SEO and Multivariate Testing – Be Aware

Multivariate Testing (MVT henceforth), the art of testing more than one page element in a given space of time simultaneously (almost) has proven its worth to me over the years on numerous projects.

Gone are the days of testing single page variants and instead we can now test numerous permutations of pages with various page elements in a fraction of the time required for simple A/B/n testing. However this does introduce an interesting element of concern to us SEOs, concerned not only with ensuring page content converts but also that the page performs at capacity as far as Search Engine Robots are concerned.

So with your MVT tool serving many variants of various parts of your website, have you considered the impact on your SERPs? Many of the MVT tools do recognise a bot from a web browser, but have you actually checked your tool? The effect that this could have is profound.

Take this example; your site is highly indexed and you’re running MVT iterations on your homepage. Your MVT tool is not segmenting robots out of the tests and the Search Bots see different layouts every day (because your site is visited every day). All that hard work you, the SEO guru, spent on optimising the homepage for maximum SEO performance may well be compromised and undermined by way of changing layouts and content.

Even if the Search Bots are being filtered out, what if the winning permutation of the [Home/Product/Insert Name] page reduces the effectiveness of your page in the eyes of the Bots? This is a crucial aspect of MVT that is often overlooked.

My advice? Unless you’re also responsible for MVT, ensure you are fully aware of what is being tested and the impact any new layouts will have on your SEO strategy. After all, increasing page conversion yet decreasing traffic may leave you spinning your wheels in the sand…

What are your experiences? Would love to hear of other real-life examples

The Art of Selling – Can Online Shops Compare

One of my facinations in ecommerce is in comparing the real world of ‘bricks and mortar’ sales to online.

Real world commerce existed ever since man decided that he wanted more than what he could create himself. Therefore, with online commerce barely 15 years old, it comes as no surprise to see so many websites failing so badly; after all, humans have been trading for many centuries. The art of traditional selling is light years ahead of the Web.

Having a little time on our hands we ventured into London town for some site seeing (yes even Londoners do this). However en route to Bond Street via Oxford Circus we alighted the bus outside of Hamleys, the self-confessed biggest toy shop in the world.

As she’d never been to Hamleys, my wife wanted to ‘take a look’ – generally for women, (a generalisation may I emphasise) going into a shop to take a look could result in losing several pounds – not of the weight-loss kind either.

It is indeed a vast experience, with toys for genders, ages, types and crafts – quite a daunting experience being parents, knowing where to start. Back in my day (many moons back) a toy was usually something second hand, received quite unexpectedly, though with appreciation. Of course these days it is a given right of children it seems… I digress.

So why was I compelled to write this article? With so much choice, Hamleys would surely suffer if it were not for their fantastic team of skilled helpers. We walked out a few hundred pounds (£) lighter than if these helpers were not available.

Put simply, not only on hand to offer assistance, they were always willing to offer that little bit extra to find out exactly what we were after and demonstrated their knowledge of the toys they were responsible for enough so to pursuade us to buy them. Had they not been on hand we may well have bought fewer things otherwise not available at our local Toys’r'Us and shopped again later. Instead I spent the rest of our ‘relaxing’ afternoon together carrying bags upon bags of toys around, to the amusement of tourists.

So how can we create this experience online? Amazon.com do a great job with lots of great widgets such as recommendations, wish-lists and peer reviews, but do these websites really know who I am and what I want? Surely if the Web was a truely great sales tool, traditional shops like Hamleys would suffer.

I for one believe that the mid-term future is a better integration of these traditional trading establishments together with a web presence fully integrated in giving the customer the best possible experience.

Long-term the Web still may mature enough to become intelligent. I wrote a while back on Web 3.0 and the possibility of the web actually knowing enough about you to give you truly customised experience. Imagine searching for a summer holiday and the results knowing that you love the Med, prefer a villa and have a family of 4…

Until then perhaps we will constantly swim the tide trying to out-do well run businesses like Hamleys…

Quality of traffic and online conversion

One of the key challenges we all face is integrating conversion analysis across the entire customer journey. This is from acquisition which occurs outside of the website, sending traffic to the website which as a conversion owner, you need to understand.

Tools such as Double Click, Omniture and Webtrends try to go some way to bridge the gap, but all the data in the world won’t tell you anything until you start understanding how to interpret the data.

Conversion begins from the moment your target customer engages with you, whether through online or offline. Once they’re interest in your product increases (i.e. a click or other action) you need to ensure you’re tracking them at each step of the way and you’re marketing to them in the right way. If your company is all about value, then tell them how much they’re getting. If your company is about trends or fashion, make them feel they can identify with your brand.

However conversely don’t think that the more visitors you get the higher the conversion! MISTAKE!

The best converting websites optimise their traffic before it hits the website to ensure you’re receiving quality traffic. There will always be a large majority that are only browsing or are discovering your brand, or have accidentally landed on your site, but your goal is to ensure you maximise your exposure to the maximum relevant people. Only by this will your on site conversion really come to pass.

Depesh