How can I A/B test my salon's website to increase real world traffic?
My wife and I own a salon in NYC and we just relaunched our websites. We also, coincidentally, won a year of free service from Visual Website Optimizer (paraschopra's Wingify).
I'm a product manager by day at a local start and we A/B test everything but I can't seem to figure out a good way to test our site against real world traffic!
For example, if we were to change the headline on our site, we could verify using their analytics that more people were visiting the site, or clicking through to a sub-page, but most people just see our phone number and call!
Are there any examples or ideas of successful A/B tests for small brick and mortar businesses?
11 comments
[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 31.4 ms ] threadPrintable coupons redeemable only in-store
Promo code that people say at the register
Reply cards that ask how did you hear about us
I don't really want to go the 'Mention coupon code AXJM3 when you call to get 10% off' route because it requires us to modify our salon software to match up with the A/B testing software :(
2. show the phone number/numbers only on a specific page , and measure conversions to that page. this is a reasonable approximation for calls,
more complex: google "call tracking" , many providers offer tools.
Will look into call tracking, thanks!
The company is called Yext, and from what I remember at that time, there was concern about Yext placing phone numbers that they control across the web for the local businesses that they service; the implication being that there is some lock-in, and possibly some web juice being lost.
EDIT: I decided to actually check out the site and they assign only one number, so no a/b testing. I searched, but found no pricing, so it looks like they are discriminating based on the specific type of business.
It was interesting they made note that people tend to call local numbers more regularly than 800 or out of state, so I guess that is a feature to look for.
I am sure some of them will be relevant to you.