A/B testing for SEO is different from typical UX/CRO testing. Despite how quickly search evolves and best practices change, some changes must be tested before release.
Evidence can help justify further investments or help prevent a potentially negative impact.
Why we should try SEO strategies
Testing and proving a strategy is more important than ever as companies are looking very closely at the ROI of marketing in general and SEO in particular.
Decision makers are looking for ways to justify their spending. When it comes to SEO, ROI is quite ambiguous. Whether we are trying to forecast the impact of our recommendations or reporting on the impact after the fact.
As SEOs, we rely on KPIs like organic traffic and organic share of voice or rankings. But looking at these metrics in a vacuum doesn’t work. A single data point doesn’t reflect the big picture of how our efforts impacted things like experience, authority, or trustworthiness.
What’s worse, with the release of GA4 and a new attribution model, our numbers and historical data are more complicated than ever.
Evidence is your ticket to certainty and confidence in the new age of research.
How to get the purchase
The inconvenient truth is that even as SEO experts, we don’t always know what’s best. We throw around phrases like “best practices” instead of specific terms or rules for a reason. Algorithms are secret and are constantly changing and evolving.
Testing SEO strategies and tactics can help prevent failure or at least mitigate the risk of potential damage. It can mean fewer engineering support requests and fewer subsequent deployments and rollbacks. This creates more time to optimize growth opportunities.
It also provides what most stakeholders want: hard data about our impact, which can improve communication around SEO efforts.
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Methodology and growth framework
A typical (admittedly simplified) SEO process might look like this:
to recommend: Make a recommendation based on best practices or past experience.
implement: Deploy changes to the live site.
analyze: Report the impact, if detectable.
But SEO testing is all about iteration. Ideate, optimize, test, perfect. repeat
With SEO split testing, the process evolves to look like this:
Think up: Create a hypothesis to test.
group: Categorize and define your sets of control pages and variables.
implement: Implement changes in the variable group.
monitor: Monitor changes and progress over time.
analyze: Assess the effectiveness of the test.
refine: Based on the data and your analysis, refine and analyze further as needed.
implement: If the results are favorable, deploy the variant to the entire set of pages.
It is important to highlight the second step: Group.
SEO A/B testing differs from CRO/UXO testing in that it requires a group of pages. A CRO test splits users between two versions of the same page. You cannot implement an A/B test for SEO on a single page. SEO split testing requires splitting an entire group of templated or very similar pages into groups A and B.
Almost any element on the page can be tested. It all depends on the specific goals of your business and your website. Testing can change if you’re working to improve click-through rates versus increasing organic traffic as a whole, and if you’re having a positive impact on the user experience on the site.
A simple SEO A/B test might involve testing title tags and meta descriptions that generate higher click-through rates. Or maybe H1 or CTAs can be tested to improve engagement and/or conversions. More advanced testing may involve changes to things like page layout or site structure and internal linking. Even things like breadcrumbs and product filters or naming conventions can be great things to test for SEO effectiveness.
That said, not all websites are conducive to A/B testing. Your site needs significant traffic and a significant number of pages with templates. Several tools require a threshold of more than 100,000 organic visits per month or 500,000 total visits per month. For example, an e-commerce website is ideal for testing with a large number of category pages and product-specific pages. A multi-location website is another great test example, assuming there are a large number of similar location-specific pages.
A framework for running manual tests
To get started with whatever you decide to test, follow this scalable workflow:
Think up: Formulate your hypothesis as a testable claim, but keep it simple. Think of it in terms of three key elements: IF + THEN + WHY.
Group: Define groups of pages that have the same template, the same traffic, the same user behavior. The more similar the pages are in terms of format and purpose, the better. And the more historical data you have to work with, the more accurate your hypothesis will be and the more successful your results will be. It is imperative that the pages being tested have sufficient traffic evenly distributed across the group. For example, for an e-commerce site, all product pages included in a test must have a minimum of 1,000 combined hits per day, evenly distributed across the set. Identify key areas to test based on business goals and user behavior. Prioritize testing to maximize impact and minimize risk.
