The next chapter in Internet marketing will be about coversion rate optimization (CRO) and landing page testing, the process of getting more people to take action on your website by testing out different versions of the same page. And although it's still in beta, Squarespace version six (v6) might soon emerge as the most powerful tool available to landing page optimization (LPO) professionals. Let's take a look at why Squarespace v6 might help boost your conversion rate.
What's so Big About Squarespace Version Six?
Squarespace recently launched beta testing on the long-awaited next version of acclaimed hosted website and blog building solution, which comes after a huge round of funding worth nearly $40M back in 2010. Squarespace has always been known for their intuitive web building tools, and now they've gone a step further.
Squarespace v6 will feature, among other things, a new grid design interface, allowing web designers (and marketers!) to quickly build pages with custom layouts without using custom CSS stylesheets. Watch this video to see how building any page layout for a landing page in Squarespace will soon be a matter of drag-and-drop (about 28 seconds in).
Squarespace 6 from Squarespace on Vimeo.
Building Landing Pages Quickly in Squarespace V6
The key to landing page testing is the ability to quickly build two or more versions of the same page and see which one leads to the best outcomes on your site. You can use software such as Google Website Optimizer to test pages against each other and determine which one produces more sales, leads, whatever it is that's important to you with scientific evidence and facts to know for sure. For example, which of these pages do you think would lead to the most amount of new Squarespace sign-ups?
(This is a common layout for landing pages.)
(Squarespace v6 will provide easy options to make major layout changes.)
(Squarespace v6 can help test whether videos or images are more effective on your site.)
Conversion Rate Optimization Made Easy With Squarespace V6
The tough thing about landing page optimization has traditionally been that very few tools allow you to 1) build the pages, 2) split up the traffic a page receives and divvy it up to the various landing pages and 3) keep track of all the math in order to tell you which page won. Tools like LiveBall and Unbounce support these tasks, but they can require an additional investment that many don't have.
Squarepace v6 and free landing pages like Google Website Optimizer (GWO) could be used together to build and launch tests quickly and with minimal effort. All Squarespace has to do at this point is to pair their new grid-based page design tools with the ability to embed some simple page-level GWO JavaScript into the HTML page head.
If the Squarespace team is wise, they'll see the power of this untapped market and act accordingly. A simple tweak to what can be embedded on each landing page (i.e., the GWO JavaScript) and Squarespace v6 becomes a powerful option and one of the cheapest tools for conversion rate optimization and landing page testing on the web.
Have you looked at Squarespace in the past for landing page testing? What was your experience?