When trying out new homepage layouts / styles, is A/B testing the best way to do this?
With typical A/B tests you have a specific conversion measurement (i.e. version X drives significantly more people to click the 'sign-up' button). However with a homepage there isn't a single specific conversion; you're just looking to see if the visitor does anything from the homepage other than abandoning the site (clicks a menu option, clicks to read a news article, selects a featured product...)
What sort of testing should be used for homepage redesign if A/B isn't appropriate? How do you know if one version of your homepage is 'better' than another?
Answer
Without more information about the type of business you're in, it's hard to be specific, so I'll be broad. If your website is selling something in any way, you should be measuring sales by that recipe in aggregate, not individual actions taken from the homepage.
If you sell items directly, then you would measure the average dollar amount sold per unique visitor who was part of that recipe; if you sell display ads that go alongside content then you could use something like the total number of pageviews as a proxy for advertising revenue; if you are selling consulting services and the website generates leads, then you measure the number of qualified leads.
Measuring bounce rates makes a certain amount of sense, and it would certainly be easy to implement, but it's always best to have your metrics be the core aspects of your website's business model. A hypothetical example of where an indirect metric like bounce rate can go wrong is that a confusing or misleading homepage might lead users to get one click further in before they decide they're in the wrong place. The metric would look good, but it might just be getting the wrong customers in further where they end up not converting.
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