Ever want to try improving the conversion rate of your blog, but didn't have the money to hire a designer, the time to figure it all out, or technical prowess to pull it off?
Well, I’m happy to say those excuses are no longer valid ever since the Google Experiments feature was integrated into Google Analytics.
If you’re not familiar with Google Experiments Lab already, it’s a program that allows you to serve different variations of your blog to different website visitors and measure the performance of those page variations against your goals (more email opt-ins, lower bounce rates) to see which version performs the best. Let me explain in simpler terms with a hypothetical example on how to setup Google Experiments.
Let’s say that our host, Ms. Ileane, wanted to run a Google Experiment to see if she could get a higher percentage of visitors to sign up for her email list.
(Side note: I’m a subscriber myself and highly recommend joining the community.) One simple experiment that she could try is to change the call-to action located on her intake form to the right:
Instead of the benefit description above Ms. Ileane could have half of her visitors see a different benefit statement like: Sign Up to Learn How Ms. Ileane Gets Over 40,000 Visitors Per Month To Her Blog.
After running a Google Analytics A/B Testing experiment for week or so, Ms. Ileane would be able to see which version of the intake form resulted in a higher percentage of email opt-ins and stick with the winner.
Running experiments like this can be quite lucrative for a blogger since the more visitors you’re able to convert into subscribers to your email list the more money you’ll generally make. And since Google Experiments makes it so easy to get started designing a blog experiment, why wouldn’t you give it a try?
The remainder of this article will walk-you step-by-step on how to set up your first Google Experiment. So grab a cup of coffee, follow the instructions below, and you could be launching your very own test in under 2 hours.
How to Setup Google Experiments for Your Blog
Step 1: If you already use Google Analytics (GA) to monitor the performance of your blog, you’re ahead of the game in terms of getting started already. If you don’t you’ll need to sign up for a free account and install the GA code to your blog first.
Here is a straight-forward guide to getting you setup with Google Analytics for WordPress.
Step 2: After you’ve got GA installed on your blog, sign into your account here: www.google.com/analytics/
Step 3: After you’ve logged into your account look through the options on the left-side navigation and select the “Experiments” button located underneath the “Content” section as demonstrated below:
Step 4: Next, you will select the “Create Experiment” button on the page titled All Experiments.
Step 5: Now it’s time to select the URL that you’d like to run an experiment on. For the majority of bloggers, the homepage of your blog is a good place to start testing since that’s usually the most visited page. However, for my own test I want to set up a test on the landing page that outlines the benefit of subscribing to my e-mail list here: http://www.500amonth.com/my-business/.
Enter the specific URL you’d like to begin testing and click the start experimenting button as demonstrated below:
Step 6: Choosing Your Experiment Pages
First pick a name for your experiment. This is for your own reference only. Make it’s something you can easily remember and move on.
Next, the Original Page fields will already be filled. You will also need at least one variation of your original web page to be able to conduct a test a displaying a different page elements (like a new headline, different call-to action, or switching up the images) to your visitors.
If you’re using WordPress and need a Variation Page created quickly and easily, I recommend installing the Duplicate Post plugin. The duplicate post plug-in will create and exact copy of your blog posts or pages within WordPress allowing you to quickly and safely make changes to a variation or test page.
After you've created a variation page and picked something on the page that you want to test, enter the URL into the Variation 1 field as shown below and click the “Save & Next” button to move on to the next step.
In case you’re wondering, I decided to test adding some different headlines for my experiment that reference some different benefits of being a subscriber. I’m interested in finding out what kind of information people really want to learn by subscribing to my list. This is a quick, easy, and potentially lucrative test that any blogger can setup.
Step 7: Set Experiment Options
With this step you will be setting up the objective or goal of your experiment. Google Experiments allows you to setup for types of goals: URL Destination, Visit Duration, Page/Visit, or Events. Each of these goals is explained in detail here.
You select the goal of your experiment using the “Select a Metric” drop down menu shown below.
Next, select what percentage of your visitors should be included in this test.
Tip: The larger percentage of your visitors you select the faster you’ll be able to find a “winner” for your experiment. However, if you’re already getting a lot of opt-ins to your blog, you might want to scale this number back so that you don’t lose out on potential subscribers.
