Testing for Success

I learned an important lesson this week:

While it's good to take suggestions and general ideas from others, your real success is going to come from your own testing and tracking.

As you know I've been working on my candle site for the past few weeks. Dissapointed with the number of daily subscriptions to my newsletter, I decided to do some tweeking.

My first test focused on a free report. I put it in bold, and it was first on the list of benefits to signing up to my newsletter. Unfortunately this didn't produce as many subscribers as I thought it would. It puzzled me a bit, since "free reports" were suppose to be something that caught attention and pulled in subscribers....according to those with business related newsletters.

Since this idea didn't work very well, I took a step back and tweeked the page a bit more. I focused on the tips included in the newsletter, plus who the newsletter was for. Instead of "free report" I focused on how it had tips and suggestions just for "candle lovers".

What a difference it made! My subscription rate went up and I know my subscribers are interested in candles. Now it's just a matter of building on the number of visitors. I've been keeping in mind the only way to do this correctly is to do it slow and steady, not by searching for the fastest way. As with any business, to build it right the first time it's going to take time and lots of future testing and tracking. So far it's good, and I know I'm on the right track. :)

So now I know - If you try to do things exactly like those in other industries you aren't going to get far. Experts in business sites are not experts in other industries!