Our exploration of utilizing content to increase conversion rates began with analyzing statistics to uncover opportunities for improvement, followed by how to create and implement good content to compel visitors to take action. The natural next step is testing.

Unless you do some sort of controlled, measurable testing, you will never know what changes in copy, titles, calls to action, color schemes, layouts, etc. increase your conversion the best. Simply put, you should test variations of your content elements in different combinations to see what achieves the highest conversion overall.

It may be helpful to picture the structure of journalism, the formula for writing a news story - "who, what, when, where, how and why." When you are testing new content elements, defining and controlling for the first four W's (and the H) just might offer you the answer to the last one - "why" your changes get the results they do.

The elements of change

Before we look at the elements individually, you should get a feel for the number of variables involved in this undertaking. First of all, of course, there is the copy itself. You will need to consider not just the individual words in the copy, but its tone, purpose, goal, and of course audience.

If you are a good writer, you can do the writing yourself. If you are not, then get a professional to assist you. Even if you feel you can do it yourself it may profit you more to hire someone else to do it. Not many business owners or employees have an extra 1-2 hours in their day, nevermind 4-6 hours, to write the content needed to succeed. Plus there are large opportunity costs - time spent writing is time stolen from focusing on core business objectives.

There are lot more elements to test than just the copy and more kinds of "copy" (words) than just the main sales message. Besides the main copy you will have title tags, article titles, headlines, subheads, calls to action, etc. Besides the sales message there is informational content to help visitors educate themselves to their decision. A change to any one of these is a separate test.

What you're testing

Making copy variations might include changing the wording to create more engaging phrasing or language, changing the format from short description to comprehensive information, or changing the tone from hard to soft sell or from technical to layman terms, etc. It depends on your situation and industry. Headline and subhead variations may involve wording, placement, font, even color. With the calls to action, you may be rewriting, or repositioning, tweaking aesthetics, or all the above. If you cannot define what you are testing, you simply cannot test. Determine which elements are relevant to your situation and goals.

After you have defined your points, there is one crucial point to always, always keep in mind: only change and test one thing at a time. If you change more than one thing it is impossible to know which change actually impacted the results.

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