Finally, click the “Save & Next” button to move on to the next stage. Good news, you’re almost done setting up your first test!
Step 8: Next, you’ll need to upload a small piece of code into the section of the Original page and Variation page you created. This code is necessary to get your experiment to work.
After you get the script added to both your pages click the “Save & Next” button at the bottom of the page to wrap up the setup process.
At this step Google will automatically run a test to validate if the above experiment code has been implemented correctly. Now, all you've got to do is sit back and wait for the result of your first test to come in. Pat yourself on the back, you're doing something that many bloggers write about but rarely get around to actually doing for their own blog.
Google Experiments: Conclusion
If you’re looking for a simple, fast, and free way to begin experimenting with conversion on your blog, Google Experiments is definitely the way to go. My advice when running your first test is to try out something that’s easy for you to edit on your website, like changing the headline of your email intake form. This will give you the confidence to run more ambitious tests in the future without getting overwhelmed by conducting these experiments.
What do you think about doing some A/B Testing on your blog with Google Content Experiments?
Breet thax for a awesoem article. I never knew that I can do experiment with my blog. Now I can make experiment without any fear !! And I am going to make some experiment now !!
Thanks again man !!
Thanks for the comment Tammoy. Let me know how your first experiment turns out.
This is a very interesting and helpful guide, will have it in mind, if I need to do some testing in the future. 🙂
I’ve always done conversion testing and run something for a week or so to see if it makes a difference in signups–and not actually using something like Google Experiment to track it. Might be worth a shot to test it, though.
It’s pretty easy to setup, especially if you’ve got the resources to make two versions of a webpage fast. That’s been the most time consuming step. Otherwise, setup is simple.
Hey Brett,
The setup sounds easy. Is there a certain number of daily visitors I should have before I do this? I am averaging almost a hundred and growing, but not sure if that is a big enough sample.
Thanks.
~Dakota
Thanks brett
for sharing good article.
I am also try this method to setup google experiment for my blog.
Nice explanation.
really detailed info, thanks – I may finally do some A/B testing 😀
best regards!
A nice tutorial, can’t wait to start my first experiment on Google analytics.
Thanks Arup. Let me know if you have any questions when you start the setup process.
Awesome posting here learned lots of new stuff thanks for sharing and keep it coming 😀
Very interesting post Brett!
Split testing is an important activity that leads to success and I think this is one of the best ways to do it free. Now, I have to follow your steps and get mine setup this week.
Thanks for sharing and have a splendid weekend
Great post Brett,
I have been using WebMaster Tools for a few years and was not aware that I could do eperiments with my blogs. I am going to give this a try now 🙂
Thanks for the useful info.
Hi Phil – Thanks. Yeah, I just discovered this experiment feature about 2 months ago myself. I’d say it’s worth a try especially for testing out different calls to action on your email intake form.
ThIs is a good idea. I’m already connected to GA. I will try the experiment tab. Thanks for the helpful information.
Very informative share on Google experiments, I also use one with it.
Great article Brett, it is both informative and useful. Split testing is one of those things that can be very easy to overlook or put off but can also have a positive impact on your income and therefore should be utilized on a regular basis.
This is a great guide on Google Analytic, I’ve been using it for a long time but I actually haven’t used some of the great features like the above you mentioned.
Wow…thanks for this very important so-called “product” that Google has. This is my first time hearing about it.
Hi Tekkaus – I agree. It’s tough to keep track of all the updates that Google rolls out.
I am sure this will be very useful (and cost effective) to measure a lot of things that you wanna gauge in your blog(s). 😀
A great lesson learnt for sure.
This Google Experimenting sounds like we can use different content and theme which can help us to analyse the visitor’s behavior and hence tweak out blogging techniques accordingly.
Have to try this one out in the coming months to see how things turn out for my various ideas.
Thanks for this wonderful info!!!
Great tips i have not much experienced on Google analytics will all features sure it can be guide for me thanks for the post brett
i never heard of this before, going to give it a try thanks for this nice info and great article about Google Experiments…
Great man! Thanks for sharing step by step tutorial of installing Google experiments in Analytic. I’ll definitely try it to measure my blog statistics. Awesome Sharing
You always keep me on my toes, I have always ignored Google experiments. Am most definitely going to give it a try.
