Google Website Optimizer v 1.0 The Techie Guide - Manual (Page 9)

9 Setting Up Experiments - Standard Experiments
Setting Up Experiments
Background
Now that we see how GWO actually works down in the boiler room, let’s set up an experiment.
Section one, Standard Experiments, covers the simple scenario of a single test page and a single conversion
page on a single server.
In this scenario the content you want to test is static (though the page itself might be generated dynamically
with PHP or ASP.NET).
Section two, Non-Standard Experiments, covers more advanced scenarios for testing static content, such as:
• Dealing with development and production servers
• Dealing with pages that are not directly accessible (like those requiring a user to log in)
We won’t cover every single possible scenario, but the explanations you’ll find here should give you enough
information to integrate GWO into your own specific environment.
In section two, we’re still assuming the content you want to test is static, but in section three, Experiments
with Dynamic Content, we explain what to do when the content you want to test has dynamic elements. This
might include, for example, testing a product detail page with variations on the product-specific information.
Standard Experiments
Here’s a jolly step-by-step example for setting up a simple experiment.
This example is kept simple on purpose. In later sections we’ll dig deeper into what GWO does in each step
of the setup process, and talk about how to rig up more advanced scenarios.
Setting up an MVT experiment
Let’s say you’re testing a lead sign-up form (found at http://www.mysite.com/sign-up.html) and
your conversion page is http://ww w.mysite.com/thank-you.html.
Let’s also say you want to test two parts of the page:
• The headline
• The call-to-action text in the submit button
Step 1: Set up test and goal pages
• Name your experiment. For example: Sign-up Form Test
• Set your test page URL: http://www.mysite.com/sign-up.html
• Set your conversion page: http://www.mysite.com/thank-you.html
At this point GWO will try to retrieve the pages from your website to make sure the URLs are valid.