SEO SEM Internet marketing

The power of SPLIT TESTING.

Q:What is split testing?
A: Rather than changing the whole of your booking process or the copy on your website, you should first test to see if conversions or page views increase or decrease because of the changes you've made. Sometimes even small changes to a website can make a significant change, however these changes can adversely effect the site which the site owner or webmaster wouldn't have envisaged.

Don't Rush
What webmasters believe will benefit the website may not be necessarily so and certainly may not be what the customer wants - SO - split test.
How?
Take a specific product and make the changes to the booking for that product only, hopefully you'll already know how that product performs so you'll be able to compare figures after the implementation and see if it has improved sales or reduced them.

Example
It's been said that a button saying "book now" or "buy now" isn't as successful as " add to cart" or "add to basket" so don't rush to your site and start changing buttons willy nilly, split test - change half your products to a new button for a couple of weeks and see the results, if it's not positive then revert back to the original button.

Continual Improvement
Once you've added a new method to your site and tested then leave it a while and then see if you can improve on it, never stop testing or trying to improve the buying process. Once sales are up then start sourcing new ideas and start improving again, then split test to see how that method performs.
All of these techniques come under the "conversion" or "call to action" umbrella and are the difference between a well managed site and a poorly managed site.

Ask
Have you got reliable customers, have you got a great rapport with certain customers? if so - ask them what they think of the new methods, listen to their views - reward them for their time but do get their feedback, it's the customer that matters.
Send out a survey, get a general feedback - ask, ask and ask.

Ending Notes
Never take for granted that the final version is the best - always check your competitors, when shopping on other sites always make notes of good ideas, websites are never finished they are work in practice.

Good luck