More On Google Website Optimizer

by Jeremy Schoemaker on January 27, 2009 · 86 comments

Lots of people have inquired with me about creating a demo on how to use Google Website Optimizer.

Well the Google Team has put together a good one here :

About the author...

Jeremy Schoemaker – who has written 2415 posts on ShoeMoney.com.

Hi I am Jeremy Schoemaker and ShoeMoney.com is my blog. 99% of the post here are done by me but you will see others occasionally make guest posts. This blog is fun to write but for my day job I run several online companies.

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{ 83 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Wesley January 27, 2009 at 6:40 am

Shortest blog post ever!

2 Taris Janitens January 27, 2009 at 10:20 am

I dare say, I have posted shorter!! LOL!!

3 Get Cash Now! No Credit Check- Up To $1500 January 27, 2009 at 10:25 am

yes, this is the shortest blog post, but it was very useful. At least he gave us a video…come on guys

4 Ryan McLean January 27, 2009 at 6:02 pm

It doesn’t count as being a short blog post if it has a video….
If the writing was all it was then it would definately be short. But a video makes it long

5 Article Spinning January 27, 2009 at 10:00 pm: Yes, it doesn’t count as being short because not only does it have a video, it’s a very good one.

6 Tushar January 27, 2009 at 10:34 am

Not counting the 25 minute long video…

7 Puspanjali January 28, 2009 at 9:52 am

I find videos easy to digest than text.
It is no longer text only when it comes to blog postings now.There are so many other audio visual alternatives like this one.

8 منتديات May 6, 2009 at 10:24 am

i gree with u !
hu … !

9 Christoph C. Cemper the Marketing Fan January 27, 2009 at 6:45 am

Great finding Jeremy! I believe I saw this on some conference the last years, did I?

10 Ryan McLean January 27, 2009 at 6:03 pm: some conference? what conference was this?

Reply

11 JR Griggs January 27, 2009 at 7:01 am

Thanks this is awesome! Definitely will be using soon. Can be overwhelming sometimes but it is worth the work to be successful.

12 Jeremy Schroumyziguac January 27, 2009 at 7:02 am

It will help me a lot. Thanks for sharing the google video. But I’m sure you might have more personnal experiences to share if you create your own video.

13 blog desinger January 27, 2009 at 7:05 am

Thanks Shoe. Very nice video.

14 My Videoke January 27, 2009 at 7:06 am

Thanks for the video Shoe!

15 ProBlogineer January 27, 2009 at 7:07 am

Nice tutorial there. Was looking for the same.

Thanks man.

16 pakdejack January 27, 2009 at 7:37 am

thanks for the info, nice blog..

17 reflux January 27, 2009 at 7:57 am

Thanks for the sharing shoe…. tips to maximazing the tools very useful

18 Darin Carter January 27, 2009 at 8:14 am

I Live by Google Optimizer for client sites … it shows them so much they didn’t know about !!!

19 Article Spinning January 28, 2009 at 3:55 am: And makes them impressed, , right?

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20 Twitter Banking January 27, 2009 at 8:16 am

great video pretty good intro to google webmaster tools and if no one is using it I mean they are missing out on some good data

21 Flashes In The Dark January 27, 2009 at 8:17 am

Thanks for finding that demo!!!

22 browie January 27, 2009 at 8:23 am

I really need to use this tool sometime. There are so many little tools to use for your campaign

23 George January 27, 2009 at 8:27 am

Nice, I was actually in the audience for this..you can see the back of my head! It’s a good overview of how web optimizer can help you or your clients. Not really that detailed though.

24 dan barker January 27, 2009 at 9:15 am

hey, Shoe, thanks for this.

Took me a second to figure out what had happened first: read this in my feed reader & it said “the team has put together a good one here:” followed immediately by a myspaceAds image.

Would be great if these videos came with subtitles for work! Probably a business there somewhere.

dan

25 Money Academy January 27, 2009 at 9:20 am

i saw you post when you talked about Google optimiser and i added it to my account but really didn’t know how to use it , so i should watch the video .

