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This is the second post in The Power of Measurement series. These posts are designed to cover ways to make your website as successful as possible, especially in the current economic climate. Here, Website Optimizer whiz Sandra Cheng explores the topic of website design and offers tips to help you get more from your site. -Ed.

In our last post, Avinash Kaushik dove into the world of website analytics and explained the power behind the bounce rate metric. With bounce rate, you are able to identify which webpages are turning away the most visitors. And while it’s incredibly useful to identify which pages need fixing, what do you do next?

Back in the good old days, you would go back to the page and redesign it based on what you or other people thought was right for your site. Now, you can actually run a test on your website and let your visitors decide the best version of your page, instead of just going with a gut feeling. Here, I’ll discuss website testing — executing different versions of a page to see what sticks — and the various ways you can make the most of your site’s design choices.

To begin website testing, start by brainstorming variations of your website. You can decide on small changes, like swapping out a photo, or large changes, like an overhaul of your website’s layout or color scheme. Then, by using a free tool like Website Optimizer, you can test your changes by automatically showing different visitors different versions of your site. From there, Website Optimizer will tell you which version your visitors liked the most by tracking which website variation was the most successful in reaching your goal. You can set your goal to be a sale, someone submitting a form or clicking a link, or any number of other interactions with your site. It’s like running a simple experiment — without the complicated data analysis.

Testing your site can often reveal surprises. For example, we were surprised by the results of our own test on the Picasa homepage. In version A, we used the word “free,” gave it an action-oriented headline, and included a pretty image of the product. In version B, we deleted the photo, used a button instead of a link, and called out the value proposition (”The easy way…”). Which version do you think led more visitors to download Picasa?

Version A

Version B

We predicted that Version A would be the clear winner since it had a photo to captivate visitors and a “free” product call-out. However, the data from the tests showed that the cleaner, simpler Version B was more effective. In fact, the changes in Version B increased downloads by 30%! This example illustrates a powerful point: sometimes you need to rely on data — not your gut — to make decisions that will help your website and your bottom line.

Now, you might be asking yourself, “With so many different aspects of my website to test, how do I know where to begin?” Here are four design tips to pay attention to:

• Tip #1: Pass the 8 second test. At first glance, a visitor should understand the purpose of your website within a few seconds. People are busy and have limited attention spans — you want to keep them from hitting the dreaded back button.
• Tip #2: Tell them what’s in it for them. Create clear and tangible benefits (e.g., “Save more! Make extra money! Look better with our product!”).
• Tip #3: Use compelling images. Try product images instead of generic stock photos, icons with blocks of text, and buttons instead of links. Keep in mind that a low-quality, irrelevant image can kill your site’s credibility.
• Tip #4: Close the sale. Help your visitors take the next step. Make that step clear and easy to reach; don’t make them hunt for it. Action words like “buy now” may work better than “add to cart,” for instance.

Once you’ve decided which details to test — a call-to-action, color, headline, layout, or video, for example — go to Website Optimizer and set up an experiment. For first-time users, we recommend a/b testing, meaning testing one variation of your page against another. After you launch your experiment, Website Optimizer will do the heavy lifting and show you when the data is “statistically significant.” (In case it’s been a while since your last Stats 101 course, statistical significance means that an event is unlikely to have happened by chance, and that you have enough data to know that there is a true difference in which page variation your visitors prefer.) The results will start showing in your reports page and for each experiment, the corresponding bar will begin to turn red, yellow or green. When the bars start to turn green, you have a winning page variation that is helping you reach the goals you have set for your website:

Remember, best practices may work best for some, but they are not necessarily what’s best for your site and your visitors. In the past, a few opinions and a strong hunch determined an effective website design. Now, armed with metrics, data, and tools galore, you can let your visitors tell you what works best for them and for your site.

Good luck, and get testing!

