Do you know what is working for you now? If I asked you, could you tell me?

Most companies and website owners do not know what is working and why. This is great while things are mostly moving in a positive direction, but what happens when something goes wrong? How do you fix what you do not understand?

This is why testing and understanding are so important.

Even when I am wary of an idea, if something looks like it might work then I try it, just to get data.

Like popup email subscription boxes. I do not like them, but they work. This is not my blog, I only write for it, but I still defend the use of the popup even though I do not have one on my blog. Overwhelmingly the numbers show that the popup works.

On my own blog I tried a popup for a while to see how it would go. I got a backlash, but not as big as I would have expected, and my conversions went up. Until I got too busy I worked on alternatives that might not have been as annoying, but I will come back to that.

Put in the time, it will be rewarded.

This is a key point, you need to put in the time. The time you spend might at first seem wasteful, but each percentage improvement makes a huge difference in aggregate because the improvements compound.

Try crazy things.

On my Social Media for Business Workbook site I have been trying out a big arrow to draw your eye to the opt-in box.

Try crazy ideas

Crazy, right? But you know what? It seems to have boosted conversions. Not by a massive amount, but by enough that I need to look into it more.

It is too early to tell but if the conversions turn out to be only marginally better I will probably remove the arrow as it is pretty ugly, but this ugly and in your face graphic could have lifted conversions by a few percent.

Testing is not just about trying things out, it is about knowing.

This is the biggest point. Do you “think” or do you know. If you do not know then you are at the mercy of uncertainty, it could be luck rather than good judgement that is giving you the results you are currently getting.