Lots To Talk About Today... A/B Split Testing

There's a lot going on in my marketing world today. My book, SEO Made Simple was just released in paperback (ISBN-13: 978-1442169203) and is available on Amazon for anyone interested in learning more about my search engine optimization methods. Okay, with that out of the way, I thought I'd reflect on a great Webinar I saw today.

The topic of the Webinar was how to test a landing page that ranks well for a given keyword or keyword phrase. I was drawn to the presentation because I've been spending quite a bit of time optimizing pages lately and wanted see what it was all about. The jist of the presentation was how to maintain the organic ranking of your web page while running an A/B split test (essentially testing 2 pages side-by-side).

Although the presentation was a bit technical, it did give me some insight into different ways of running an A/B test and maintaining your ranking for the given page. However, I like things EASY. When they started talking about canonical tagging, I tuned out. If you want to test two pages to try and increase conversion rates, here's what I recommend.

1. Register for Google Webmaster Tools.

2. Use Google Web site optimizer A/B testing.

3. Enter the URL's of the pages you want to test. WARNING: Only test one element at a time. The best way to do this is start with the existing page and change a single element like the placement of copy, the offer, the form, etc.

4. Run it until you stats are significant. There are tools on the web that can help you determine statistical significance.

5. If your new page converts a higher percentage of users (at a higher dollar value) than replace the existing page with the new one.

6. Rinse and repeat.

Using this method, you don't have to worry about a change in organic rankings because Google rotates the URLs for you and each one is unique. The key is to have a very targeted test, test page, and system for collecting the results. Google does it again... make my day!