Posted by Sandra Cheng, Product Manager, Google Website Optimizer

Today is the 174th birthday of the famous Italian astronomer and cartographer Giovanni Schiaparelli. In 1877, Schiaparelli began producing some of history’s most iconic planetary maps, and he single-handedly invented the naming scheme we use to identify features on Mars today. His maps are famous for their detail and beauty, as well as for showing many linear features he named canali (the Italian word for channel).

Martian canals, as imagined by Schiaparelli

A combination of translation error and overactive imaginations caused some of Schiaparelli’s contemporaries, including astronomer Percival Lowell, to re-label these features as canals, suggesting that Mars was home to both an advanced Martian civilization and abundant water bodies.

Of course, further study of Mars has revealed neither water bodies nor any signs of intelligent life on the planet, and Schiaparelli’s ‘canali’ were shown to be nothing more than an optical illusion. Yet, our study of the planet has only increased, and our curiosity has only deepened, as countless images and numerous space missions have been dedicated to the Red Planet since Schiaparelli’s time.

But don’t just take my word for it. Instead, you can fly all the way there yourself with Mars in Google Earth 5.0.

New features released on Friday give you a glimpse into the evolution of our knowledge of Mars over the course of history. You can travel back in time to see the sketches of early astronomers like Schiaparelli and Percival Lowell in the ‘Historical Maps’ layer. You can also fast-forward more than a century with the ‘Live from Mars’ layer to view the latest images from NASA’s THEMIS camera on board the Mars Odyssey spacecraft, sometimes just hours after NASA receives them. Bill Nye the Science Guy and Public Radio’s Ira Flatow, host of Science Friday, have also recorded narrated tours of Mars — together they’ll walk you through some of the most interesting geology in the solar system and show off mankind’s most advanced robotic planetary explorers.

For more information about the new features added to Mars in Google Earth, check out the Google LatLong Blog, or view the tutorial video below. To explore Mars on your own, download Google Earth 5.0.

Posted by Noel Gorelick, Chief Extraterrestrial Observer

Here at Google, we’re getting ready to celebrate Pi Day, which culminates tomorrow, March 14 at 1:59pm, a date and time that correspond to the first six digits of pi: 3.14159. (Some people celebrate at 1:59am.) Of course, since pi is a member of a select group of irrational numbers, meaning they can’t be expressed as a fraction, there are an infinite number of digits in pi. You can even set a world record for reciting pi from memory if you have the spare brain cells to remember 100,000 or so digits. Odds are, you certainly won’t remember the one trillion digits past the decimal point that computers have calculated.

What is pi, anyway? It’s a mathematical constant representing the ratio of any circle’s circumference to its diameter. It sounds abstract, but there’s a real-world example right under your feet: the circumference of the earth equals the diameter of the earth times pi. And pi is all over the place in math, science and engineering. It’s even part of Einstein’s theory of relativity, which is fitting since March 14 also happens to be Einstein’s birthday. Maybe pi’s essential place in our world is why every March around Pi Day searches for [pi] spike upwards.

A quick Google search reveals a lot of options for celebrating this “nerd holiday.” For starters, you could do some math (now that’s an irrational number!). If you’re at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, where Pi Day began in 1987, you might be circumnavigating a “Pi Shrine” or singing a Pi Day song. Others suggest watching the movie π or going on a “pi run” (you can stop at 3.14 miles). You can hold your own pi recitation contest, or mix it up and make it tougher by asking people to recite pi in binary (hint: it’s a lot of ones and zeros). Finally, don’t forget the best part of Pi Day: eating pie! Either make your own, or, if you’re too dizzy to bake after circumnavigating Pi Shrines all day, find one to buy nearby. I’ll have apple.

