One of the hardest parts of A/B testing is not creating the experiment.
It is deciding what to test.
Once a team installs an A/B testing plugin, there is often a temptation to start changing visible elements immediately. Try a different button color. Move an image. Rewrite a headline. Change the order of a few sections.
Those ideas are easy to generate, but they are not always useful.
A better approach starts with a problem.
Why are visitors not clicking? Why do they leave before reaching the pricing table? Why does a WooCommerce product receive traffic but few purchases? Why do users open the contact form but fail to submit it?
When you begin with a concrete problem, your experiment becomes much more valuable.
The goal is not to test as many things as possible. The goal is to test changes that could realistically improve an important business outcome.
In this guide, we will look at practical A/B testing ideas for WordPress, but we will organize them by the problem you are trying to solve rather than by arbitrary page elements.
That distinction matters.
A headline test, a pricing test, and a menu test are not interesting because they are different experiment types. They are interesting because each one can address a specific obstacle in the customer journey.
If you are still deciding which tool to use, see our guide to the best A/B testing plugins for WordPress. And if your site has limited traffic, our guide to A/B testing for low-traffic websites explains why prioritizing stronger hypotheses becomes even more important.
Start With the Problem, Not the Element
A/B testing becomes much easier when you stop asking:
What should I change?
and start asking:
What is preventing visitors from doing what I want them to do?
Those questions lead to very different experiments.
Suppose your pricing page receives plenty of traffic but few visitors start a trial.
You could test the color of the main CTA button.
But that assumes the button itself is the problem.
Perhaps visitors do not understand the difference between plans. Maybe the most expensive option dominates attention. Perhaps the pricing table appears too late on the page. The value proposition may not justify the price. Visitors may simply need more reassurance before committing.
The better experiment comes from understanding the friction first.
Analytics, heatmaps, session recordings, customer feedback, sales conversations, and support requests can all help reveal where the problem lies.
Once you have evidence, the test idea becomes more specific.
For example:
Because visitors struggle to understand which plan fits them, emphasizing one recommended plan and simplifying the feature comparison will increase trial registrations.
That is a much stronger experiment than “let’s make the button green.”
If Visitors Do Not Understand What You Offer, Test the Value Proposition
One of the most common problems on a website is not that the design is bad.
It is that visitors do not immediately understand what the product or service does for them.
This is especially common on SaaS websites, agency pages, technical products, and businesses with several overlapping features.
The first area to investigate is usually the headline and opening section.
A generic headline such as:
The Complete Solution for Your Business
may sound polished but communicate very little.
An alternative that explains the outcome more directly can give visitors a clearer reason to continue.
For example:
Run A/B Tests Directly in WordPress Without Rebuilding Your Pages
The second version is less vague. It identifies the activity, the environment, and a specific benefit.
This kind of experiment is valuable because the headline affects almost every visitor.
With Nelio A/B Testing, WordPress publishers can also create dedicated headline tests that compare combinations of the post title, excerpt, and featured image. Nelio automatically tracks impressions wherever the tested headline appears and records a conversion when the visitor clicks through to the post.
For landing pages and product pages, you can instead create a page or product experiment and compare broader variations of the value proposition.
If People See the Page but Do Not Click, Test the Call to Action
Sometimes visitors understand the page but do not take the next step.
The CTA may be unclear, poorly positioned, too generic, or disconnected from the promise made in the rest of the page.
A common mistake is to focus immediately on color.
Color can matter when contrast is poor, but wording and context are often more important.
Consider the difference between:
Learn More
and:
Start Your Free A/B Test
The second CTA tells the visitor exactly what will happen.
You can also test whether the CTA should appear earlier, repeat later in the page, or sit next to supporting information such as pricing, guarantees, or social proof.
One of Nelio’s own experiments tested whether shortening the journey from a landing page directly toward conversion could improve results, rather than forcing visitors through an unnecessarily long funnel.
That is a good example of testing the role of the CTA in the journey, not merely its appearance.
If Visitors Do Not Scroll Far Enough, Test the Page Structure
Long landing pages are not inherently bad.
Short landing pages are not inherently good.
What matters is whether important information appears where visitors need it.
