set of pool balls against a blue background

Here is a false statement: “If i like it, others will like it too”. I see everyday website build by adventurous designers with advanced graphics that make you say: “wow”, but next second you exit that website ?

Why? Because the usability is almost zero, you have nothing to do on that website. I also see game fans that think that a game website should have darken colors, a black background with a red text over. Maybe it looks cool, in trend, but how hard is to read it ?

The problem is that if i like something, others may not like it. The website should be designed for the visitors. Every website has some goals, for example a blog goal is users to read more content. The goal of a website that offers a service is to make the user to sign-up.

Once your website have a goal, all your efforts should be focused to make more and more users to achieve the goal. How you do this when you are not sure what your visitors like ? Test!

Try to imagine 2-3 variations of the website, and track the results. How the hell can be done that ? One option is to use Google Website Optimizer. Many people complained that Google Website Optimizer is hard to use, confusing, and it is far for an optimal solution.

In a recent article i told you about a wordpress plugin for split testing. That plugin allowed you to have 2 different themes that alternatively show up to your visitors. Very well, but it is pretty hard to change 2 themes at once.

Now i have another option. I’ve discovered a website where you enter the page you want to test, you visually edit the elements on the page and then you save the experiment. The only thing you have to do now is to add a simple line of code on your header web page.

This is working when you want to test version of pages, not to test a change on the entire website. But it is pretty good. You can set up it in less than 2 minutes. Type the url of the page, edit with your mouse, and hit save.

Can it be more simple ? If you don’t believe it is so easy, go and test it, it is free and takes only 2 minutes. Click the following link to get started: Test Optimizely.