Posted by Emily Wood, Google Blog team

(Cross-posted from the Inside AdWords Blog)

When we go to conferences or read posts in forums, we find that advertisers sometimes know more about advanced features than about the basics of how AdWords works. So, we’ve decided to take some time to get back to basics and talk about how the AdWords auction actually works. To help you, we’ve brought along our Chief Economist, Hal Varian, to walk you through the auction and explain how your maximum cost-per-click (CPC) bid and Quality Score determine how much you actually pay for an ad click on Google’s search results pages.

When people think of an auction, they often think of a prize being sold for the highest bid. But the AdWords auction works a little differently, where the winner only pays the minimum amount necessary to maintain their position on the page. That means you’ll only pay the minimum necessary to beat the person below you. In fact, our quality-based pricing system ensures that you’ll often pay less than your maximum bid.

How exactly does this work? We’ll leave that to Hal to explain.

If you have trouble viewing this video, you can watch it here.

Posted by Austin Rachlin, Inside AdWords crew

Since the launch of Google Apps Education Edition in October 2006, millions of people at thousands of schools in more than 100 countries have been using our free email and collaboration tools. We love hearing from newly deployed schools like Loyola Marymount University, Westmont College, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Kenai Peninsula Borough School District, Chapman University, Saint Ignatius High School, and California State University, Chico (to name a few) about how they’re now able to use Apps in teaching, learning, and researching on campus, while also saving time and money.

While we continue to see more and more U.S. schools moving to Google Apps, we find it especially exciting to see that the trend of outsourcing online communication and collaboration needs is catching on in other parts of the world. In Australia, for example, the New South Wales Department of Education recently migrated 1.5 million students to Google Apps. The University of Adelaide also just announced that it is offering to its 16,000 students email services and other online tools as part of the Apps suite, at no cost to the university. Many other schools and colleges in this region have also recently deployed Google Apps, including Hsin Sheng College of Medical Care and Management in Taoyuan County Taiwan, Air University in Islamabad Pakistan, Univesitas Pelita Harapan in Indonesia, the International College of Management in Sydney, and schools across New Zealand like Fendalton School.

To help spread the word about Apps, the team in India came up with the Got the “App”titude Challenge, which encouraged students, faculty members and alumni from all engineering and management schools throughout India to move their institutions to Google Apps. The challenge created quite a stir, and after launching in August, we received almost 6,000 sign-ups. Each college team consisted of students, alumni and faculty who worked closely with IT staff to identify challenges in their existing email and collaboration solutions. Working with a Googler, the teams then demonstrated ways Google Apps could be used to address these challenges. The performance of each team was evaluated by measuring product usage after their deployment.

We’d like to extend our congratulations to the XL CONNECT team from Xavier Labour Relations Institute (XLRI), Jamshedpur, who won the challenge by demonstrating the highest usage of Google Apps products.

As a result of the challenge, more than 100 colleges across India are now in the process of implementing Apps in their institutions. And we look forward to seeing more and more schools all over the world adopt Google Apps.

Posted by Amarpreet Singh, Online Sales and Operations Manager, and Andrew Mitchell, Senior Strategist

We’ve just started to release a preview of Google Voice, an application that helps you better manage your voice communications. Google Voice will be available initially to existing users of GrandCentral, a service we acquired in July of 2007.

The new application improves the way you use your phone. You can get transcripts of your voicemail (see the video below) and archive and search all of the SMS text messages you send and receive. You can also use the service to make low-priced international calls and easily access Goog-411 directory assistance.

As you may know, GrandCentral offers many great features, including a single number to ring your home, work, and mobile phones, a central voicemail inbox that you could access on the web, and the ability to screen calls by listening in live as callers leave a voicemail. You’ll find these features, and more, in the Google Voice preview. Check out the features page for videos and more information on how these features work.

If you’re already using GrandCentral, over the next couple days, you will receive instructions in your GrandCentral inbox on how to start using Google Voice. We’ll be opening it up to others soon, so if you’d like to be notified when that happens, please send us your email address.

Posted by Craig Walker, Vincent Paquet, and Wesley Chan, Google Voice Product Managers