Optimizely – Create a Better Site

Looking to make improvements to your website, but not sure where to start? Optimizely is an application that offers an easy way for marketers to improve their websites through A/B testing. Rather than fussing around trying to make new mockups using Photoshop and other complicated software systems, Optimizely lets people make adjustments and changes to any existing website in just a few simple clicks. Users can then test how those changes affect reader engagement almost immediately.

Before signing up for Optimizely, it might be worth testing it out. The application makes that simple to do, by letting potential users type in the name of any existing website to get started. Once the website appears, you can click on any points that you’re thinking about changing. Optimizely lets you change any icon on the page in a countless number of ways—allowing you to move, resize, re-color, or even remove any element on an existing website in an instant. Text can be moved higher or lower on a page using the application’s drag and drop technology. Not only that, but the actual appearance of any text on a website can be changed using the app’s WYSIWYGinterface. When you’re happy with the variation you came up with, give it a name and save it to your account. One of the beauties of Optimizely is just how easy it is to create new variations of any website, giving you time to create and save three or four potential layout ideas when presenting options to a client.

Once you’ve created an account and saved your favorite variations, you can begin running an Optimizely experiment on your site. Copy and paste a line of javascript code onto each page of your website that you want to run the experiment on and track. From you dashboard page, you can then begin tracking how engaged your readers are on any experimental page. Using this information, you can be confident that you’re making the right decisions when updating your website with new content or design elements.