lower response.

Graphic devices pointing out important sales arguments and your call to action can make a big differences too.

I like the saying “Test the forest, the trees, then the branches and then the leaves”.

This means you test the most important items for conversion first, and then move down to the smaller items.

Well, that wraps up this episode of Randy Report. Because company websites, prices and quality of service on the Internet change rapidly, for my up-to-date recommendations on resources and for free tools and training, visit me today at RandyReport.com.

Today you learned:

Today you learned about the importance of testing. You know how to perform a basic A/B split test so you can steadily improve the selling power of your web page.

You know about the power of tracking. Because if you can measure it, you can improve it. There are dozens, if not hundreds of ways for customers to fall through invisible cracks in your web business. Tracking software lets you find those cracks and weld them shut.

Combine testing and tracking together and you’ll raise the bar on your business, and without a doubt ensure your business becomes more profitable every day.

Thanks so much for watching. Remember, if you’d like more free reports, resources and training then visit RandyReport.com and join me again next week where you’ll discover

Simple, search engine optimization methods to get your website easily found on search engines. You’ll also learn that more important than SEO – search engine optimization – is SEM – search engine marketing – AND you’ll find out what the most important things you can do in order to raise the bar in your business and get your site listed ahead of your competitors sites in the search engine results page.

I’m Randy Charach, and this is the show that takes you from internet zero to business hero!

[End of Show Transcript]