When you need to increase your website’s rank on Google, nothing will stop you from doing everything that you know will help in your pursuit. SEO is naturally the most widely believed route of increasing passive traffic generation. But as Neil Patel advocates, you’ve got to be a bit adventurous in your efforts, including trying out the unconventional experiments.
Out of that undying spirit of success, you might discover some tactics that work and others that don’t, after all, everyone’s testimony will be different. After all, when it comes to SEO strategies and trying them out, consistency is the keyword.
Are you aware of the best way of running a successful SEO test?
By running your SEO trials consistently and tracking their results, you will determine which one works for your business and the others that don’t. But first, don’t test the depth of the river with both feet.
SEO experts recommend that you don’t dive into testing every bit of your website, right from the Meta descriptions and title tags to its keywords and guest posting. Instead, do it as if it were a scientific test whereby you do the experiments cautiously, skillfully and over a specific period.
Don’t run a shoddy, amateurish test!
A comprehensive and conclusive A/B test must have the following six factors, but of course, don’t forget to memorize (or reference) the testing method used.
- Formulate a question of the whole experiment.
- Come up with some hypothesis – what you expect to happen.
- Remove any variables and run the tests.
- Collect the data.
- Analyze the data collected.
- Finally, report the results.
Why A/B Test?
A/B style of testing is a better method than the tiring and eccentric technique of measuring the results over a specific period, say monthly, and then comparing the two. This method also allows you to formulate real and practical assumptions and determine whether they could be affecting your rankings. Eventually, from the contrasting outcomes, you will accurately determine whether the test is bearing the fruits you’d love to see.
You ready to roll out your adventurous SEO spirit?
Test #1: Determine the impact of nofollow links
Several websites allege to have experienced remarkable results from nofollow backlinks, both concerning traffic and rankings. And unless you give this a shot, there’s no way you’ll tell if they work. If you’ve got the energy to test this, use the Chrome extension, NoFollow.
Test #2: impact of social signals
Social media can turn your modest startup into a huge business overnight. From reaching new audiences to driving sales, traffic and killing off competition, this tool is the ultimate weapon. But since the link between social media and SEO is blurred, especially when it touches on SEO rankings, maybe you should set off and give it a trial.
Test #3: Experiment different keywords
Perhaps you’ve seen some keywords receiving a thousand searches every month and others receiving a paltry hundred or less. In the spirit of knowing those which can supercharge the SEO ranking of your website, go on a road trip with the aim of discovering the hidden gems of keywords.
Test #4: your website’s AMP
Google recently unleashed AMP websites, and it’s expected to launch mobile-first indexing later in 2018. If Google is prioritizing ranking mobile-friendly pages, then you should try to see if you’ll be among the first to benefit. Just come up with an AMP version of your website to correspond with your conventional site and observe which ones fair well.
Test #5: impact of low load speed
Now is the right time to test your load speed again. Google seemingly uses it to rank websites, and maybe the speed of your site is pathetic. Use Pingdom or any other credible resource.
Test #6: how creating compelling title tags and Meta descriptions can help
The general assumption out there is that compelling headings and Meta descriptions are crucial to increasing traffic. But what if you give it a go and determine the exact impact it has on the number of clicks your website will have? Spend a day or a night and monitor the results to see if your new tricks worked.
Test #7: impact of LSE keywords
After doing your keyword analysis and determining the best keywords, do an A/B test of the LSE keywords vis-à-vis your analyzed keywords.
Test #8: impact of updating old content
Get back to your old posts, perform a few tweaks and wait for Google to do its analysis.
Conclusion
There is no one, best way to get your website ranked. You need to test things out to see what works for your business website. Stick to an A/B test since it’s the universal way of running marketing experiments. Also, don’t skip the steps if you’d like to get the most out of your experiment.
Happy testing!