A scrollmap may reveal that only a small proportion of users reach a section containing the strongest social proof, pricing information, or primary CTA.
That does not automatically mean you should delete half the page.
It suggests that the order may deserve testing.
You could move the pricing table higher, bring customer testimonials closer to the initial value proposition, or introduce a second CTA before the point where attention begins to decline.
Another possibility is to reduce the amount of content before the visitor reaches the key decision.
The hypothesis might be:
Because most visitors leave before seeing the pricing comparison, moving the plans closer to the opening value proposition will increase visits to the signup page.
Nelio A/B Testing includes heatmaps, scrollmaps, and confetti maps, making it possible to identify these patterns before creating a test.
This is one of the best examples of why behavioral analytics and experimentation work better together.
Nelio A/B Testing
Native Tests for WordPress
Use your WordPress page editor to create variants and run powerful tests with just a few clicks. No coding skills required.
If Visitors Reach Pricing but Do Not Buy, Test How Pricing Is Presented
Pricing pages are particularly good candidates for A/B testing because they sit close to the final decision.
A visitor who reaches pricing is usually more qualified than someone casually reading a blog post.
But pricing pages contain many decisions that can create friction.
Should monthly or annual billing be emphasized? Should one plan be visually recommended? Should features be shown in a detailed comparison or simplified summary? Should the most expensive option appear first? Should pricing include contextual explanations?
One of our own A/B tests at Nelio explored what should be emphasized on the pricing page and found that changing how the plans and their features were presented could materially affect subscriptions.
The key idea is not to treat pricing as a static table.
It is part of the sales message.
If customers hesitate because they cannot tell which plan fits them, test a stronger recommendation.
If the value feels unclear, test benefit-focused explanations near the prices.
If annual billing creates friction, test how savings are communicated.
The experiment should address the reason visitors hesitate, not merely rearrange cards for visual novelty.
If Visitors Abandon a Form, Test Friction
Forms are one of the most obvious places where friction becomes measurable.
A visitor has already decided to engage. If they start the form and do not finish, something is getting in the way.
That could be the number of fields, a mandatory phone number, unclear labels, validation errors, privacy concerns, or uncertainty about what will happen after submission.
A useful experiment might compare a long form with a shorter version.
Another might make optional fields truly optional.
You could also test whether reassurance next to the submit button improves completion:
We’ll only use your email to reply to your request.
The primary goal should usually be a successful form submission rather than a click on the submit button.
Session recordings are particularly useful here because they can show where visitors hesitate, revisit fields, or abandon the process. Our guide to heatmaps vs session recordings vs A/B testing explains how to combine those methods before deciding what to change.
If Users Get Lost, Test Navigation
Navigation is easy to overlook because it is usually treated as infrastructure rather than conversion content.
But menus influence which pages visitors discover and which paths they follow.
If users struggle to reach pricing, documentation, a product page, or an important service, the navigation itself may be part of the problem.
You could compare a large menu with a simplified version, reorder the most important items, rename ambiguous labels, or move secondary destinations out of the primary navigation.
Nelio A/B Testing supports dedicated menu experiments, allowing you to duplicate a WordPress menu, modify its structure, and compare which version sends more visitors toward your goals.
For example, a software company might test:
Product · Features · Pricing · Resources
against:
Features · Use Cases · Pricing · Documentation
The better menu is not necessarily the shortest one.
It is the one that helps the right visitors find the right destination more efficiently.
If Your Blog Gets Impressions but Few Clicks, Test Headlines
Content-focused websites have a different conversion problem.
A post may be visible on the homepage, archive pages, related-content sections, or widgets without attracting clicks.
In that situation, changing the article itself may not help.
The title, excerpt, and featured image determine whether visitors decide to open it.
Headline testing lets you compare different ways of presenting the same content before the user reaches the article.
For example:
10 Tips to Improve Your WordPress Website
could be compared with:
Why Your WordPress Site Converts Poorly—and 10 Ways to Fix It
The second headline introduces a problem and promises a solution.
Neither is universally better.
That is exactly why testing is useful.
Nelio’s dedicated headline experiments are particularly well suited to blogs and publishers because the plugin can track each appearance of the headline across WordPress and automatically count clicks to the article as conversions.
