Improve your site and boost conversion rates with A/B testing

Follow these tips and tricks, and don’t get discouraged!

We talked about boosting eCommerce conversion rates not long ago, and one of the most effective ways to do this is through A/B testing. But whether you’re trying to sell or not, A/B testing can tell you what resonates more with your audience. It’s valuable for any website! But what is it, exactly? Simply put, A/B testing is splitting your viewers up when they visit a page so that one group sees one version of the page and another group sees another version. The number of groups and the difference between the pages is totally up to you – which can quickly get overwhelming. But don’t worry: Mr. WPress is here to get you started on the right track with these A/B testing tips and tricks!

Know about your page before implementing a test

There are tons of different methods for how to implement A/B tests. Some themes come with the functionality built in, some companies offer A/B testing software, or you could implement an A/B test yourself if you’re familiar enough with coding and Google Analytics. The prospect of running lots of tests and boosting your site’s performance is exciting. So much so to the point that many people skip the first, fundamental step of A/B testing: picking the right thing to A/B test!

First off, you want to A/B test on one of your most popular pages. If you implement a test on a page that your users never even get to, then you won’t get very helpful results. Check out a tool like Google Analytics to see which of your pages receives the most user traffic. Once you’re on the right page, you’ll want to choose the right part of the page to test. You can use a free tool like HotJar to see the “hotspots” on your page that would benefit most from a test. Or you could pick a “cold spot” you wish was more compelling. Ideally, this will all be near the top of the page, since that’s what most people see, but pick what’s right for you!

Only change one thing at a time

Now that you’ve found your section, it can be tempting to implement a complete overhaul and see which performs better. But say you change everything: your background image, call to action, content and copy and etc. You won’t know what actually worked, and what didn’t! So the next of the A/B testing tips is to only change one thing at a time. This gets really granular, too. You shouldn’t change both the wording and the color of the call to action in one text, for example. Because you won’t know what actually works better, and the color is more important than you might think.

Most important of the A/B testing tips: don’t give up!

The prospect of boosting your conversion rates is exciting! But imagine this: you implement a test, and it takes a week or two to get the results. The excitement fades over time, and when you don’t see a huge boost in the numbers, you get discouraged. You give up, and decide that A/B testing isn’t for you.

This is our most important of the A/B testing tips: stick with it! Don’t give up! This is the single most effective way to find out what resonates with your audience. Like anything worth doing, it takes time and hard work. It’s not an overnight solution, but a steady and gradual process of improving your website the most effective and efficient way possible. So good luck!

Tags: ab testing, Conversion Rate, optimization