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How To Increase Conversions With Split Testing In WordPress

Having trouble turning visitors into buyers or subscribers on your WordPress website? How about selling your product?

A common frustration among website owners and bloggers is figuring out how to turn your visitors into returning users, buyers and email subscribers.

In fact, its so common that new online businesses such as blogs, e-commerce sites, affiliate marketers, etc. often give up hope on their newly embarked entrepreneurial business due to a lack of visitor conversion within their website.

In fact, its so common that new online businesses such as blogs, e-commerce sites, affiliate marketers, etc. often give up hope on their newly embarked entrepreneurial business due to a lack of visitor conversion within their website.

What if there was a way to guarantee that your conversion rate within your website would improve? Thankfully, there is. It’s called split testing.

Many refer to split testing as A/B testing, or multivariate testing:
  • What is split testing?
  • How can one effectively use it to improve their website conversion rates?
  • And how can you increase conversions with split testing in WordPress using highly rated and user-friendly WordPress plugins?

If you’ve ever asked yourself any of these questions, read on.

What is split testing?

Split testing is a common strategy used by website owners, bloggers, e-commerce businesses and any small business with an online presence, to test different versions of their website features in order to see which version results in higher website conversions.

A common example is found within advertising your website with PPC ads.

Using a platform like Google Adwords, you are able to create two versions of your website ad, and have both versions displayed an equal amount of times by Google.

After gathering sufficient data on impressions, clicks, and conversions, you can then compare the data from both ads to determine which one has a higher conversion rate.

Another example of split testing that is very common is when determining how to capture more email subscribers. Using the same process as the PPC ads formerly mentioned, you simply create two variations of an email capture form.

You then send an equal amount of traffic to those forms.

Once you have gathered enough data, review the highest converting form and keep the higher converting of the two. Start the process over again and keep improving your conversions until your form is flawless.

Split testing isn’t just used for PPC ads, but for any feature within your website.

Common website features that are used with split testing are:
  • Website forms such as email capture forms, survey forms, etc.
  • Menus within your website
  • Page titles and headlines
  • Headers and footers
  • Website themes
  • Website colors
  • Calls to action
  • Website images and graphics
  • Content
  • Sidebars
  • Website ad placement
  • Website ads
  • Banners

These are just a few to begin with.

Anything on your website can be tested to determine which of the two features impact your visitors with the desired outcome.

The remarkable thing about split testing, is that it is a never-ending strategy that, when done properly, guarantees improvement of your website in one way or another.

Imagine having a WordPress blog that you begin implementing split testing regularly, how profitable and optimized it would be after years of using split testing strategies.

You may just have a near perfect blog that converts like crazy!

The basic process to follow when using split testing To make this process even easier, follow the steps outlined below to effectively implement split testing to optimize your website conversions.

1 – Determine your split testing goals

Choose what you want to achieve using split testing, or your desired outcome. This may be product sales, email subscribers, affiliate link clicks, etc.

2 – Decide on a website feature to optimize

A common place to start would be with your website theme. Once you have your theme in place, then you can choose which colors, headlines, layouts, etc. to begin split testing.

If your theme is already chosen, begin with a feature from the list above.

3 – Create variations

When creating variations of the feature you are split testing, you can alter each variation in diverse ways.

If you are using split testing for a title, for example, you can alter things such as the wording of a title, or even change the entire title to see which is more captivating.

4 – Gather data

Give yourself enough data to realistically conclude an obvious winner of the two tested website features.

A common mistake is not gathering enough data to support the conclusion. It may be safe to say that if your website has enough daily visitors, a week worth of data may be sufficient.

If you don’t have many visitors yet, you may want to use PPC ads to send traffic to your website.

5 – Implement the top converting feature

Once you gather enough data, the results should be obvious enough that clearly one is more converting than the other.

Implement this into your website as the default feature.

6 – Repeat!

When utilizing this process on a continual basis, your website has no other direction to go than up. Conversions will increase, along with sales, subscribers, and overall website success.

As a result of it all, your website will even increase in organic traffic, as high converting websites are of high interest in major search engine algorithms.

How to effectively use split testing within your WordPress website

A common difficulty many website owners come across is the time consumption of creating and recreating new versions of the feature within your website that you are optimizing with split testing.

Having to create new versions regularly can be a headache, but is absolutely essential to building a successful website, making split testing a double-edged sword.

Thankfully, there are solutions that make the process easier and nearly automated.

How?

By using reliable WordPress plugins to speed up the process and make life a heck of a lot easier, while continually improving your online presence.

What are the best WordPress plugins used to help automate split testing?

To do you one better, I’ve included a list of some of the most well-respected WordPress plugins that will ensure your split testing strategies are used effectively.

Whether you are looking to improve your website forms or want to know which theme is the best for your niche, WordPress has got a form for it.

Simple Page Tester

With three steps to begin using split testing, Simple Page Tester allows you to cut the headache out of any split testing process. No coding or editing is required in the process and step by step instructions are given when creating a new split test.

You are able to track the data gathered as well as split testing goals you set for yourself and your website.

When a new split test is started, Simple Page Tester automatically makes the winner of the test become your default page, taking some of the extra work out of the process for you and making things automatic.

Title Split Testing for WordPress

As the name states, this plugin is mainly used in optimizing different titles for your website page, post or forms.

Titles are often overlooked but can be the difference between whether someone chooses your website or someone else’s when listed from common search results.

