A/B testing is one of the easiest ways to increase conversion rates and learn
more about your target audience likes and doesn't. A/B testing does pretty
much what the name suggests, it tests a control (version A) against a different version (version B) to measure which is the most successful based on the metric you are measuring.
With A/B testing, it allows you to split the traffic that comes to your website so that visitors experience different web page content on version A and version B of a page. So visitor 1 gets to see version A, visitor 2 gets to see version B and so on. You can then monitor visitor actions to see which version has the highest conversion rate.
A conversion rate details which percentage of visitors performed the desired action on your site. By testing with live visitors on your site you learn from real users and find out which version they prefer.
You start with the hypothesis that certain content changes could be impacting your conversion rates. For example
will a download button result in more downloads than a download link. Will a red button attract more clicks than a
grey one?
So let's say you're looking at yoour conversions for sales and you're looking at the number of sales per 100 visits.
If you average 2 sales per hundred visits your conversion rate is 2%. Raising this conversion rate from 2% to just
2.5% would mean a 25% increase in sales, when viewed this way conversion rates really should be something worth paying attention to. But your conversion rate could be virtually anything. Conversion rates could be how many leads you get, how many people sign up for your newsletter, how mnay clicking on your banners or affiliate links. You get the idea.
Once you've decided what conversion rate you want to improve, the next thing you need to do is to work out what to change on your page. Look at all the various elements you have on the page that you could change. These could be:
Headings - wording, colour, size etc
Images – placement, alternative image etc
Content – amount of content you have, wording, font, size and placement of content on the page
Call to action buttons: size, colors, placement and different wording.
Logo and strapline - different logo, size, placement etc
When it comes to the changes you want to make, just remember that you shouldn't make your changes too inconspicuous. Don't be afraid to make big, bold changes as these are often the changes that work best.
Think about which elements you think could use improvement. What about your page could be better, more enticing?
Once you've identified potential changes that you could make you need to:
Set up two designs you want to test (A is the control/original version and B is the version that has your changes)
Don’t be afraid to be bold and test big changes to start with.Chose a tool to run your tests or work with a
professional company specializing in testing Obviously the more traffic to your site, the more accurate your test statistics will be. It's important to remember that having a high volume of traffic to the target pages doesn't mean you'll have enough data for accurate results; It's not just about the amount of traffic to the pages you are measuring but the number of conversions and the difference in the number of conversion between versions A and B.
If you feel like your page could do with an update or your conversion rate isn't looking too good, don't overlook
A/B testing as sometimes it's the small or simple changes to a page that make a huge difference when it comes
to conversions.