I’ve always wanted to know how to do this exactly – great screen shots to show me how. Love it, thanks!
Thanks Lisa. Let me know if you have any questions when you start going through the process yourself. Cheers.
I don’t think this would be of any use to me but it is a fantastic addition to the webmaster toolbox and I’m sure plenty of affiliate marketers will find this vital in increasing their income. 🙂
Oh that is just the coolest thing ever! This has the potential to seriously increase the success of a website. Instructions are well written and easy to follow. I will definitely use this for my blog! Thank you.
It took a few hours to type out the instructions and take the screenshots so I’m glad you found it useful Mary.
Thanks Brett Lindenberg, for complete guide to setup of Google Experiments. Yet I have not setup Google Experiments for my blog. Hope this tutorial will be very helpful for me when I will setup it for my blog. Thanks for this informative resource:)
No problem. Feel free to bookmark and share the post if you found it useful. 🙂
I don’t use Google Analytics but rather use statcounter but for the sake of this experiment, it is worth going in for GA.
really helpful going to test now.
Thanks alot.
Oh that is just the coolest thing ever! This has the potential to seriously increase the success of a website. Instructions are well written and easy to follow.
Woah I never knew Analytics had this feature. Well, to be honest I only use it to see how much traffic I’m getting and its sources.
I’ll check this out. Thanks!
Hi Brett, Thanks for the great article. This information was new to me, em going to est it.
Testing is one good way knowing what actually works and which is not..Nice to read such a useful tutorial..
I am using Google analytics but i never heard of this before,just going to give it a try.Thanks for sharingcomplete tutorial of installing Google experiments in Analytic
This is really awesome Brett! Glad to know this is free. I will implement this right away.
Just tested Google Analytics.. WOW, how come I haven’t used it before. You rock! This is one of the most informative and useful blogs I follow.
Hi Brett… thanks for a great post – did not know about the Google Experiments feature in GA until I came across it here. Certainly sounds like a more cost-effective way than what I was using (basically testing various landing pages using different adword texts!) Will definitely try this out!
This is so amazing tutorial as a new bie it’s really helpful me.
Thank you to sharing me this knowledgeable post.
I did this last day. it was good experience.
Do you know about how much traffic is necessary before doing ab testing? I always thought that for Amazon tracking conversions it would be a great idea but for a small store that may only convert one or two products a month in a catagory the cost might exceed the benefit.
There’s actually a snippet of javascript you can pick up and put in the header so that you can direct visitors to different pages based on where they come from, what time of day it is, or at random. In conjunction with the Analytic Experiment strategy, you can even more accurately A/B track how either page does for any segment you want.
Great tip David. I will try that out myself.
Good post Brett Lindenberg
Its first time I came across google experiment and found it very much interesting. I believe that it would certianly help bloggers to make experiment on some grounds instead doing experiments with our personal judgements. I would definately try out this in future when my blog reaches to certain level.
Brett right now I Just want to ask one question. Is it possible to target a particular audiance with the experimental page/post; based on geographical location or age group???
Moreover what if after testing the page I want to run variants of pages with differnt titles. Like “Marketing strategies for blogs” “Marketing stragtegies for website” “Marketing strategies for businesses” etc? Is it possible to run variant pages with same content and different titles permanently.??
Thanks.
Nice information blog post you created. I’ve actually been putting off testing for a few weeks now because I never bothered to really understand how to do it.
This could come in handy actually. My blog needs some tweeking but I think this will be a great way to add to the appeal… experimenting with it now
Thank-you Sir, finally got something new on internet, I would also try this experiment on my own blog. But I don’t know what experiment should I try on my blog. Any ideas guys?
Hi Maddy – I always measuring a specific “event” within Google Experiments. The event I usually use is someone hitting the “Thank You” page on my website to determine which version of a website results in the most email opt-ins.
Brett,
Thanks for a really cool idea here to test out some variations on different blog options my partner and I have been discussing. Finally we can see whose ideas really are best–unless we tie!
Thanks for introducing this concept to me and the clear tutorial to get ‘er done!
~Francesca~
Lots of thanks to you Mr. Brett for this post. I was aware of this experiment feature but never used it as I didn’t know how to set it up. I am off to set up my first experiment now. Thanks again.