26 Dogs January 27, 2009 at 9:24 am

never really took time to look at this, will now though, thanks for sharing

27 Brian Thibault January 27, 2009 at 9:25 am

The problem i have w/ google optimizer is that for my site, bounce rate and conversion rate seem to be less of an internal factor than it has to do w/ the actual traffic source and ad copy… If your ppc ad reads “Purple Widgets” and your landing page has blue gizmos bounce rate will obviously be much higher…. Now multiply that times a bunch of traffic sources: PPC, direct, referrers, organic.. it can be EXTREMELY difficult to track down problems. I’ve run tests before for 2 months and the first month it appeared that version A was 10% better, then month 2 rolled around and version B took a 10% lead.. So I ask you what the hell are you supposed to do with something like that

28 Caleb January 27, 2009 at 9:45 am

Is there any way to use this as an affiliate marketer? All my purchases happen off of my site?

29 Get Cash Now! No Credit Check- Up To $1500 January 27, 2009 at 10:27 am: It should be..I don’t see why not

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30 Tushar January 27, 2009 at 10:36 am: You can use it on your landing page, ie from where you refer your visitors to buy a product.

Make 2 versions and check which one converts better.

Reply

31 Josh Todd January 27, 2009 at 9:58 am

Thanks man! I’ve been considering using this for some landing page optimization.

32 Tushar January 27, 2009 at 10:35 am

This is a pretty great service, except the fact that it doesn’t work with dynamic sites, and only plain html templates.

33 Ulrich January 27, 2009 at 1:13 pm

I haven’t tried it, but I think this should work with javscript. Use a javascript on your server that you include as one HTML element in the Google website optimizer.

This javascript is loaded from your server and can be dynamic (notice the .php file ending). In this dynamic JS you can use something like document.write(…) to write your dynamic content to the website.

34 Ulrich January 27, 2009 at 1:16 pm

Here is the code that has been automatically removed from my post (I hope this works now…):

35 Ulrich January 27, 2009 at 1:17 pm: @Shoemoney: Please fix this, my code example is not showing up here
Thanks

Reply

36 Terra Andersen January 27, 2009 at 12:10 pm

I remember watching this a while back with a client who refused to use Google Website Optimizer. They now are fans of it.

37 Kenney Works From Home January 27, 2009 at 12:14 pm

This is a great service. And free, well that’s cool. Thanks G. Without optimizing you can’t turn losers into winners.

38 igonza January 27, 2009 at 12:40 pm

this is a great video. I like that so understandable explanation of every step.

39 ZK@Internet Marketing Blog January 27, 2009 at 12:41 pm

Yep I have also wanted to know about Website Optimiser, because you have talked about this so many times in your post than its raise the curiosity.

Ultimately you gave us the key

40 Scrappy Marketer January 27, 2009 at 1:09 pm

Google Optimizer has helped us a great deal in optimizing and testing our clients’ landing pages. It’s a great free service and this video was super helpful. Thanks for posting.

41 hedge January 27, 2009 at 1:12 pm

thanks for the vid shoe

42 joe gelb January 27, 2009 at 1:36 pm

this guy makes some strange points. i wonder how important what he is saying is?

43 Dwayne January 27, 2009 at 2:38 pm

Thanks Shoe,
I set up and tried to get this working on my Zen Cart site, but unfortunately, it takes a bit more skill than I currently have. I will keep at it though.
Thanks for the advise and video.

44 Sean Galusha January 27, 2009 at 3:25 pm

Have not seen this video before… Time to give the team some additional training!

45 jtGraphic January 27, 2009 at 5:17 pm

This was just like the session for it at ASW. Decent info though.

46 Get Paid To Blog January 27, 2009 at 5:45 pm

Learn about something with video more easy to understand than others. thanks

47 ZK@Internet Marketing Blog January 28, 2009 at 8:45 am: Yeah video clear those confusion which create while you read. I think that’s why more and more webmaster started to use videos on their blogs.

Reply

48 Classifieds January 27, 2009 at 6:36 pm

Thanks for the video, this is a great tutorial

49 Brian Cox January 27, 2009 at 6:48 pm

Looks good and makes sence to always push and test until your conversion rates are at 100%.

50 Descartes January 27, 2009 at 6:58 pm

I like all the Google stuff, but I tend to be too lazy to stick with it for long. Thanks for sharing.

51 Dhimas January 27, 2009 at 9:59 pm

Very long video.. From here looks very slowly.. but i want this video, i must download it.. Thanks Shoe..

