How to Improve Your Website Conversions with A/B Testing [INTERVIEW]

Successful website optimization is a delicate balance of art and science that can have a drastic impact on your ability to generate leads, convert new customers and increase sales. The following questions were posed to Pete Koomen, an ex-Googler and now Co-founder of Optimizely - a fast-growing startup helping companies increase their conversions with A/B testing .

Q: What is A/B testing?

The idea of A/B testing is very simple: make a change to your website, (or an ad, or a marketing email,) and then measure how this change affects visitor behavior.  A really simple example is A/B testing the effect of a text changes on your landing page call-to-action button: does a red “Buy now” work better than a blue “Learn more”?  How about “Get started”? These are questions that A/B testing can answer quickly.

Optimizely has made it dead simple to run A/B tests on your website, whether you’re an engineer or a marketer.

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How to Add Facebook Like Button & Like Box for Different Languages

The Facebook Like Button and Like Box can easily be added to any page but the trouble is that the default display is in English. To specify the language, you simply need to include the “locale” parameter.

Here is a quick hack to display the Like Button in other languages using the iFrame.

Change the Like Button code:

<iframe src="http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?
app_id=185800681493185&amp;href=YOUR WEB PAGE&amp;send=false
&amp;layout=standard&amp;width=450&amp;show_faces=false&amp;
action=like&amp;colorscheme=light&amp;font&amp;height=35"
scrolling="no" frameborder="0" style="border:none;
overflow:hidden;width:450px; height:35px;" allowTransparency=
"true"></iframe>

to this (for your language):

<iframe src="http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?
locale=it_IT&app_id=185800681493185&amp;href=YOUR WEB PAGE
&amp;send=false&amp;layout=standard&amp;width=450&amp;
show_faces=false&amp;action=like&amp;colorscheme=light&amp;
font&amp;height=35" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" style=
"border:none; overflow:hidden; width:450px; height:35px;"
allowTransparency="true"></iframe>

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Keyword Ranking Reports by Advanced Web Ranking

Advanced Web Ranking (AWR) is a comprehensive SEO tracking and reporting tool that has been getting more and more attention in the online marketing community in recent years. It’s a very robust and feature-rich SEO software that I particularly like because of its usability and reporting capabilities.

The product provides 6 reports for tracking your SEO efforts (Website Rankings, Keyword Rankings, Search Engine Rankings, Top Sites, Overview and Visibility) of which the Keyword Ranking Report I find to be indispensable.

There are three features I especially like about the Keyword Ranking Report…

Keyword Rankings

1. Evolution in Time – this is a visual snapshot of keyword rankings of your site (and competitors) over a specified range of time. The  chart display allows you to filter for selected keywords or all keywords and, similar to Google Analytics, you can include notes (annotations) for specific dates.

I find this to be one of the most useful ways to analyze rankings data but can’t help to notice that the overall look and default colors they use are subliminaly “Googley”.

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Turntable.fm: Tremendously Addictive

Online music is a hot space that has evolved a lot since the Napster days. Whether it’s discovery, sharing or pure listening enjoyment there has been a lot of innovation over the last decade. Having said that, I wholeheartedly-without-any-hesitation believe that Turntable.fm is one of the most disruptive online music sites to date.

The guys at Turntable.fm have figured out a recipe that includes the best of discovery, sharing and listening and wrapped the whole thing up with a clever game layer that is highly addicting. The premise is simple: anyone can be a DJ and play music for users in various music-themed chat rooms (yeah, that’s right: chat rooms). If you play good music, users will reward you and you can earn points. If you play bad music, well, you get the idea..

Here are 5 features I really love about the site:

1) Earn points and build a fan base by playing good music. Earn enough points and you can upgrade your avatar (next).

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Everything You Need to Know About Carbon Offsets

Reducing your carbon footprint is critical in the fight against global warming and impact on climate change. The following questions were posed to Luke Miller (@offsetluke), an expert on the subject and CEO/Founder of Offset Options - a startup helping companies offset their carbon emissions and achieve carbon neutrality.

What is a carbon offset?
A carbon offset represents a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Voluntary carbon offsets allow individuals and organizations to mitigate their own carbon footprint by funding projects that result in emissions reductions that wouldn’t have happened otherwise.

How do carbon offsets help the environment?
The idea behind carbon offsetting is that greenhouse gas emissions spread very quickly around the planet. As a consequence their impact on global warming does not depend from where they originated. So while the opportunities for reductions of emissions might be limited in one location for reasons of cost or technology, the next best option may be to pay for a reduction to be made in another location.

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Major Takeaways of Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hanssone

Rework first came out in March of 2010 and since then i’ve read it 3 times. Not because it’s an exceptionally well-written book or that it provides any major revelations but because it’s a quick read with very practical advice on how to make shit happen.

I generally share Jason Fried’s philosophy on running a business and though a lot of his methods are controversial and not always applicable in the real world, he pushes the envelope and provides good food for thought on how to improve processes in a business.

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Interview with Ben Barry of Facebook

Sometimes I come across great designers by accident and, as it happens, a tweet via Jason Fried led me to discover the works of Ben Barry. Ben works as a designer for Facebook and has a fantastic portfolio  that I highly recommend checking out: designforfun.com

How did you become interested in design?
I think I was just born this way. I became increasingly interested in architecture and web design in high school, and then focused my studies on graphic design in college.

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8 Things I Learned about SXSW

I had an opportunity to experience SXSW for the first time this year  and it truly is as epic and overwhelming as everyone proclaims it to be. With 30,000 heads geeking it out, plus the biggest names and thought leaders in the technology industry and parties around the clock — it’s an inspiring and amazing shitshow event.

Here are a few important things I learned about SXSW that might be handy for next year:

1. Planning Doesn’t Work Throw your schedule out, the laws of planning don’t apply at SXSW. Too many people, too many distractions and too many venues will detract your ability to get to where you need to go. Let serendipity happen.

2. Expect Anything This falls in line with the above. Keep your eyes wide open at all times.

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Site of the Month: Minus

I love finding tools that are useful and dead simple to use. Enter Minus – a photo (and much more) sharing application that allows you to drag and drop files into your browser window and share the file with a short url.

Besides its simplicity, there are also several features that make Minus an amazingly convenient and powerful application. The project is developed by a Massachusetts duo who have focused on “simplicity, minimalism and transparency”.

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How to Effectively Launch a Website

New website launches offer a big marketing opportunity to generate visibility and create long-term SEO value. So while you’re developing the site and getting ready for the release, use the time to develop a launch strategy that will enable you to make the most out of your launch.

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