If you want to get more visitors to end up buying your products, subscribing to your newsletter, reading more posts on your blog –or doing any other conversion action–, the tool that will give you the best results is A/B testing. A/B tests allow you to test different versions of the design and/or content of any element of your website and see which of them gives you the best results.
Previous Steps
Before showing you examples of A/B tests that you can try on your website, I would like to discuss a couple of questions that you should consider before creating your first test.
Analyze Your Website to Detect Problems that can be Improved
To get the most out of the conversion optimization process of your website, you should first analyze it, identify what problems it has and which elements can be improved. To do this, evaluate the most visited pages and ask yourself if they meet the objectives for which they were created or if you could improve their results:
- Does the page meet user expectations in terms of content and design?
- How can we improve it?
- Are the content and offers of the page as clear as possible?
- Can we make them clearer or simpler?
- What causes doubts on this page or makes the overall process more difficult?
- Can we simplify it?
- What is on the page that does not help the user to act?
- Can we increase user motivation?
From here on, you already have a list of problems that serves as a starting point to generate hypotheses for improvement. For example, if you have identified that your visitors never scroll past the first section of a page, it makes sense to think that this section needs to be improved, right?
And as I mentioned at the beginning of this post, A/B tests allow you to test different versions of the design or content of any element of your website to see which one gives you the best results. In the example above, it will make sense to create an A/B test in which you create variants of the page in question, modifying the text and/or design of the first fold. Then, you will have to analyze the results and modify it accordingly.
Use a Tool to Create A/B Tests
When you are going to create any A/B test, whether it is about the content or the design of your website, use a tool that takes care of everything. That is, a tool that allows you to create the test variants easily, divide the traffic among your visitors, show you which variant works best and, finally, allows you to apply the winning variant as the definitive one.
In particular, we recommend the use of Nelio A/B Testing (free and premium version from $29/month), because it is the only tool that is fully created as a native WordPress plugin so that it is 100% compatible with the block editor and you don’t need to learn or use any other external tool for its operation. With Nelio A/B Testing, creating alternatives for any A/B test is exactly the same as creating any page, post, menu, etc., in WordPress. But in addition, it saves you the work of having to segment the traffic to your website and directly provides you with the metrics and results you are looking for. In this post you have a complete guide on how to create A/B tests with the WordPress block editor using Nelio A/B Testing.
Here are some ideas of A/B tests that you can create to improve your website.
Nelio A/B Testing
I was very impressed by the quality of this plugin, how easy it was to set up, and the outstanding support Nelio provides. I highly recommend Nelio A/B Testing.
Josette Millar
Tests to Improve Your Message
If you want your visitors to have a good reason to make a purchase, subscribe to your newsletter, sign up for a program, etc., you have to get the text and message right to invite the visitor to perform that action. To do this, I suggest you carry out the following A/B tests related to the copy of your pages:
Try Different Headline Texts
Surely, all your landing pages include more than one section in which you invite the user to take an action. And if they don’t, you know where to start to improve your website 😅.
Theoretically, longer texts can better describe a message, but our recommendation is that you try texts with a lower complexity. Try entering numbers, being more direct, using emotions, using words that create a sense of urgency, etc.
In short, create A/B tests with different headlines following these recommendations to see if the variant copy perform better than the one you are using now.
Change Message Body Texts
A brilliant body copy is just as important as a strong headline in convincing your visitor to take action. Therefore, you also need to get it right.
You can add a touch of humor to your text to see if your audience likes it. Or add questions that invite the user to want to respond by performing an action. I also recommend adding comments or opinions from your customers about your products to build trust. Try long texts, short texts or even eliminate the body of the message and just show a headline. Remember that until you run A/B tests on these changes, you won’t know what works best.
For example, on our Nelio A/B Testing landing page, we ran an A/B test where we modified the headline of the first fold.
Interestingly, we had different results in English than in Spanish.
Tests Different Headline and Product Description Texts
As we have seen with the pages, if you have a WooCommerce store, product summary tests are a type of test you should try. Change the headline and description of products (you can also change the image and the price) and analyze with which alternative you get more sales.
Change Call to Action Button Texts
Which button text will get you the most clicks? Try to think of clear text that also invites clicks. For example, try adding the words “now” or “free” to your button to convey a message of urgency or opportunity, respectively.
Modify headlines and field texts in forms
Try different texts in your forms to make them more appealing to be filled in. Modify field labels or add placeholders to help the user fill in the field.
Tests to Improve Design
As you have already seen in some of the previous examples, in addition to writing compelling texts, you must make your website visually appealing. Create tests with different types of color schemes, font styles and graphic elements to make your website more attractive and optimize conversion.
Test Different Font Styles, Sizes and Text Colors
Sometimes it’s not just what you say, but also how you say it. And the font style you use on your website has an impact on the conversion. What font style to use: Arial, Times New Roman, Lato, Calibri…? What size and what color? You can only know all this if you create A/B tests. When you use a tool like Nelio A/B Testing, you have the option to create CSS A/B tests and test different font styles, sizes and colors for each of your texts.
Change Button Styles, Size and Font Color
And the same goes for buttons. Change the style, size and color of the buttons and see what works best. To do this, the simplest thing is to create a CSS A/B test in which you add CSS style rules in the variants to be tested.
Change the Colors of a Page
It’s not just the buttons your visitors interact with that have an impact. The colors of the website are relevant too. Try changing the colors displayed on any of your pages, and analyze if your visitors like soft colors or even crazy combinations.
The page where you show the prices of your products is the one that has the greatest impact on the conversion of your website. Spend time optimizing it. If you offer different plans or services, try changing their colors and analyze which combination is more attractive.
Try Changing Images and Videos
When you describe a product or want to impact your visitors, a picture is worth a thousand words. But a prettier image doesn’t necessarily generate more conversion. Test which image works best.
Also try swapping images for videos and see what works best.
Completely Change the Theme of Your Website
Finally, before completely redesigning your website, I recommend that you do some theme testing. Try several alternative WordPress themes in an easy way and find out which one your audience likes the most. We have already talked before about how to create a theme test with Nelio A/B Testing.
Conclusion
In this post we have proposed a set of ideas of changes that you should test on your website to improve it. To create A/B tests quickly and easy, it is best to install a tool like Nelio A/B Testing on your website. Without writing a single line of code, you will see how easy it is to optimize the conversion of your website.
Featured image of Khamkéo Vilaysing on Unsplash.
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