Even if your WordPress site was built by professional developers and designers, there’s a fair chance that it has some elements of its design here and there that are costing you more than you think. It’s not a question of bad design, it is simply that optimizing for conversion is as much science as it is art, and sometimes the best converting design is not the most obvious.
Whether you’re operating a personal blog, an e-store, or a corporate site, the goal behind most revenue generating websites is to convert their traffic. Blog owners want their viewership to convert to subscribers and e-store owners would like the occasional visitor to become a loyal customer.
A/B testing is a method of testing additions or modifications to a page to see if they will boost its conversion rates. This article discusses what A/B testing is, what you can split test on WordPress, and some tools to help you get started.
An Overview of A/B Testing
When we add page elements to our site or move a widget from the left sidebar to the right we tell ourselves that it’ll improve user experience and perhaps if we’re lucky, it’ll increase conversion rates. A/B testing lets you do just that with one slight variation – it’s backed by data and statistics.
According to Unbounce,
“A/B testing is the act of running a simultaneous experiment between two or more pages to see which performs or converts the best.”
The A/B testing process is pretty simple:
- Select the webpage you’d like to optimize conversions on.
- Choose a page element you’d like to split test on.
- Create two variants of the webpage (A and B).
- Display both webpage variants to your site’s viewership for a specified time period.
- The webpage with the highest conversion rates wins!
Page Elements to A/B Test
You can A/B test just about anything on your site’s webpage – call to action buttons, headers, body copy, images, you name it. The fact that you can test everything doesn’t mean you necessarily should. Page elements that are more likely to have a greater impact on conversion rates should be tested first. Here are some examples of page elements that you can A/B test on:
- Opt-in forms.
- Subscription forms.
- Call to action buttons.
- Related posts widget.
- Promotional campaigns.
A/B Testing Tools
In this section, we’ll run the rule over some of the best A/B testing tools out there to help you get started with optimizing conversion rates on your WordPress website.
Optimizely
Optimizely features an A/B Testing Tool that enables users to create different variations of their WordPress websites. Users are given access to an intuitive dashboard from where they can manage both of the webpage variations and see which one converts more over the course of the experiment.
Although Optimizely doesn’t provide an in-depth analysis of the test results, it’s a great solution for webmasters who are looking for a free alternative with a steady learning curve to automate the A/B testing process.
Unbounce
Unbounce is all about the landing pages! Over at Unbounce, you’ll be able to find an amazing drag and drop page builder and a dashboard that lets you A/B test the webpages that you design. If you’re not sure where to start, you can pick up one of their 200 landing page templates and go from there.
One of the major plus points of using Unbounce is that it connects to the marketing tools you’re probably already using such as MailChimp and AWeber. This premium service will set you back $49 per month for the Starter package.
Visual Website Optimizer
Visual Website Optimizer lets webmasters tweak, optimize, and personalize their websites without having to hire a developer to help them out. This premium service comes with a wide range of tools to help you get the most out of your A/B testing experiment.
The stand out feature you’ll get with this service is the point and click editor which lets you create different webpage variations without having to mess around with HTML code. For $49 per month, the Visual Website Optimizer gives you great value for money.
AB Press Optimizer
AB Press Optimizer is a WordPress plugin that integrates directly into your admin panel and lets you A/B test your website without having to leave the WordPress dashboard. With powerful functionality like unlimited experiments, real-time reporting, and unlimited variations, you won’t be disappointed.
The premium plugin is available for a one-time payment of $49 for the Personal package which lets webmasters install the plugin on one WordPress site.
Wrapping It Up
Optimizing your WordPress website’s conversion rates can radically increase your site’s incoming revenue. A/B testing your website helps you get real data and statistics on how well your webpages convert and which variations do better than others.
Which A/B testing tools have you tried out? Which features do you look for in an A/B testing tool? We’d love to hear from you so let us know in the comments section below!
