AB Testing in SEO: Everything You Need to Know

Whether you’re a professional content writer or an entrepreneur with a business website, you should learn about AB testing in SEO.

A successful SEO strategy requires understanding how users interact with the websites you manage. You can do this by running tests that shows what users want from your sites and how they react to the content.

A website testing method allows you to experiment with ways to increase conversion rates and user experience (UX). 

Let’s take a closer look at A/B testing first. Then, we can go into the simple details about AB Testing in SEO.

What is AB Testing?

AB testing (also known as split testing) involves changing one or more page elements. It’s the process of comparing how the original page and test page variant perform when shown to different audience segments.

The original page is variant A, and the test page is version B.

The test compares conversion rates for both pages (or all variant pages in a set if you have more than two). Also, it displays which one converts the highest traffic.

AB testing usually involves serving different versions of a page’s content on different URLs. It directs the users to a particular version based on your test thresholds.

AB Testing in SEO: How it Works

Unlike regular A/B testing, we can’t create two versions of a page and separate visitors into two groups, each receiving one version. That’s because Google bot dislikes near-duplicates — especially on a larger scale. 

Instead, consider showing the same page to various group of users. This is safe because only one version is available to users and Google bots. What’s more, it’s effective because it isolates the changes being made.

The Process of SEO AB Testing

• Choose the pages you wish to make better
• Initiate the test run throughout those pages
• Group the pages randomly between control and variant groups.
• If the variant group outperforms its forecast and the control group fails, then the test will be successful.

Understanding A/B testing requires a certain amount of fancy statistics to determine its effect. You also have to know the magnitude of the change. SEO AB testing is also complex because neither of the two groups of pages is statistically identical.

Rather than simply comparing the performance of two buckets of pages directly, we need to forecast both sets. An experiment is successful when the control group matches its forecast and the variant group beats it overwhelmingly.

To Wrap Up

Now, you finally understand the basics of AB Testing in SEO. You can improve your website’s performance and audience interaction by running an SEO test.

AB testing and experimentation help you improve your website through the view of another set of eyes. You can track the changes made and determine the changes you need to make to attract more traffic. 

Remember, your product page says a lot about your company. It’s the main reason you should invest a lot of effort in optimizing your website ranking.