A/B testing, also called split testing, is the comparison of two or more variations of a website landing page to determine which one performs the best. Web developers and designers might want to know which landing page feature (like the headline, call to action, video, photography etc.) would give them the desired result they want to get with the website’s landing page.

Variants of the website landing page can be tested against the existing landing page by using website cookies to direct some traffic to the modifications while carefully observing the behavior of the traffic. Or, the same amount of traffic can be assigned to multiple variants of the website landing page to give all an equal chance of determining which of all variants would yield more result.

A/B testing can easily be implemented with the help of a reputable content marketing agency. It also comes with many more benefits that include;

Avoid losing valuable customers

It took a lot of time, effort and resources to build the website to the point where it is. One costly mistake can affect the site which will also affect the business too. A/B testing allows businesses or brands to take major well-informed business decisions before pushing it out, to avoid losing users who aren’t impressed with the sudden change, which would cost more to get those users back to using the website again.

Asking more questions

It allows business owners to ask genuine business questions related to what the current objectives of the business are and how the website’s landing page is supporting it to accomplish that objective.

Generate more revenue

It helps business owners generate more revenue from the traffic they already have. Business owners think that they need to get more traffic to get more revenue but in most cases that is not always the first solution. Many businesses with websites are yet to grasp how to fully maximize all the traffic the website gets and convert it to revenue. A/B testing allows a business to explore different options for their landing page and to determine which would lead to more revenue-generating conversions. After brainstorming with the different teams in a business, they can decide together on what feature they should test that would improve the website’s ability to generate leads, relevant conversions as well as direct users towards making a purchase.

Get more accurate data

With A/B testing businesses or brands can get a better understanding of the behavior of users that interact with the website which is the foundation for future accurate data-informed marketing strategies. Data-informed marketing strategy will always supercede inaccurate data-informed marketing or just guesswork marketing that gives no clue about who the target audience is. Identifying a target audience is good but knowing the target audience even to the tiniest detail is far much better and it makes a lot of difference in marketing outcomes. If we know people very well it is easier to know what to sell to them and how to sell it to them.

Improve the effectiveness of the website

A/B testing helps businesses and brands improve the effectiveness of the website. By effectiveness, users are able to get what they want when they come to the website. And it is impossible to know how to easily help users get what they want if brands or businesses can’t determine the behavioral pattern of users and later insert different features on the website’s landing page that will fit the different behavioural patterns observed when conducting the a/b test.

Continuously improving the effectiveness of the website will help businesses or brands retain clients who are always impressed by the new changes on the website that makes it easier for them to get things done. This invariably will reduce the bounce rate on the website because users will be more than happy to spend more time on the site. And the more time they spend exploring the website, the more they enjoy the kind of content which can spur them to click on other pages of the site, sign up to get more information, download the app (if there is one) and make a purchase. And in the long run it will help businesses or brands to get loyal and repeat customers.

Make valuable changes

Sometimes, website developer/designers or even the business owners might feel the need to change something on the website’s landing page to something they feel users might like or to wear out a competition or whatever reason. Doing an a/b test on the website’s landing page can help them make better decisions about the website especially if after conducting the test they see no reason to make changes since the website’s landing page is performing perfectly. Like they say, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”

Conclusion

A/B testing on the website’s landing page allows businesses or brands to test the different marketing campaigns to see which one would yield the most response. Having studied the behavior of users on the website and having a clear understanding of who the marketing campaign is targeting, they can test the planned campaign ahead to see which feature on the website’s landing page will help accomplish the goal of the marketing campaign. For instance, if a business wants to test a marketing campaign for Black Friday (which is usually during November), they can start rolling out all campaign test materials for the website landing page, create variations of it and do an a/b test on each campaign material to determine which feature and material will be most effective to drive sales for black Friday.

Overall, it’s fair to say that A/B testing improves the kind of content that is pushed out on the website and how that content is presented to users. Content is an important feature on any website, especially the landing page where users determine, in split seconds, whether they want to remain on the website or not.
Asides the landing page, another important page area businesses or brands would benefit doing an a/b test on is the cart page. Tests can be done to see how to drive users towards completing the checkout page rather than abandoning it. This, in turn, will help improve sales.