Webmasters need to have both Google AdWords and Analytics accounts to use Web Optimizer.
The premise for Web Optimizer is simple: click and conversion tracking helps webmasters gauge the success of targeted advertising campaigns along with surfers’ behaviors. However, the Website Optimizer allows webmasters to test changes in the website content of their pages in order to determine what changes will be most effective in increasing conversion ratios.
Google Web Optimizer allows the user to choose what parts of a webpage the program will test. Headlines, images and promo text can all be analyzed. Google experiments on a portion of site traffic to determine which content users responded to best. When Google collects enough data, it will provide its users with data reports, and will make suggestions in order to better optimize the site for improved results.
In order to fully understand and prepare a website for Web Optimizer, Google released a checklist and demo that walks the webmaster through the proper steps to implement the test.
Web Optimizer generates two final reports. Each of the columns in the reports provides a different insight into the performance of combinations, page sections and variations for the tested site.
The first report is a combination report. This report displays the performance results for all page combinations made from the page section variations on the site. By seeing how well a particular combination performs in comparison with the original and the other combinations, webmasters can choose the most successful one.
The second report is a page section report; a comprehensive breakdown that focuses on which variations of each page section performed best. However, Google cautions that picking the best-performing variations for each page section may not be as effective as picking a winning combination, since there may be interactions among variations that the page section report does not capture.