Testing is a vital part of most online activities, and that includes your web design. When you start looking for website designers, make sure you ask them what they recommend for testing your website to ensure that the design is performing in the way that you want it to.
There are many types of testing methods which your website design company may suggest to you, and it may be important to try as many of these out as you can in order to ensure your website is performing as well as it should.
Split Testing
A/B split testing and multivariate testing are the two main ways to test your website, so ask your website designers about these.
They essentially involve testing different versions of your website on different visitors, so different visitors see different websites when they land on the page.
After testing for a period of time, you may then be able to tell which version proved the most successful in terms of conversions.
Analytics
One of the most simple ways to test the success of your finished website is through an analytics service such as Google Analytics.
Using this you may be able to get data on how many people are visiting your site, where they are located and how they are reacting when they land on it.
This data may then be used to work out which areas of your website are not working and need improvement.
Links
If visitors land on your website and find that the links do not work then they may leave out of frustration. To prevent this, it may be a good idea to go through every page of your website and test all of the links to find out if any are not working or are pointing to the wrong places.
This may help to improve the user experience and may therefore lead to a more effective website.
Loading Times
If your website loads very slowly then you may end up losing visitors as a result. Ask your web designer to help you if you find that your website is taking a long time to load as you do not want to be losing potential customers due to slow loading times.
Make sure your website works
Once your website has been designed, it is important that you test it to ensure that it is performing as it should be. When you hire website designers to design your site, ask them about testing and find out if they are able to recommend any techniques for you as this may help you to enjoy a more effective website.
This was a guest post by Jason Hulott.