User Experience and User Interface are important to website optimization to provide a better website that gives users the information they need when they need it.
- Influence of web design on UX: how bad design can create a bad user experience, even if the website is useful and the company is well regarded. This could include off-putting or outdated colours or design elements, hidden CTAs, and not enough content about products and services on the home page.
- Navigation: navigation layout and the process can vary—should it be collapsible (like many mobile navigation layouts are) or should navigation expand with mouse hovers? Additionally, testing the nesting of pages is important. E.g., where sub-pages go in the navigation—would the products page get more clicks if it was on the main navigation instead of as a subpage under “about us”?
This is a website with a poor UX and UI because:
- There is no menu so the user can’t get to other pages on the site
- The background and text contrast could be difficult to read
- It doesn’t lead with how it benefits the user
- The Facebook button is leading the user away from the website (where they make a conversion)
- The layout is not modern or mobile-friendly, so it’s more difficult to use
This is a website with a poor UX and UI because:
- The red text at the top of the page with contact information is hard to read
- The site isn’t mobile-friendly so it’s hard to use on different devices
- The menu navigation is hard to read because the words run together, so users may get frustrated or confused
- There are no CTAs, so users don’t know what to do with the information that is on the site.
Unknown Facts About A/B Testing In SEO
In my previous article, I looked at some of the facts that you need to know about web designing. In this article, I want to look at all that you need to know about A/B Testing in SEO. Follow me as we will look at this in this article.
What then is A/B Testing?
A/B testing means comparing two different elements of a website to determine what gets more clicks, conversions, and engagement.
This could include:
Pricing: lower versus higher sales
- Offers: a percentage discount versus a set amount off discount (could equate to the same or different values)
- Colours: e.g. does a patterned background make users buy more than a grey background?
- Placement of CTAs on the page
- Timing of animations or pop-up banners: 5 seconds versus 10 seconds
Here we see several examples for where A/B testing can be used:
- CTAs: For example, a green CTA box versus a red CTA box, or different offers, such as 50% off versus $50 off for a $100 item.
- Headlines: You could write two different headlines for a blog post and test both of them to see which one gets more click-throughs.
- Graphic elements: You could test illustrations against stock imagery and see which works best for your audience.
- Wording & content: Which works better for your audience, a long landing offer page or a short and concise one?
- Type of promotion or offer: For example ‘Buy one get one free’ versus ‘$50 off when you spend over $100’.
Some CMS, like WordPress, have plugins that will do the A/B testing for you or there are tools like Optimizely that you can set up to run an A/B test on your site.
Remember: It’s important to only test one element at a time!
A/B testing can be ineffective if too many tests are running at once: running more than one A/B test on a website doesn’t give us a clear picture of what actually worked.
Be sure to only run one test at a time:
Running more than one A/B test on a website doesn’t give us a clear picture of what actually worked.
A/B testing plugins for WordPress (for WordPress sites only):
- NelioABTesting.com: good for testing different elements on a WordPress site
- SimplePageTester.com: focused more on testing landing pages
Other tools that can implement A/B testing include:
- Optimizely: works across several different types of websites
- Five-second test: only offers initial impressions (the first 5 seconds) to gather users’ first impressions
- VWMO- test duration calculator: calculates how long to run a test.
There are more examples below in the resources. Whatever test works best for you depends on your CMS, budget, and what you want to test.
A/B testing WordPress plugin examples:
- NelioABTesting.com
- SimplePageTester.com
- https://conversionxl.com/blog/ux-research-and-ab-tests/
More A/B test tools:
- https://www.optimizely.com/
- https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1745152?hl=en
- https://fivesecondtest.com/
- https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-ab-theme-split-tests/
- https://vwo.com/ab-split-test-duration/
#1 Pick one variable to test: this could be something like CTA button colour, page layout, or campaign offer (e.g. $50 versus 10% off, even though they are the same value).