Define methodology: Set clear expectations for all aspects of the test, such as implementation method, duration, definition of success, etc. Split your subset of pages into a control group and a variant group.
monitor: Set up a tracking dashboard using a tool like Google Data Studio. This is your test secret weapon: Easy access to your data makes tracking and analyzing your test frictionless. Google Data Studio also has the added benefit of easy cloning and customization for each dataset and test.
Implement: Give your pages an SEO makeover and watch them shine!
analyze: It may take some time for the full impact of any changes to take effect. Constant monitoring may seem tedious, but it’s worth it. Make sure you leave the test running for at least a few weeks to see a statistically significant improvement. You’re unlikely to see an immediate impact with SEO testing – it takes time.
Determine next steps: Weigh your results against the level of effort and resources required to implement an update and identify the best course of action. You can determine a winner by demonstrating the testing’s impact on SEO performance and business results. Was the variant more successful than expected? Was the variant more successful than the actual control? Don’t be afraid to keep iterating to improve performance.
Deeper: Framework for running manual SEO tests
Advanced SEO testing with Google Ads
With a little extra budget, SEOs can use Google Ads to test tactics quickly and efficiently.
Metadata test
Title tags and meta descriptions are essentially organic ad copy. Testing this organic ad copy (metadata) has historically been a long-term process. Whether it comes down to implementing best practices across the site or through A/B testing, it just takes time. By using paid search ads we can speed up the process.
Follow this step-by-step process to test metadata with Google Ads:
Identify which pages you want to test. A good place to start this test is to identify pages that are performing poorly in terms of organic click-through rate or rankings. Once you’ve identified which pages you want to focus on, you can start testing. With Responsive Search Ads, you can try different variations of title/heading tags and different variations of description or ad copy. The landing page for each ad must be the page you’re testing optimization on. Create an organic campaign sandbox for all your SEO tests so they’re in one place and easy to manage. This metadata test would be a single ad group within the campaign. You’ll need a minimum of three titles, but you can enter a maximum of 15. The number you should use depends on how broad your keyword topic is, but at least five variations are recommended. The more unique each title/title tag is, the better. Since the goal is to test specific copy, avoid using dynamic keyword insertion in headlines and avoid fixing positions. You’ll need a minimum of two descriptions, but you can enter up to 4. For a more complete test, you should use all four available. Similar to A/B testing, this method tends to work best with higher-volume queries so your ad shows, which often means priority pages on the site where you’re targeting high-volume keywords. In accordance with Google, “Over time, Google Ads will test the most promising ad combinations and learn which are most relevant for different queries.” Once you have a winner, you can use the key elements of your ad copy to influence your title tag and meta description. Which keywords performed best in the title? Which descriptive terms and messages performed best in the ad?
There are tons of popular tools for CRO testing, but not all are equally effective for SEO testing. Below are some great options focused on SEO considerations.
SearchPilot is a personal favorite when it comes to SEO testing tools. Unlike other options, SearchPilot was designed specifically for SEO testing. They feature server-side testing with easy implementation without the need for engineering or development. They also have integrations for almost every platform, CMS or CDN.
SplitSignal is now part of Semrush Enterprise, but this is another great option that was built specifically for SEO. It makes SEO A/B testing easy and requires no development or engineering. It’s easy to set up and uses Google’s causal impact model to help analyze results and determine a winner.
Although Optimizely wasn’t specifically designed for SEO, it’s another solid choice for A/B testing for SEO. With Optimizely Experiment, you can run tests focused on optimization or personalization. The interface is easy to use and this tool also requires little or no development or engineering resources.
Increase confidence in your SEO strategy
SEO split testing doesn’t have to be confusing and difficult.
Embracing a culture of experimentation and iteration means SEOs can better adapt to changing trends and validate strategies. Finally We can take the fundamental approach described here and scale it to more advanced tests and techniques, with or without fancy tools. We can give people what they want: solid ROI data.
Gone are the days of the stereotypical SEO answer, “It depends…”
Today, we embrace a new era of “Our tests showed…”
The views expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.
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