This is a good example of a test that would be awkward to reproduce with a generic page editor because the headline may appear in many different parts of the site.
If a WooCommerce Product Gets Views but Few Purchases, Test the Product
Ecommerce creates some of the most valuable testing opportunities because the conversion can be tied directly to orders and revenue.
Suppose a WooCommerce product receives steady traffic but relatively few purchases.
The problem could be the title, images, description, price, promotion, or overall presentation.
A product experiment can help isolate the issue.
You might compare a product-only photograph against a lifestyle image, rewrite the description around benefits, simplify the short description, or test another price.
Nelio A/B Testing supports WooCommerce product tests involving names, descriptions, images, prices, and offers, and tracks which variation generates more orders and revenue.
That last metric is important.
A lower price may increase the conversion rate without increasing revenue.
A higher price may reduce the number of orders while increasing total value.
The best version should be evaluated according to the business outcome you actually care about.
For more ideas specific to ecommerce, see our guide to the best A/B testing plugins for WooCommerce.
If You Are Unsure About Discounts, Test the Offer
Discounts are often treated as an automatic way to increase sales.
But a promotion can increase orders while reducing revenue or training customers to wait for lower prices.
Instead of assuming that a 20% discount is better than 10%, test it.
Nelio A/B Testing supports WooCommerce bulk-sale experiments, allowing a discount strategy to be applied to a selected group of products and compared with the original pricing.
You could test a percentage discount against free shipping, compare two discount levels, or evaluate whether a promotion is necessary at all.
The most useful metric may be revenue rather than conversion rate.
A promotion that produces 15% more orders but 10% less revenue is not automatically a winner.
If the Site Feels Cluttered, Test Simplicity
Many websites accumulate content over time.
A landing page that once contained four sections now contains twelve. The navigation grows. Additional banners appear. Testimonials, badges, FAQs, videos, feature grids, and secondary calls to action compete for attention.
The instinct is often to add more information because visitors “might need it.”
Sometimes the better experiment is subtraction.
Remove a secondary CTA.
Reduce the number of plans.
Simplify the hero.
Collapse less important details.
Shorten the path to the conversion.
A simplification test is particularly valuable when heatmaps or recordings show that visitors are distracted or repeatedly move between unrelated areas.
But avoid removing content simply because “minimalism converts better.”
The hypothesis should be specific:
Because visitors are distracted by secondary actions before reaching pricing, removing those actions will increase visits to the pricing page.
That makes the experiment measurable.
If Users Hesitate, Test Trust and Reassurance
Not every conversion problem comes from usability.
Sometimes visitors understand the offer but do not trust it enough to act.
This is common when the purchase carries financial, privacy, or operational risk.
A visitor may wonder whether the product works, whether cancelling is difficult, whether shipping is reliable, or whether their data is safe.
Social proof and reassurance can reduce that uncertainty.
You might test testimonials closer to the CTA, clearer refund information, customer logos, review scores, a money-back guarantee, delivery estimates, or an explanation of what happens after signup.
Placement matters as much as the content itself.
A guarantee hidden near the footer may have little influence on someone hesitating beside the purchase button.
An experiment can determine whether bringing that reassurance closer to the decision improves conversions.
If Mobile Users Perform Worse, Test the Mobile Experience
A website can look excellent on desktop and still create friction on mobile.
Analytics may show that mobile traffic converts significantly worse even though the visitors come from similar sources.
That is a strong signal for investigation.
Use heatmaps and recordings to look for differences.
Perhaps the CTA is pushed too far below the fold. A sticky header may consume too much space. The pricing table could require awkward horizontal interaction. Product options may be difficult to select with a thumb.
The solution does not need to be a completely different mobile website.
A targeted alternative might simplify the opening section, reduce sticky elements, move the CTA, or change the way pricing is presented on smaller screens.
The important point is to segment the problem correctly.
A page-level average can hide very different experiences across devices.
If a Redesign Is Planned, Test Before Replacing Everything
Website redesigns are risky because many things change simultaneously.
Teams often spend months creating a new design and then replace the old site in one step.
If conversions fall, it becomes difficult to know why.
A/B testing can reduce that risk.
