For successful SEO, you will be looking to see a positive effect on how your users interact and engage with your page. Constructive SEO will ensure more users find you in search results and click through to your page.
With all the emphasis on improving your SEO, it can be easy to dismiss the idea that taking steps to optimise your page’s SEO can introduce an unwanted negative impact.
This article will attempt to break down how A/B testing (also known as split testing) can be used to ascertain whether your SEO practices have had the positive effect you expected. The aim should be for your SEO goals to be measurable and not harm your organic traffic.
Why can SEO have a negative impact?
Whatever your business, you probably want your website to be attracting users from Google search results. SEO strategies are introduced to improve the performance of your website in SERPS.
Unfortunately, it can be hard to tell whether the changes have positively or negatively impacted your website optimisation.
The best way to find out is to use A/B testing.
A/B testing is the ideal way to test whether your optimisation measures have created:
- A positive change
- A negative change
- No change
To ascertain whether the changes made to a page have had a positive or negative impact, you need to measure the performance against the following criteria:
- Clicks from Google Search Results
- Clickthrough Rate from Google
- Impressions
- Average Rankings
What is an SEO A/B split test?
An SEO A/B split test tests for impact when a change is made to a website page. It will measure against clicks from SERPS, clickthrough rates, impressions and average rankings.
To carry out an A/B test, you need to establish two groups of pages called control and variant. The variant group is the one where the SEO changes will be made. The control group has no changes.
It is usual in a testing environment to apply just one change to an element of a page so that any results can be clearly related to that change.
Once the changes are applied to the variant group, the test is run over two to six weeks. The test should provide a 95% confidence level metric to be valid.
You will measure the variant group results against the control group at the end of the test. The effects are negative if the variant group has fewer clicks than the control group.
A negative result will have a negative percentage change in the number of clicks from Google search engine results and a negative difference in the number of clicks. You will also see a reduction in the additional clicks.
If you get a negative result, it will allow you to make changes to your SEO strategy. Making minor tweaks can achieve a better outcome and support you to reach your SEO goals.
SEO Split Tests on Different Websites
You will find that your tests results will be different across different websites, even in similar sectors. Differences will usually be down to the varied user intent and keyword intents.
It is vital to carry out testing as it is not easy to predict results using information from other sites.
Achieving Your SEO Goals
Whilst you want to see your KPIs for SEO met, you also need to use your A/B testing to avoid any reduction in organic traffic.
Accidentally reducing traffic will make it impossible to achieve your SEO targets, and your KPIs will not be completed.
It is fair to say that without A/B testing, you could think you were taking steps to achieve your goals when in fact, you are moving further away from them.
Using Google Search Console Metrics to measure your SEO KPIs
Google Search Console Metrics (GSC) can be used alongside A/B testing to measure the negative and positive changes caused by your SEO optimisation.
If you get a negative result, you can easily make some tweaks and changes to reduce the negative impact. This proactive approach will ensure that you move toward your SEO targets and help your company achieve their SEO goals.
The results will also help you communicate precisely the impact of different strategies and help you identify critical causes of any traffic issues.
GSC Metrics work well for A/B testing:
- Clicks
- Clickthrough rate (CTR)
- Impressions
- The average rankings of pages
To implement SEO goals for your company website that positively impact traffic and clicks, please get in touch with us at SEO&Web to discuss your needs. We are proud to deliver outstanding, goal-orientated results.
