This is a guest post, part six of a series from Leevi, who is a copywriting specialist. Grab yourself a coffee and strap in for a deep dive into the art of writing words that sell. — Yaro

Last article, I addressed some of the most common pitfalls of split testing. This article I will discuss the easiest and most efficient way to go about split testing to improve your conversions.

Before moving on, you can check out the previous article and other articles in the series here:

Part 1: How To Nail A Killer Headline

Part 2: How To Nail A Killer Headline Part 2

Part 3: The Art Of Good Storytelling

Part 4: 4 Crucial Elements Every Sales Letter Needs

Part 5: Are You Making These 3 Common Conversion Testing Mistakes With Your Sales Copy?

Copywriting 101: Split Testing Shortcuts

Remember to keep track of what you are split testing. I suggest documenting it in a spreadsheet. What you are always trying to do is better your “control”. That is the term they use in sales marketing for the advertisement that has the best conversions. And remember split testing and tracking does not have to be a headache with the right conversion and optimization software. To begin with your normal ad will be your control and whatever variations you come up with will be going up against it and trying to better it.

Getting The Biggest Bang For Your Testing Buck

I will give you two shortcuts for fast tracking your split testing.

Firstly, there are only a handful of things that can consistently boost conversions. There are a lot of elements on a sales page that can be tweaked and refined. And I don’t discount they play some role in conversions. However, there are a few elements that can really skyrocket conversions and those are the ones you want to spend your time testing and refining. You want the small and easy changes that will bring the biggest results.

And secondly the easiest way to get a good idea about things is to test polar opposites. Make opposing changes and see what happens. Got a long headline? Test a radically shorter one. Or vice versa. Using dense heavy copy with no images? Mix up the design with a few images.

Always make sure you are tracking results. Learn more about the best conversions and tracking software. Remember you can’t manage what you don’t measure.

Before Testing Anything Else Try Testing These 3 Things

1. The Offer

It may seem obvious but it is often overlooked. Test the product or service you are offering. This can include price point, payment options, bonuses and guarantees.

Dropping the price can be a great way to improve conversions but be careful. Depending on the sums, if you go with a higher price point, you may accept a drop in conversions because at the end of the day it is more money in your pocket. So it depends. And there are always those magical stories of increasing the price considerably and actually also getting an increase in conversions!

The Mystery of Payment Options

You should definitely play around testing this. Run a test of your normal price versus a $4.95 trial and then the remainder to be paid after 7 days or 14 days. You would be surprised that a change like this can result in just giving people a little more reassurance and confidence to take out their wallet and buy.

The late great Gary Halbert was fond of the “send us your check but we won’t cash it for 30 days. If you are not happy with the product contact us within the 30 days and we will send back your check.” A “try before you buy” option done with the security of payment.

You Won’t Believe These Test Results

Famous Internet Marketer and maniac tester Ryan Diess recently revealed some very interesting price split testing that he conducted.

Here are the results that Diess found for a product with a $197 price point (the control).

– A price point of $97 converted 3x more than $197 (47% more profit than control).

– 2 payments of $97 (for a total of $194) ALSO converted 3x more than single payment of $197 (190% more profit than control).

Go figure. So a cheaper price point, even though it was charged twice and was effectively the same as the control, was able to increase conversions by 3 times. Imagine adding 190% to your bottom line! And for very little extra work. The product is already done, traffic is already coming to the page, all you had to do was set up a split test.

But you would never discover this if you never carried out any split testing.

2. The Headline

Remember from the first article in this series “How to Nail a Killer Headline” the purpose and importance of your headline. Your headline is suppose to jolt your prospect out of their dreamy browsing state and make them wake up and pay attention to what you have to offer. The headline is suppose to suck them in to your copy and get them to read the rest of your ad.

Earlier I talked about testing polar opposites. You can do that with the length of your headline – with a short versus a long headline. It could be the tone of your headline using a positive gain versus a negative avoidance. Another idea is to use an outrageous headline versus a more grounded headline. Once again you play off your control headline always trying to better it.

3. Design

I see a lot of people get caught up here. Just because you can make fancy designs and do fancy graphics doesn’t mean you have to. But I do understand that many of the poor designs and frustration of sales pages and opt in pages are the result of restrictions with WordPress themes.

In short, I am a fan of clean, easy to read and non cluttered sales pages. Research has shown pictures can aid sales when they actually show the item for sale and provide a better insight than words. Don’t just use generic stock photos of happy people or nice scenery for the sake of it. Choose your images wisely and make sure they are relevant.

Conclusion

As I stated in the first article on split testing and conversion tracking, there really is no excuse nowadays not to be doing this. Hopefully the tips in this and the last article have given you enough to get started on improving your conversions and sales.

Leevi