52 Aggressive Dog Training January 27, 2009 at 10:02 pm

Great video! Thanks for sharing this with us.

53 Article Spinning January 27, 2009 at 10:05 pm

Thanks for the video, Shoe, it sure will help a lot of us.

54 Christian January 27, 2009 at 10:38 pm

Question: Let’s say you want to test which page converts Adsense more effectively. Since you don’t have the conversion page, how would you test this in an A/B or multivariate experiment with differing Adsense placements, colors etc?

55 Your Name January 27, 2009 at 11:01 pm

I think you are an ass clown and I look forward to the day you are history.

Your wife works in a great useful career and it amazes me that she works every day and puts up being married to a con man. Makes me wonder if I had to have surgery and your wife was the one who was going to be responsible for me being under the knife during surgery.

Glad I do not live in Nebraska.

56 Goran Website January 28, 2009 at 2:57 am: Who the F%#K is this? Stop hating! Damn hater!

Reply
57 Article Spinning January 28, 2009 at 4:45 am: Wrong post obviously. Goron is right, please stop hating.

Reply

58 Mikhail January 27, 2009 at 11:39 pm

Looks like its worth the try, good info!

59 Lito | TheFilipinoEntrepreneur.Com January 28, 2009 at 1:00 am

Great video. It was like I’m on a seminar but this might cost much if I’m actually attending it. I haven’t tried it yet but I hope it will help and have a short learning curve.

60 Brandon Walker January 28, 2009 at 1:11 am

Short and sweet! Great video by the way. Enjoyed watching it.

61 sara January 28, 2009 at 1:41 am

thanks alot whith this v

62 Goran Website January 28, 2009 at 2:54 am

It sounds great hey, Google is doing it again and again. Thanks for the video and informative post Shoe!

63 harmonia January 28, 2009 at 3:22 am

everybody say smthng about google. i want to learn your opinion. we need more clue;)

64 Technology News January 28, 2009 at 7:12 am

very good video really I got the fact of placing your objectives through the contents of website…. I must apply this valuable today…..:D

65 Brad January 28, 2009 at 9:24 am

lol, cool video. That was easy blog post for ya.

66 The Den January 28, 2009 at 9:40 am

Great video, great find as usual.

67 Busby Tester January 28, 2009 at 7:54 pm

can i download the video?
yes, for my archive.

68 froggertv January 29, 2009 at 12:09 am

Nice video

69 Memorabilia Collector January 29, 2009 at 2:22 pm

Short or not, I learned more from this video than a lot of the long winded posts elsewhere.

70 diabetes man January 30, 2009 at 12:28 am

I know…this free tool…..very useful

71 Ali Hussain January 30, 2009 at 4:32 am

Thanks for the small video. I saw it and will use it for my works

72 grobar January 31, 2009 at 8:38 am

This is great stuff but I have one question. For A/B or Multivariate testing, how many pageviews should you get, roughly, for the results to be statistically relevant?

73 Tim Robinson February 1, 2009 at 10:07 pm: Theres a great site at: http://www.splittester.com/ which shows you how to pick when one ad is a winner over another

Reply

74 Tim Robinson February 1, 2009 at 10:06 pm

I prefer the Conversion Chicken to Google Website Optimizer, easier to use, easy to install, doesn’t allow google to see all your data and best of all: It automatically optimizes your pages for you (rather than just giving you information and expecting you to do all the tweaking yourself).

Blog post about it is in my link.

75 Hardie Board February 3, 2009 at 12:01 pm

I am going to download it asap, Ill let you know how it works…

76 beuthling February 14, 2009 at 3:00 pm

adding all these conversions to your page would probibly slow it down alot. I know some time my ads lag almost a secound long. Has anyone tride this out. and can you still show google ads while doing this with the limit on requests to google per page. Thx shoe great stuff

77 Paul @ HollywoodDJ April 29, 2009 at 1:56 pm

Landing Page Optimization: The Definitive Guide to Testing and Tuning for Conversions (Paperback) by Tim Ash (insert aff link here!) is one of the best books on the market for LPO, but has a great (last) chapter on the Google Optimizer…

78 Rolling Backpacks September 7, 2009 at 9:02 pm