Every business wants visitors to their website to be more than passive visitors, they want them to be goal achievers.
- eCommerce websites want their readers to buy their products.
- Software-as-a-Service sites want their visitors to sign-up, and download a trial, and then have them ultimately convert to paid users.
- News and blog sites want their visitors to sign up for subscriptions, and view or click on ads.
The rate at which a website is able to get visitors to do these things is its “conversion rate”. Whilst the cost of acquiring new paid web traffic is time consuming and expensive, the cost of increasing conversions with existing visitors in comparison is minimal. A/B testing can allow you to make more out of your existing traffic.
A/B testing is comparing two versions of a web page to see which one performs better.
You compare two web pages by showing the two variations of the same page to similar visitors at the same time. The one that gives a better conversion rate, wins!
Almost anything on your website that affects a visitor can be A/B tested.
- Headlines
- Sub headlines
- Paragraph Text
- Testimonials
- Calls to Action text or button
- Links
- Images
- Content near the fold
- Media mentions
- Awards and badges
These are just a few examples of simple tests you can try, but you can also run more advanced tests that might compare pricing structures, sales promotions, free trial lengths, navigation and UX experiences, free or paid delivery, and more.