Amadeus Consulting's Search Visibility Team Reviews Google Tools for Website Optimization

Amadeus Consulting's Search Visibility Team Reviews Google Tools for Website Optimization

One of the amazing things about Google is that it is committed to creating a better web experience through a wide range of products and services, most of them which are available for free. Many of these tools are very unique and provide a very specific service, and so they can often be overlooked. In some cases, these tools are still in the Google Labs section and may not be fully complete, but in other cases these are just very niche tools which are not very well publicized.

This article highlights a few of our favorite Google apps and how they can help in website optimization, especially conversion rate optimization. Of course there are a few mainstream tools that can be commonly found elsewhere, but there are also a few quirky and unusual tools that can be surprisingly helpful.

Website Optimizer

www.google.com/websiteoptimizer

Level: Intermediate - Advanced

The most obvious website optimization tool is the aptly named Google's Website Optimization tool. This is a powerful tool for A/B testing of a website. A/B testing lets you compare two different versions of a webpage to see which one is more effective. Some content management systems allow this type of testing already, but the website optimization tool works on any CMS that allows HTML editing which can be very helpful for sites running on older systems.

Implementing the website optimizer can be a bit challenging if you do not have a lot of web development experience, but overall the process is fairly well explained and straightforward to use. This is probably not a task for beginners, but intermediate users should be able to figure it out pretty quick.

The tool allows you to implement scripts that will adjust different elements of a page as people visit the site, and report on how those changes impact the user's actions. For example, perhaps a different color font for the call to action, or a different location for the "Buy Me" button will have a significant impact on sales.

This is a fairly powerful tool that lets you try a lot of different variations and combinations that can be randomly tested on real visitors. This can give you excellent information for optimizing your website to perform as best as possible.

The only stipulation with this tool is that you need to also be using Google Analytics on your website, and you should let the tool run until you have a significant amount of data before making any permanent changes.

Browser Size

http://browsersize.googlelabs.com/

Level: Beginner

When visiting your website, not everyone has their browser maximized (expanded to take up the whole screen) which means that important parts of your site may be hidden from view when somebody visits with a "windowed" browser.

Although this is still in Labs, this app is pretty simple and just provides a (hand drawn) visual overlay to show you what parts of your site are the most visible. This also helps you identify potential problems on your site in which your call to action or important navigational elements may be placed in such a way that they are initially hidden from a large portion of your users. This tool will help you redesign the layout which might have a positive effect on your conversion rate and make your site more appealing to users.

The best implementation of this tool is probably on a prelaunch test website, or while the website is still being designed. However, it can also be helpful in a website usability audit of existing websites and understanding how different elements may appear (or not appear) for different users.

Web Application Exploits and Defenses

http://google-gruyere.appspot.com/

Level: Intermediate to Advanced

Not every expert in rich Internet application development is also an expert in Internet security, which means that some web applications are left vulnerable to exploitation. Google has a "small, cheesy web application" called Gruyere (named after the cheese), that is designed to help web developers identify and patch security holes.

This is a fun application because it puts the user in the role of a malicious hacker and tasks them with finding and exploiting the security holes. This walks users through both sides of identifying problems, including black box hacking trying to exploit the application through external manipulation without source code access and white box hacking in which the user has access to the code.

The purpose of this is to help web developers understand simple security holes and fix them in their own application. It is fairly easy to use, as well as providing hints and tips, although some development experience is required to understand how each exploit functions and what is required to fix them on your own site.

Related Links

http://relatedlinks.googlelabs.com/

Level: Beginner to Intermediate

Currently this is invitation only, so it may not be available to all users, but it may be worth keeping an eye on. The Related Links tool is a widget that you embed on your site which shows other pages that relate to the same topic.

This has two features. The first one shows a list of pages on your site that are similar to the page currently being viewed. This may help users quickly navigate to pages on the same subject and keep them clicking around your site longer (which can be good if your site is ad sponsored, or may help increase the overall conversion rate of your site). These can be preselected if you want to create a specific path or automatically generated to provide updated related links.

The second feature is a list of prebuilt searches that will search for a topic on your site. This can be helpful in ensuring that the user finds the most up to date information on your site, but can also lose some users because they still need to sort through the search results to find relevant content.

This is also a case where there are many other similar tools out there that provide basically the same service. Some content management systems have this feature built in already, but for most others you have a range of options for integration.

Fetch as Googlebot

http://Google.com/webmasters

Level: Beginner to Intermediate

One of the biggest challenges with any website is building your rankings on popular search engines through search engine optimization. At some point, Google's "robot" crawls through each website and gathers information which it then uses in its search ranking algorithm.

This app gives you the ability to view your website in the same way that the Googlebot does. It may not be entirely insightful by itself but its integration with Google Webmaster Tools helps you understand any crawl errors and problems that may be hurting your website. Webmaster tools itself is not included in this list because it is already very well known, but it also has a range of smaller features which are often overlooked and not fully utilized.

The "fetch as Googlebot" has an additional benefit aside from identifying issues that may be hurting your ranking, in that it can also help identify problems that impact the usability of your website for your users.

Expert Website Optimization Help

Level: Easy!

Amadeus Consulting has extensive experience creating websites, rich Internet applications, and ecommerce sites, and can help you optimize existing websites and applications. For more information on our services, please contact us at http://www.amadeusconsulting.com.

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