Optimizing your WordPress page and post titles can result in higher average time on website, and reduce your bounce rate, both of which are very popular in Google’s search engine algorithm.

SES Theme Split Test

Just like title split testing, theme split testing is often overlooked.

This plugin allows you to design a website and create multiple variations of the theme you choose. You can track your testing data using Google Analytics.

Ultimately, you have the option to leave the choice of which theme is best up to your website visitors.

Google Content Experiments

No longer maintained, information purposes only.

This plugin was built around simplicity, with the user who doesn’t know how to code or who has little experience online in mind.

This plugin allows one to create experiments with different variations of your website content (as the title states).

WordPress Test Monkey

The plugin allows one to use split testing with different headlines, prices, calls to action, content variations, etc.

This is a more diversified option to use when wanting to implement split testing in multiple different areas of your website.

There is a plugin for nearly everything

The great thing is, there is a plugin for just about everything you can think of when it comes to WordPress split testing plugins.

The above plugins are highly rated and recommended but are just a few to start out with.

Find the one that fits what you are looking to achieve and go with it.

As your website evolves, you always have the ability to try “split test” the plugins for that matter!

The only process that guarantees results

The wonderful thing about split testing, is when implemented for a long enough time, results are inevitable.

Sure, you may have a split test resulting in the newly tested page being worse than your default page, but at least you know how traffic responds better in that aspect.

But if followed and used as an overall strategy for your online business, you will improve your overall website success. My advice, use highly rated WordPress plugin to make the process easier and smoother.

Feel free to post your comment below. An email address is required but it will not be shared with anyone, put on any list, or used for any kind of marketing, just to alert you if there are any replies. Thanks and happy hunting!

PlanetBizOp.com

->Steven

Updated: Originally published May 8th 2018

This Post Has 12 Comments

  1. Michael

    I really enjoyed reading your article and learned quite a few things about converting people.

    I always knew that split testing was a great way to improve conversions, but I never really knew how to do it.

    After reading this post, I feel like I could go out and start split testing different things on my site now. Thanks. 🙂

    1. Steven

      Great! Everyone should be doing this continually. Never stop experimenting, adding just 1% to your conversion rate is huge in the long run.

      Thanks for the comment Michael!

  2. Aaron

    Hey steven, I really enjoyed reading your post about Split testing and how it can help to make the better decision. I once had a very interesting conversation with the SEO of Foundr Magazine about split testing and his opinion on split testing was that he used to split test everything. Later he realized that it isn’t an answer for everything. Because it also takes a lot of time, which is super important.

    1. Steven

      True, there is some commitment in time with split testing, so some common sense should be exercised. Stick to the basics, split test critical elements of your marketing, such as calls to action and banners. Plugins help to automate some of the more tedious aspects, so there’s that…

      Thanks for the input Aaron!

  3. Marta

    Hey Steve, thanks for sharing!
    I’ve never thought about a split testing before, even because I’m still a newbie.
    I see there is a plugin for anything. I’ve already identified the one that could be better for me.
    How many plugins can we have without impacting The site Speed? And ones installed, are there any instructions on how to work with it?

    1. Steven

      The number of plugins you can have depends on your server speed, its available resources and the plugins themselves. Some plugins use a lot of resources, some hardly any. Only use plugins you can’t live without. If your page load times are slow, you might have to upgrade your hosting to compensate.

      Most, if not all plugins have websites to support them. Google the plugin to find their associated website, there should be instructions on their use there.

      Thanks for the input Marta!

  4. Dave

    Hallo there,

    I have to say you are quite versed with this stuff. I am just getting my website up and running and hope to get more conversions soon.

    I typed how to increase conversions and your website popped up in the search. I will surely follow your steps here as I implement on my site.

    I see you have mentioned using ppc ads to increase conversions.

    Can you help me get a detailed approach to ppc?

    Thanks.

    1. Steven

      PPC can be complicated to implement efficiently. Personally, I find it to be quite expensive and risky, it’s easy to go broke trying to keep up with competitive keywords.

      If you want to try PPC, use the same strategy you would with any keyword research. Go with long-tail and stay away from competitive keywords. Start small, test, if you have success then scale up. Calculate advertising cost vs. return and preserve advertising capital.

      Paying for traffic can be frustrating, there is usually some failure as you learn. If you take it slow, start small and exercise some patience you can have success with PPC. Do more research on the subject and learn everything you can before undertaking the project to maximize your chances of quick success.

      Thanks for the comment Dave!

  5. Anna

    Wow, this post is very helpful!

    I didn’t know this much about split testing in WordPress before, so it’s very informative. Thank you so much!

    1. Steven

      Split testing is very helpful in constantly improving your site’s performance. Try it on higher performing pages and see if you can squeeze a bit more from them. Then start on lower performing pages to get your conversions improved significantly. It’s worth the effort.

      Thanks for the comment Anna!

  6. Darrin

    Thanks so much for this great article. I found it very informative and well written.

    Split testing is something I have heard about but never really researched. Now I have read your article I can see that it is an essential technique to use.

    I found the plug in suggestions very useful too and will be trying them out.

    Can’t wait to increase my conversion! 🙂

    Thanks again.

    1. Steven

      This is a vital, yet often overlooked, technique to maximize conversions. You should do it continually from now on, experiment, get the most from your money pages.

      Glad you got something useful from the article and thanks for the comment Darrin!

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