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A/B testing for better SEO

SEO

Should I use A/B testing to improve SEO?

Use A/B testing to drive up SEO, sales and enquiries

Designing statistically valid A/B testing is one of the most common ways that businesses can optimise their website.

The better your site is at retaining people on pages and inducing them to click on key calls to action, the more it will be rewarded by Google, Bing and other search engines. And that means higher rankings!

A/B testing basically compares two versions of a website page and uses analytics to determine which version is more popular. (Platforms such as Facebook offer it as standard with their advertising solutions.)

The main goal is to determine which version of the site is performing best, and then focus resources on that version. You can then design a variant of that version to see if you can make further gains.

Here are some aspects you might test:

  • The overall design placement of elements on a page, (usually moving one element at a time so you can track it – too many changes at once just leaves you confused)
  • How content is written
  • Colours
  • Fonts
  • Images
  • Pricing.

Although A/B split-variant testing can be complex, there are several tools available to make it easier. For example, you can use Google Analytics to track traffic, so you know which version of a page is getting more visitors.

You can also use A/B testing software like Optimizely or CrazyEgg to test multiple versions of your site at once. It helps you to focus on the web design and other aspects in a quite simple, step-by-step fashion. They have deep connections with search engine optimisation.

Another important thing to keep in mind is that A/B testing doesn’t always work perfectly.

So if you see a significant difference between the two versions, don’t assume one is better than the other just because it gets more traffic. Instead, try to understand what factors contributed to those results. You might want to incorporate some eye-tracking software to get a more sophisticated understanding of what’s occurring.

This will help you strategise what changes need to be made moving forward.

A/B testing can be used in a wide range of scenarios. It can be used to optimise the design of websites, online marketing campaigns, socials, advertising etc. You can also test your copy, email marketing strategy and call-to-action buttons to see which one works best for your audience.

Design For Conversions
From a commercial viewpoint, by testing different versions of your website, you can determine which design is most effective at converting visitors into buyers.

It’s an absolute game changer for companies that learn what is most effective at driving conversion.

Once you have this data, you can roll it out across all future campaigns and reap the rewards, including SEO and sales success.