Multi- Variate Testing - Pitfalls That Can Affect Your Testing Results (Part 1)
There are times when you are unable to get maximum output from a thing due to limited knowledge about that thing and thus can't derive maximum advantage from it. Web testing may not be a new thing for online businesses but still people are not having much detailed information about it. Multi- variate testing is one of the web testing approach which is having limited audience unlike its counterpart A/B testing which has a more strong user base and applications in the online business environment. Like every other thing, Multi- variate Testing has its own benefits and drawbacks that needs to be closely introspected for making the desired impact among your targeted customers. If you are not aware about the limitations of this web testing technique, you can certainly face “foot in the mouth� situation and will not be able to derive optimum business results. Let us take a quick look at some of these pitfalls that can hamper the effectiveness of this multivariate testing approach. Inadequate expertise during the setup of these tests- One of the limitation of this testing approach is that it requires a significant knowledge for its effective implementation. You need to have proper knowledge about making customization in HTML and CSS files for creating different variations of your site during the critical task of multi- variate testing. If it is not the case with you, it is recommended to utilize the services of an excellent web testing tool like Mocking Fish that can help in seamless creation of testing experiments for your site. Ineffective planning of your testing activities- When you are charting an unknown territory, you need to have a proper planning so that you don't have to face disappointments at the last moment. Don't jump onto conclusion without any proper planning and execution of your multi- variate testing for achieving desired business results. Negative impact on the search engine rankings- In case of multi- variate testing, you are testing multiple variations of a site at a given instance of time for deciding the best possible combinations of your site elements. Due to this multiple testing of site variations, there are chances that these site variations may be indexed by search engine crawlers by mistake if you have not used a proper redirection during the testing process. Moreover, it could also lead to penalty by search engines due to instances of duplicate content and could lead to loss
of backlinks, site rankings and link authority for your site. It is in the complete interest of your online business entity to get more insight about multivariate testing for making optimum benefits for your site. The more you know about this web testing approach, higher will be chances of conversion rate optimization and growth for your website. You just need to follow the mantra of “Look before you leap� and you can be sure of an infallible testing results.