A/B Testing for a Converting Website Design

A/B Testing for a Converting Website Design A/B testing has emerged as an amazing web testing tool. Wouldn’t it be great if you can discover which parts of your website get the maximum clicks and which are the parts that are not serving their purpose adequately? A/B testing or simply call it Split testing is a web testing tool which can be used to test each and every element on your site. You can test your site by simply creating two versions of an element on your site and then testing them simultaneously to find out which version gets the maximum conversion rate. By doing so, you can improve the elements and their performances properly.

For instance, let's say, I want to do some changes on my website because it is not offering the conversion I had expected from it. I cannot just blindly make the changes without testing. Otherwise, it might backfire, resulting in degradation of the conversion rates. I need to have a knowledge of those elements which are not serving properly. I may unknowingly, make changes to those components which are already awarding good conversions. That's why, I need to deploy a testing method which could show me which elements are good to go and which needs immediate attention.

A/B testing is the answer to the issues raised above. It break the web pages into two versions and compares them against each other to find out which adaptation/variation gives a better conversion rate for the site.

Out of the two versions, one of the variants is kept without changes and is called as control page. The other version of the page is that page where we make the changes and alterations that we assume to be best. This altered page is called as variation page.

Now, we need to divide the traffic between both the pages and leave it so for a particular test scheduled period. Once the testing period is over, the conversion rate of both the variants will be analyzed using various statistical tools and techniques to find

out which option gave better conversion rates.

Winner page: Out of the two variants, the page which comes out with maximum conversion is finally adopted for the change and is said to be the winner page.

Some perks of A/B testing for your website1.

It helps in improving the performances of various elements on a website by testing their site usability.

2.

It helps to determine which elements are worthwhile to be kept and which needs an amendment or modification.

3.

It helps to recognize the ways which will generate maximum user engagement on your site and will further result in improved website traffic and conversion rates.

4.

It diminishes the risks taken by a B2B environment where even a minor change can lead to an extensive failure. A/B testing eliminates the guess work by providing a more accurate and precise test results.

Example of some elements which you can test using A/B testingCall-to-action buttons and call-to-action statements: You may change the layouts of the buttons or the action statements for getting maximum conversions on your site.

For example, you may replace the statement "Check-Out" with "Buy-Now" or can simply change the current color of the “Check-Out� button.

Banner: You may change the banner style, messages on the banner, or banner position on the web page for getting maximum customer attention. Utilize the A/B testing tool to render a more impactful banner design for the promotions and offers on your site.

Contact information: You might want to keep the contact information on top of the page or create a menu link for it where it is easily visible to the users for grabbing desired conversions and sales.

Point to remember while performing A/B testing or Split testing 1. Make use of 302 (temporary) redirects instead of 301(permanent) redirects while directing web crawlers to the A/B testing URLs. 2. Always show the same version of the web pages to users and the web spiders.

Otherwise, it will degrade your search engine ranking because it is against the search engine guidelines.

3. Do not perform A/B testing for very long time. If you carry the test for months and keep continuing, then your users will become aware of the different versions of web pages that you are showing for the same URL, this will affect the trustworthiness of your site among the people.

4. You can split the traffic in any ratio, but it is recommended to keep the ratio to 50:50 as it will give you an unbiased result.

5. Check each component separately in different time slots. By doing so, you can get an unambiguous idea about the performance of each element independently.

Thus, the above guidelines will give you a brief idea about how you can improve you site's performance by using A/B testing or Split testing. Practicing the above mentioned guidelines will help you to get a converting site for your business. You can use this Mocking Fish tool to test your website and achieve an improved conversion by optimizing the customer engagement on your site.