Search engine optimization (SEO) can be considered a scientific theory because with more research, the more that you will realize how many more questions you need answers for. To get to the bottom of things, you need to have to conduct experiments often. You can ask for help from a SaaS SEO platform company when conducting these experiments.
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What Is the Difference Between A/B Testing and SEO Experiments?
When conducting a conversion rate split test or A/B testing, you are giving random visitors an A or a B version of your web page. For example, if you are offering compressed air systems, you will let your visitors see two versions of your site. They can contain different calls to action or various product images or contain other features. Conversion testing requires the following:
- Users that are divided into two random test groups
- The 2 versions of your webpage
- A parameter to determine the best webpage version
However, this is not a method that can be applied for an SEO split test. If you were to put up several versions of a web page online to identify which gets more traffic, Google will definitely be setting off its alarms. The pages can end up destroying each other and Google will end up not indexing any of the versions.
What Are SEO Experiments?
SEO experiments help you identify which tactic works for your business. There are hundreds of SEO tactics that you can use for promoting your site and hope for an increase in traffic and conversion. Much like any scientific inquiry, the only way to find the answer is to test, track, analyze, and revise as needed. This means taking a bit of time before implementation, using up some time, and spending some resources for the testing. But then, your aim is to see gains over time.
10 SEO Experiments You Can Try
SEO testing is similar to A/B testing practices in that you make one change on the website and monitor how your respondents are responding to it. The difference is that you are monitoring the search engine’s response to these tweaks as well.
SEO split-testing tracks the improvements to the metrics like click-through rates, organic traffic, and ranking positions. If you are looking for SEO experiments that you can do for your site, here are some suggestions:
1. Changing Meta Titles
Meta titles are the first things that users can see in your listings on the search engine results pages (SERPs). It is not considered a direct ranking factor, the algorithm of Google takes the CTR into consideration. It is expected that a change in the meta can change the CTR thereby affecting the ranking.
Some of the meta title experiments you can do include:
- Adding or removing the phrase “free shipping”
- Adding or removing your brand name
- Using action words like “buy”
- Changing the character length
2. Meta Description Modifications
Meta descriptions are the paragraphs that appear beneath the meta title and give searchers an idea of what the page talks about. These add context to the content and encourage click-throughs by convincing clients that what they are looking for is found on the page. Some of the experiments that you can do using meta tags are:
- Star ratings
- Offering incentives like “free shipping”
- Using secondary keywords
3. Heading Tags
Heading tags are on-page elements that can help Google understand your page. You will have a main H1 for every page, some H2s and H3 subheaders to break the content. These can be tested so you can improve the site’s content clarity to help search engine crawlers do a good job at finding the right results for users. You can run the following experiments for headings:
- Changing the placement of the title tag
- Changing the length of sentences
- Using H2s and/or H3s for subheadings
- Include different keywords
4. Image Alt Text
Search engines use alt text to interpret images and find suitable users according to what users want to find. You can do a split-test regardless of whether Google bots change the ranking positions of pages or images on SERPs according to your alt text changes or not. You can do these alt-text experiments:
- Adding spaces or using hyphens
- Removing or adding characters
- Switching keyword uses
5. Delete Element
A SaaS SEO platform provider can recommend experiments that are related to specific on-page elements like the image alt texts and meta titles. There are elements that are not essential to your page but could still be part of your experiments. You can test if deleting some of these elements will have a positive or negative impact on your search performance:
- Breadcrumbs
- Social media buttons
- Images
- Pop-up forms
6. Move Element
While you can always choose to delete some elements, you also have an option to keep them running by transferring them to a different location. You can check to see if any movement of elements can make a difference to the SEO results. Some of the things that you can move are:
- Images can be moved above or below the headings
- Content can be moved to other locations on the page
7. Add Element
If you can remove and move some elements, you can also experiment on adding new elements and determine if these could help rake in more organic traffic. For instance, if you are offering addiction counselling in Windsor, you can add an internal link where patients can access help securely. Other businesses can also do SEO split-test for these:
- Image insertions
- Internal links to another page
- Content blocks above the fold
8. Internal Links
Internal links are those that direct people to other relevant pages on your site. These can help improve user behaviour metrics as measured by bounce rates, time on site, and pages per session. These are all indicators of the quality of the site content and user experience. Some of the SEO experiments you can do are:
- Link position on the page
- Pages linked to
- Shallow or deep links
9. Link Anchor Text
Anchor text gives a description of the link to search engines. It helps crawlers to determine the page content and the ranking it should be given. A split-test can be done to see how changes can affect time on site, CTR, and organic rankings. Some of the experiments you can do are:
- Character length
- Exact or broad match text
- Format
10. Schema Markup
The SERP is no longer just 10 organic listings because it can now showcase a varied result ranging from star reviews, headlines of news stories, and other relevant content. This is built using a Schema markup – a way of using structured data to show the search engine the exact additional information it can pull from pages to show users in the SERP. you can work together with your trusted SaaS SEO platform to do these SEO experiments:
- Whether the Schema markup creates a difference
- Structured data types
- JSON-LD or Microdata code
SEO experiments can help you determine different ways to improve your site to gain organic traffic. With the help of a professional SEO team, you can conduct these experiments with no significant impact on your web vitals.
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