Instead of assuming the redesign is better because it is newer, compare it against the current experience.
Nelio A/B Testing supports page, template, and theme experiments. Template tests can compare different layouts across sets of pages, while theme tests can evaluate much broader WordPress design changes.
This can be particularly useful when moving to a new page template, redesigning landing pages, or evaluating a theme update.
The larger the change, the more important the business goal becomes.
A redesign should not win because users “like it more.”
It should win because it improves the outcome the website exists to produce.
If You Do Not Know What to Test, Start With Behavioral Evidence
Sometimes you genuinely do not know where the problem is.
That is not a reason to run random experiments.
It is a reason to observe first.
Heatmaps can reveal where visitors click and how far they scroll. Session recordings can show how individual users move through the website. Analytics can identify pages with high traffic and poor conversion. Support conversations can reveal recurring confusion.
The combination creates a much stronger source of test ideas.
Suppose analytics shows that a landing page has a high exit rate.
The scrollmap shows that most visitors stop before the pricing section.
Recordings show them repeatedly moving between the opening feature list and a technical explanation.
Customer emails frequently ask what the product actually does.
Together, those signals suggest that the value proposition may be too complex.
Now you have something worth testing.
This is why “What should I A/B test?” is often the wrong first question.
The better question is:
Where is the evidence telling me that visitors are struggling?
Prioritize Tests by Potential Impact
Most websites contain hundreds of elements you could theoretically test.
You will never have enough time or traffic to test all of them.
Prioritization matters.
A useful way to think about potential tests is to combine three factors: the importance of the page, the strength of the evidence, and the possible size of the improvement.
A pricing-page test based on repeated customer confusion is usually more valuable than changing the footer on a low-traffic article.
A WooCommerce price test may have more direct commercial impact than adjusting an icon.
A homepage value proposition can affect thousands of visitors, while a niche documentation page may have little influence on the conversion funnel.
Traffic matters too.
Our guide to A/B testing for low-traffic websites explains why smaller sites should focus on stronger changes instead of spending months trying to detect tiny improvements.
The best experiment is not necessarily the easiest one to build.
It is the one where learning the answer has the greatest value.
A Practical Example: Choosing the First Test
Imagine a WordPress SaaS website with the following situation.
The homepage receives significant traffic. Many visitors click through to the product page, but relatively few continue to pricing.
Heatmaps show strong attention around the opening feature section. Recordings show several visitors scrolling between the headline and feature descriptions before leaving.
Support conversations frequently include a question that sounds like:
How is this different from doing it manually?
The team has several possible test ideas.
They could change the CTA color. They could redesign the footer. They could test another hero image.
But the evidence points toward a different problem: visitors may not understand the product’s main advantage.
A stronger experiment would compare the existing feature-oriented hero against an alternative that explicitly explains why the product is easier than the manual approach.
The conversion goal would be visits to pricing or trial registrations.
Even if the test loses, the team learns something valuable about the role of the value proposition.
That is what a good first experiment looks like.
Keep a Backlog of Hypotheses, Not Random Ideas
As your optimization program grows, you will accumulate more ideas than you can test.
Keep them somewhere.
But instead of writing:
Test CTA.
write:
Because visitors reach the pricing section but rarely continue to signup, changing the generic CTA to describe the immediate next step will increase signup-page visits.
This format forces every idea to include a problem, a proposed solution, and an expected outcome.
You can then prioritize the backlog according to business impact, evidence, traffic, and implementation effort.
It also makes experiments easier to review months later.
A list of completed tests becomes a record of what you learned about your audience rather than a collection of design changes.
What Should You Test First?
If you are starting from zero, do not begin with the most creative idea.
Begin with the most important unresolved problem.
Look at the pages closest to your business goals.
Where do users drop out?
Where does traffic concentrate?
Which objections appear repeatedly in sales or support conversations?
What do heatmaps and recordings show?
Then choose one hypothesis capable of producing a meaningful change.
For many WordPress businesses, that might be the homepage value proposition, a pricing page, a lead-generation form, or a WooCommerce product.
For a publisher, it may be the headline and featured image that determine whether content receives clicks.
For an ecommerce store, it may be the product image, description, price, or offer.
The answer depends on the business.
