Tools such as OffterMatica, Inceptor and Visual Sciences make A/B split testing easy. But whether you utilize this software or setup different urls on your own to direct traffic to your site, you need to know the following ten tips in order to run effective tests and verify the validity of your results:

1. Decide the sample size and time frame you need to get accurate results. This often takes 10,000 visits and 50-100 orders over a minimum of two weeks.

2. Remember that a relationship exists between ads and landing pages. In other words, your best ad and best landing page may actually yield a lower conversion rate than your best ad and second best landing page (or vice versa). That's why it's important to track the source of your traffic as well as the conversion rates during the testing.

3. Your assumptions could hinder your results, so approach the tests with an open, objective mind. Something you may assume won't work could actually turn out to be the key to maximizing your profits. But you'll never know if you don't put your assumptions aside and test it anyway.

4. Many of the changes you make will have no impact and could even have a negative impact. That's because not every element affects sales, so you have to run a variety of tests to find which elements matter most to your visitors.

5. Establish a control page for every test you run. Your control is your current best version of your sales page. That page remains your control until another page clearly beats it in a test. Once a new page outperforms the old control, that new page becomes your control to test against.

6. It's important to set goals for each test so you know what your standards are. Are you trying to get a 10%, 20% or 30% higher conversion rate on your sales pages or 10% more subscribers when testing your squeeze pages?

7. When testing squeeze pages, it's more difficult to increase your conversion rates because the rates are naturally much higher on squeeze pages than on sales pages.

8. You can test a radical new design against your control. If that page outperforms, then you have a new control.

9. Once you test a headline and determine a winner, continue to test other headlines against the winner. By repeatedly testing the elements that are most critical to the sales process, you continually improve your conversion rates.

10. Some critical elements to test include: headline, sub-head, body copy, graphics, offer, guarantee, order forms, etc.

The greatest appeal of the A/B split test is that it is simple and quick to launch. It also allows you to focus on precisely which elements contribute to your conversion rates, and which don't.

What are you waiting for? Start testing your site today!