What is A/B Testing?
In very general terms, A/B testing is a way to compare how effective two different web page layouts, designs, or elements are in achieving a particular goal. A/B testing is a way to test how well something (an element, a design, a layout, etc.) affects your conversion rates before implementing those changes in your website code.
By testing in advance, you take out much of the guesswork that comes with implementing particular changes or designs.
How Does A/B Testing Work?
First, you’ll need to define your goals for the change. Your goals might include increasing the amount of leads, web site registrations, quote requests, clicks, downloads, or simply selling more product. Once you’ve decided on what you want to achieve, you then need to create two different versions of a web page and measure the effectiveness of each in achieving your goals. In very basic terms, you show users two different versions of a web page and determine which is more effective by measuring outcomes for each page.
You’ll need to run the testing for a long enough time to obtain a representative sample of users (for some sites that might be achieved in a few days while other sites will need to run the A/B testing for longer) and you will need to be sure that you can accurately track the results.
Once you’ve determined which web page design and/or layout works better for achieving your goals, you then can implement that change on your website to ensure that your web site better meets your goals. With A/B testing, you replace the guesswork of making changes to your website with measureable results and your website will only get better and better!
