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The Ultimate Question for Website Optimization

Conversion-Centered Design

What would happen if you suddenly pulled the plug on your website optimization efforts? The question behind the question is, “How much has website optimization contributed to our online sales?”

We all know that the results we see in our tests don’t reflect reality when rolled out to the website. So, how much faith should we put into test results?

My Marketing Land column The Nagging Little Question Of Conversion Optimization I explore all of the things that make our actual results different from that predicted by testing.

And I tell you what happened to one company when they removed the months of optimized changes from their site.

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https://media.blubrry.com/customercreationequation/content.blubrry.com/customercreationequation/The_nagging_question_of_conversion_optimization.mp3

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The Massey Observer Effect states that,

“The act of measuring an audience will change the way the audience behaves.”

This means that what our tests tell us are going to be somewhat inaccurate. This is just one reason that the results of our tests won’t be seen when rolled out onto the website.

You’ll learn how to overcome several sources of error in our tests.

  • The Massey Observer Effect
  • Statistics Lie
  • Test Segments
  • Market Coincidences

I go into detail on each of these, explaining why these issues is important and how to overcome them when doing website optimization for leads and sales.

Photo © 2015 Third Door Media, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Brian Massey
Brian Massey
Conversion Scientist™ at Conversion Sciences
Brian Massey is the Founder and Conversion Scientist™ at Conversion Sciences, a sought-after international speaker, and author of Your Customer Creation Equation. He is passionate about transforming websites through a steady diet of visitor profiling, purposeful content, analytics, and AB testing.

Expertise: conversion rate optimization, AB testing, marketing strategy, digital marketing, analytics, landing page design, computer programming, entrepreneurship

Speaking: IBM, Inbound, LeadsCon, Content Marketing World, Affiliate Summit, and more

Books and Training: Your Conversion Creation Equation, Video CRO, Marketing Videos that Convert, CRO Best Practices

As Seen On: ClickZ, Search Engine Land, Marketing Land, Conversion Sciences Blog, Intended Consequences podcast

Education: Texas A&M University, BS Computer Science and Management
Brian Massey
Latest posts by Brian Massey (see all)
  • Your Traffic Fell 30 Percent. Your Targets Did Not. - September 3, 2026
  • How to Filter Bot Traffic in Google Analytics With Ask Advisor - August 20, 2026
  • Using AI to Chat with your Online Business - July 10, 2026
  • 0SHARES
May 12, 2015/by Brian Massey
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4 replies
  1. Adam Najak
    Adam Najak says:
    May 12, 2015 at 4:53 pm

    Would love it if the podcast could he uploaded to somewhere like stitcher or sound cloud for people who aren’t on ios would mean I would never miss an episode

    • Brian Massey
      Brian Massey says:
      May 12, 2015 at 6:15 pm

      Adam,
      If you click the subscribe button above, you’ll be given options to subscribe through our host, blubrry. Use http://feedpress.me/ConversionScientistPodcast

      • Adam Najak
        Adam Najak says:
        May 13, 2015 at 6:17 am

        Which feed service do you recommend as I’ve never used any of the ones listed on the page.

        • Brian Massey
          Brian Massey says:
          May 13, 2015 at 9:31 am

          We use Feedpress as we have WordPress sites. I recommend Blubrry for hosting. They have a great WordPress plugin.

Comments are closed.

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