Great post Brett, and honestly I didn’t had time yet to play with Google Experiments on my blog. But will for sure follow the steps and tips from this post. Regaarding, the bbt email form, I also think that it can be improved.
thanks for sharing 🙂
I didn’t know about this experiment from GG. I used to do it with split testing form from aweber. That will be another great opportunity to convert more visitors. Thanks for sharing those great informations. It’s nice to start a day reading a good quality article like this…
Great tips for using Google experiments. This is really very helpful for me. I will try this for my blog also. Thanks for sharing it.
Thanks for these detailed instructions. I always thought that A/B testing is pretty close to something unreal. Yet, your post made me think that impossible is nothing. Thanks for this inspiration and guidance
I’m using experiments myself 🙂 There’s a lot of nifty stuff from google but they need to have more tutorials!!! A lot of their awesome features are hidden and underutilized. Thank your for your guide!
Yes , I agree with this so much important post.
Google Experiments helps us to make our site most impressive.
Its helps to make our site SEO more effective that helps to make our post more impressive. A young blogger must be aware from this because this is really helpful for them. You also show , how this experiment can be easily done. I like this query so much.
Thank you so much for this post.
Halo Brett Lindenberg,
Thanks for your guide about Google Experiments. To be honest I just knew about this, but it is very interesting to try. Now I will begin this experiment.
great article and and very nice and helpful information ,this is this is the first time i heard about this i will definitely try it thanks for this nice info and great article about Google Experiments ,,very informative post and very useful tips and guidance
thanks for all
I am just started to get in the conversion area of my blog.
This article comes at the right time since I about to set up my landing page.
Thanks!
Thanks for sharing this feature with us Brett, Google Analytics is a handy a tool I use every day plus it seems like they’re always trying to make GA better for its users, thanks again for the informative post.
great information, about setting up the experiments in the Google analytics, I personally found very helpful.., very nicely written and very well crafted…
nice article..:)
Hi Brett
I got some problem with my Google analytics, actually google is saying that you have installed code for http://www.shureekn[dot]com instead of shureekn[dot]com. but everytime when i enter http://www.shureekn[dot]com its automatically redirected to the shureekn[dot]com. and google analytic is saying that both are different url. if u have any idea plz share.
thank you in advance
This article was incredibly detailed and helpful. Google Analytics is an amazing, incredibly robust tool, but it gets complicated and confusing fast. It’s great to have the step-by-step process laid out -it helps with any snags you hit when attempting to take action on getting started with Google Content Experiments. This is definitely something that any digital marketing agency reporting to their clients should use to optimize for the best results.
when i go to google analytic i just looking at visitors flow and bounce rate
and now i know one more thing
i think now i will do an experiment in my blog
i will include banners to see is conversion going better
thanks for your post
I know the idea behind Google experiment in Google Analytic. But never try to use it. You have write simple and step by step guide. with any hesitation I can use it for my blog. Thanks
I have never heard about the Google Experiment Lab before, the feature clearly hints that how Google made the A/B split testing easier and easy to monitor for webmasters. I am gonna bookmark your page to use it as a reference later to my team.
This is the new thing I learn today.I see the experiment option in Google Analytic but never try it.Now I try for it on my pages.Thanks for sharing this.
This is the new thing I learn today.I see the experiment option in Google Analytic but never try it.Now I will try for it on my pages.Thanks for sharing this.
Interesting post with awesome tutorial. I’ll surely try this feature of Google Analytics to my blog. Thanks for tremendous sharing.
Hi tere,
thanks for the great write-up.
I have a problem though… I am using a woo theme and after talking to the techies it was decided that the easiest way to insert the code in the relevant pages was through the functions.php of my child theme.
So far so good.
My only issue is that the code is not “right below the head tag” as instructed, but a few lines below.
I am saying this because for some reason when I go to validate the experiment I am told that no code could be found 🙁 It also says that it doesn’t necessarily mean that what I have been doing is wrong, so I am running the experiment anyway, but I am not sure if it is working correctly. They say you have to wait 24-48 hours before you see any numbers coming in, but I have a bad feeling about it. Have you got any insights for me?
The test page is my landpage, so to look at it you can just click on my name above.
TIA 🙂
I usually look at google analytics for my sites and thank you for your post for further information.