That is why the best A/B testing idea is rarely found in a generic list of “100 things you should test.”
Using Nelio A/B Testing to Test WordPress Ideas
Nelio A/B Testing is designed around the WordPress content model, which means experiment ideas do not have to be limited to superficial page edits.
The plugin supports experiments involving pages and posts, headlines, custom post types, URLs, menus, themes, templates, WooCommerce products, bulk sales, CSS, JavaScript, and other WordPress elements. It also includes heatmaps, scrollmaps, and confetti maps to help identify new hypotheses.
This makes it possible to choose the test type according to the actual problem.
If visitors do not click articles, create a headline test.
If users struggle to navigate, test the menu.
If a WooCommerce product receives interest but few orders, test product content or price.
If a new layout affects many pages, compare templates.
If you do not yet know what is wrong, create a heatmap and observe first.
That is a more useful experimentation workflow than forcing every idea into the same page-level A/B test.
Frequently Asked Questions
What should I A/B test first on a WordPress website?
Start with an important page where you have evidence of a problem.
For many businesses, this will be the homepage, pricing page, main landing page, contact form, or WooCommerce product page.
The first experiment should address a meaningful hypothesis rather than a small cosmetic change.
What are the best things to A/B test?
High-impact elements usually include the value proposition, headlines, calls to action, pricing presentation, forms, product content, offers, navigation, page structure, and social proof.
The best choice depends on where your visitors are experiencing friction.
Should I test button colors?
Only when there is a reason to believe visibility or contrast is affecting behavior.
Random button-color tests are usually a poor priority compared with messaging, pricing, page structure, or other changes more closely connected to the conversion decision.
Can I A/B test WordPress menus?
Yes.
Nelio A/B Testing includes dedicated menu experiments that let you compare different WordPress menu structures and measure which one directs more visitors toward your conversion goals.
Can I test blog headlines in WordPress?
Yes.
Nelio’s headline tests can compare titles, excerpts, and featured images and automatically track how often the variants are shown and clicked.
What can I test in WooCommerce?
Depending on the plugin, you can test product titles, descriptions, images, galleries, prices, promotions, calls to action, layouts, and other elements.
Nelio A/B Testing can test WooCommerce product names, descriptions, images, prices, and offers while measuring orders and revenue.
Should I use heatmaps before A/B testing?
Not always, but they can be extremely useful when you do not know what to test.
Heatmaps show broad interaction patterns and can reveal overlooked calls to action, unexpected clicks, or sections visitors rarely reach.
They help turn observations into stronger hypotheses.
How many things should I change in one A/B test?
There is no rule saying only one visible element can change.
Several changes can belong in the same alternative when they support one coherent hypothesis.
If you change unrelated things at the same time, however, you may know which version won without understanding why.
Should I test small changes or big changes?
The answer depends partly on your traffic.
High-traffic websites can detect smaller differences.
Lower-traffic websites should generally prioritize stronger hypotheses and changes capable of producing a larger effect.
How long should I run each test?
Do not use an arbitrary number of days.
Traffic, conversions, confidence, effect size, and representative timing determine how long an experiment should run.
See our guide to how long you should run an A/B test for a detailed explanation.
Final Thoughts
The biggest mistake in A/B testing is assuming that the job begins with creating a variant.
It begins with understanding the problem.
A good experiment connects three things: evidence about visitor behavior, a hypothesis explaining what may be wrong, and a measurable outcome that matters to the business.
Once you have those, the test idea often becomes obvious.
If visitors do not understand the offer, test the value proposition.
If they understand it but do not act, test the call to action or the reassurance around it.
If they get lost, test navigation.
If they do not reach important content, test the page structure.
If a WooCommerce product receives traffic but few sales, test the product presentation, offer, or price.
If you still do not know what is wrong, observe first.
Nelio A/B Testing combines native WordPress experimentation with heatmaps and supports a broad range of test types, from pages and headlines to menus, templates, WooCommerce products, prices, CSS, and complete URLs.
You can download Nelio A/B Testing for free from WordPress.org or compare the available plans to start testing your strongest hypotheses.
Do not ask what you can test.
Ask what is important enough to be worth testing.
Leave a Reply