Google is now offering it’s new “Website Optimizer” in beta. At first glance this would seem to be a dream tool for affiliate marketers. It’s basically a tool that let’s you A/B test landing pages in a similar way that you can test multiple ads in Adwords. You can set up any number of landing pages with different elements, then get reports on which pages convert better. You can even make changes to your landing pages right from the tool. On the downside, Google gets to insert their tracking code into more of your pages and know even more of your business. I plan on setting up a few tests next week and report back with some results.

You can watch the demo here if you are interested.

You really do need to think outside the box to be successful in affiliate marketing. Sometimes copying what others are doing does work, but that will only get you so far. To truly break out from the pack, you need to think differently about what you are doing.

Part of thinking outside the box, is constant testing. For me that means testing totally crazy stuff, because you never know what might hit. Sure, most of it will fail miserably, but occasionally you will get a winner.

Here’s a funny example of something I tested that was off the wall. I don’t like to give specifics of what is converting well from me, and what niches I am in (can you blame me?), but ringtones are always safe to talk about. Everyone does them. So I got to thinking about the standard boring, “pick your carrier” landing page that everyone uses. I asked myself what would be the opposite of this landing page? This is what I came up with.

Yes, that’s the whole landing page, no need to reload your browser.  Just a white background with 2 small words. The amazing thing is, the bounce rate was about the same as the page I was running at the time! Conversions were a little lower probably due to a few lost carriers not supported by the offer it was going to, but surprisingly it worked pretty well. Since then I have hit on something that works way better, but at the time it worked great. I found my current landing page by “crazy” testing, just like this.

So get creative and stop following the pack!

Are you good at designing landing pages? I am looking for a web designer who is an ace at designing high visual impact/low page weight single landing pages. Payment would be on a per project basis. Shoot me an email at designer@directoryvault.com if you are interested or know anyone who is!

One of the best ways to test the effectiveness of you landing pages is through Google Analytics Bounce Rate metric. This particular report can be found under content optimization, navigational analysis, entrance page bounce rates. With a bit of tweaking you can view a chart like this:

So what does this show? Well, like in golf, a lower number is better here. The lower the percentage, the more people are clicking through your landing page and taking the action you want them to. The higher the percentage, the more people are abandoning your landing page. In the example above, the landing page with the 46.3% rate is the most effective page, while the 76.5% page is pretty bad. This is a tremendously important way to gauge the effectiveness of your landing pages.

It’s also import because it gives you an even more detailed view than just conversion rate. For example if you have a 5% conversion rate, you still don’t know how many people are abandoning your landing page versus abandoning the affiliate offer page. By looking at bounce rate, you can tell not only the average rate that users click through your page, but also you now know how many users get all the way to the affiliate offer page then quit without buying. Pretty good stuff.