As with any communication or advertising, your website has a split second to work its magic – or your customer will just click away (what’s called a bounce). When you agreed to the design of your site, was that decision backed by data or was it shoot from the hip?

Now you can use Google’s website optimizer to inform your design decisions with knowledge of what worked and what didn’t. And for you research nerds like us, this tool replaces A/B testing (comparing version A to version B) with multivariate testing (comparing unlimited versions at once).

Once you’ve designed and tested the different versions of your page(s) (everything – photos, text, headlines, lay-out), you receive a detailed comparison report that will help you separate the wheat from the chaff. How long are you going to rely on your gut when (did we forget to say free!) tools like this exist?