#2 Choose your goal: what do you want to accomplish with this test? Choosing a specific goal will help you determine whether or not making these changes permanent will make a difference. An example of a goal would be: “Increase conversions 5% in the next 8 weeks.” Make sure it is specific and actionable.
#4 Set up your control and your challenger: only test one thing at a time, and always have a “control,” where the element doesn’t change. This is so you can make sure that a specific element actually makes a difference or not. For instance, if you wanted to test your offer, you would keep your “control” as your existing offer, say, $50. That would be the “A” in the A/B test. Then, you test the “B” part of the test, the challenger, like 10%.
#5 Split your sample groups equally and randomly: you must have the same sample size in order to have a proper test. If one side was bigger than the other, then it may have the advantage.
#5 Determine your sample size: figure out how big your sample sizes are going to be. This is dependent on what you’re testing. For instance, if it was through email, the number of email subscribers helps determine the sample size (e.g. If you have 1000 email subscribers with a 4% click-through rate on average, you can assume 40 people will click through to the landing page you’re testing. This would mean 20 would be shown in test A (the control) and 20 would be shown test B (the challenge), on average. In most cases, the A/B test software randomizes or alternates it.
For instance, if we tested both the promotional offer and the headline of the landing page at the same time, and got a higher conversion rate, we don’t know if it was the headline OR the promotional offer that actually caused the higher conversion rate.
Be sure to only run one test at a time:
Running more than one A/B test on a website doesn’t give us a clear picture on what actually worked.
A/B testing plugins for WordPress (for WordPress sites only):
- NelioABTesting.com: good for testing different elements on a WordPress site
- SimplePageTester.com: focused more on testing landing pages
Other tools that can implement A/B testing include:
- Optimizely: works across several different types of websites
- Five-second test: only offers initial impressions (the first 5 seconds) to gather users’ first impressions
- VWMO- test duration calculator: calculates how long to run a test
There are more examples below in the resources. Whatever test works best for you depends on your CMS, budget, and what you want to test.
A/B testing WordPress plugin examples:
- NelioABTesting.com
- SimplePageTester.com
- https://conversionxl.com/blog/ux-research-and-ab-tests/
More A/B test tools:
- https://www.optimizely.com/
- https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1745152?hl=en
- https://fivesecondtest.com/
- https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-ab-theme-split-tests/
- https://vwo.com/ab-split-test-duration/
Differences Between Mobile Friendliness And Responsiveness
Mobile-Friendly versus Responsive: mobile-friendly is a different version of a website that is shown to mobile users. Responsive means the website design is formatted to its ideal fit for the screen it’s on. Responsive is ideal and Google recognizes both as being optimized for the mobile user. Think of mobile-friendly as a step between nothing at all and a responsive site.
- Create a mobile-first experience through responsive design
- CTAs focused on mobile users (e.g. location and contact information)– what a user is looking for on mobile is different than what they are likely looking for on desktop. It also affects their checkout time availability.
- Content that is based on what a mobile user would be looking for. For instance, they may not want to view blog posts first if it’s an informative website about a local business– they are more likely to be looking for a phone number, address, reviews, and other info that allows them to make a decision “on the go” about the business (e.g. whether or not to go there versus its competitors).
Action Point
PS: If you would like to have an online course on any of the courses that you found on this blog, I will be glad to do that on an individual and corporate level, I will be very glad to do that because I have trained several individuals and groups and they are doing well in their various fields of endeavour. Some of those that I have trained include staff of Dangote Refinery, FCMB, Zenith Bank, and New Horizons Nigeria among others. Please come on Whatsapp and let’s talk about your training. You can reach me on Whatsapp HERE. Please note that I will be using Microsoft Team to facilitate the training.
I know you might agree with some of the points that I have raised in this article. You might not agree with some of the issues raised. Let me know your views about the topic discussed. We will appreciate it if you can drop your comment. Thanks in anticipation.
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