What is seo split-testing?
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SEO split-testing involves testing changes to page templates to determine their impact on organic traffic. By using a control group and a variant group of pages, one can measure performance differences and account for external factors like seasonality. Successful testing can lead to the rollout of effective template changes across all relevant pages.
What is seo split-testing?
- 1. What is SEO split-testing?
- 2. One quick thing: This is deliberately a simple example with a basic explanation of the maths that we use. In reality, the maths is a lot more complicated and based on this research by Google: Inferring causal impact using Bayesian structural time series. The purpose of this presentation isn’t to teach or explain the maths behind the ODN, it’s to, hopefully, explain the core concepts in a simple way, that allows you to imagine applying this methodology to websites with a lot more than 4 sub-category pages :) If you want to dig into the testing methodology in detail, then you can visit: https://odn.distilled.net/learn-more/faqs/
- 3. Imagine this example website It has two categories (animals and countries) It has 8 sub-category pages (cats, dogs, Scotland etc.) All of the animals sub-category pages use the same template and all of the countries sub-category pages use another template
- 4. SEO split testing is centered on the concept of testing changes to page templates. In the animals sub-category example to the left you can see that although the content of each page is different, they all follow the same template. They have an H1 at the top of the page, a block of intro copy then a featured image. A group of pages that share the same template can be used for SEO split-testing Cats Dogs Unicorns Badgers CatsH1 Intro copy Featured image
- 5. We could create an animal template test
- 6. Or a countries template test
- 7. But you can’t mix templates
- 8. For demonstration purposes, imagine that we wanted to test replacing the image with a video and removing the intro copy from the animals sub-category template. Once the new template design is finalised, the next step is to decide which of the animal sub-category URLs remain on the control template and which are changed to the variant template. CatsH1 Intro copy Featured image CatsH1 Featured video Old design Proposed design
- 9. Cats Dogs Unicorns Badgers Cats Badgers Dogs Unicorns Distilled ODN Distilled’s ODN platform uses advanced maths to decide which URLs should remain on the control template and which should get the variant template. For simplicity in this example, you can think of this as selecting URLs at random to be on each template. Picking control and variant URLs
- 10. The site looks like this during the test Home Animals Cats Dogs Countries Scotland England Ireland WalesUnicorns Badgers
- 11. Measuring the results 1000 - 5000 - 4000 - 3000 - 2000 - 6000 - 7000 - Control group Variant group Before the test begins, we compare how organic traffic to the control group of pages and the variant group of pages has performed historically.
- 12. Measuring the results 1000 - 5000 - 4000 - 3000 - 2000 - 6000 - 7000 - Control group Variant group We then roll out the template change to X% of pages within the site section. To keep things simple, let’s assume this is 50% of pages Test start date
- 13. Measuring the results 1000 - 5000 - 4000 - 3000 - 2000 - 6000 - 7000 - Control group Variant group During the first week or two, we don’t expect to see much change. Google needs time to crawl the pages that have the new template and to and decide whether the change positive or negative. Test start date
- 14. Measuring the results 1000 - 5000 - 4000 - 3000 - 2000 - 6000 - 7000 - Control group Variant group Over time we notice that the variant pages start to outperform the control pages. We can declare the test a success and recommend that the changes be rolled out to 100% of pages. Test start date
- 15. By having a control group of pages that have the same intent/theme/template we can exclude external factors like seasonality because the control group of pages would also be impacted. The analysis isn’t looking at the trend of the traffic; it’s looking at the difference in performance between the control group and the variant. How can we be sure it wasn’t... Seasonality Google rolled out an update Competitors’ performance decreases Backlinks to your site TV campaigns Branding/direct traffic Other macro factors
- 16. Positive changes look like this 1000 - 5000 - 4000 - 3000 - 2000 - 6000 - 7000 - Control group Variant group Test start date Variant group outperforms the control group
- 17. Negative changes look like this 1000 - 5000 - 4000 - 3000 - 2000 - 6000 - 7000 - Control group Variant group Test start date Control group outperforms the variant group
- 18. Seasonality would look like this 1000 - 5000 - 4000 - 3000 - 2000 - 6000 - 7000 - Control group Variant groupTest start date
- 19. Seasonality would look like this 1000 - 5000 - 4000 - 3000 - 2000 - 6000 - 7000 - Control group Variant groupTest start date Although there is an upward trend, the difference in performance between the control pages and the variant pages is the same as before the test began. This would be declared as a neutral test.
- 20. Want to know more?
- 21. Find out more at odn.distilled.net