Split Testing for SEO - 9 Months of Learning

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@dom_woodman

This talk is about split testing

Money.

Talked ourselves out of money

How to get the money back

Talked ourselves out of money

How to get the money back

How did we talk ourselves out of the

money?

Part 1

Not knowing things is scary

?

We’re paid experts, of course we should know

3

Part 2

Fear

SEO is hard to measure

Before

Before

After

Not money. At least we’re on sessions

Still not money. Now we’re on clicks.

What on earth is search visibility?

Seasonality

Seasonality

Industry Demand

Seasonality

Google

Industry Demand

Seasonality

Google

Industry Demand

Ranks

Ranks

CTR estimates

Ranks

CTR estimates

Handwaving

No-one cares when the going is good

Fear

Measurement

Part 3

Part 3: SEO has become more individual

More ranking factors

Which interact in more complex ways

Fear

Measurement

Complexity

So how does this all fit together

So how does this all fit together

So how does this all fit together

So how does this all fit together

So how does this all fit together

So how does this all fit together

So how does this all fit together

So how does this all fit together

So how does this all fit together

So how does this all fit together

So how does this all fit together

So how does this all fit together

So how does this all fit together

So how does this all fit together

So how does this all fit together

So how does this all fit together

So how does this all fit together

So how does this all fit together

SEO Manager: Jan 2016 - Jan 2017● SEO Manager at T-Shirts and Shorts. ● Completed 4 major projects. Reduced Dev

backlog.● Removed a penguin penalty. Regularly audited

backlinks. ● Organic traffic went up from 100K ~ 150K

What does my CV look like?

SEO Manager: Jan 2016 - Jan 2017● SEO Manager at T-Shirts and Shorts. ● Completed 4 major projects. Reduced Dev

backlog.● Removed a penguin penalty. Regularly audited

backlinks.

What does my CV look like? -- If I’m unlucky

Talked ourselves out of money

How to get the money back

Stop making guesses about our results

CRO and growth hacking are doing it

right

Learning from split tests

What does an SEO split test look like?

Control

Variant

This is a traditional CRO test

Control

Variant

I’m about to show you 2 graphs a lot. This is the first.

Black is the variant, treat blue as the control

In this case the blue line is higher, it’s a negative test

This is the start date

The second graph shows the total additional sessions

The fans show margin of error

The test is significant when the fan crosses 0

In this case it happened here:

Here they are together.

1.Adding ALT tags2.Removing SEO category text

3.Using JS to show content4.Setting exact match title tags

5.Adding structured data

1.Adding ALT tags2.Removing SEO category text

3.Using JS to show content4.Setting exact match title tags

5.Adding structured data

Established wisdom would say ALT tags on images are good for SEO

We found adding ALT tags to images had no effect

1.Adding ALT tags2.Removing SEO category text

3.Using JS to show content4.Setting exact match title tags

5.Adding structured data

How does SEO text on category pages perform?

E-commerce site number 1 - No effect/negative effect

E-commerce site number 2 ~ 3.1% increase in organic sessions

1.Adding ALT tags2.Removing SEO category text

3.Using JS to show content4.Setting exact match title tags

5.Adding structured data

We can render Javascript!

What happens if your content is only visible with Javascript?

Javascript EnabledJavascript Disabled

Making it visible increased organic sessions by ~ 6.2%

1.Adding ALT tags2.Removing SEO category text

3.Using JS to show content4.Setting exact match title tags

5.Adding structured data

Title tag before: Which TV should I buy? - ArgosTitle tag after: Which TV to buy? - Argos

What happens when you match title tags to the greatest search volume?

Organic sessions decreased by an average of 8%

1.Adding ALT tags2.Removing SEO category text

3.Using JS to show content4.Setting exact match title tags

5.Adding structured data

Category pages have lots of images and not much text

Adding structured data to category pages

Organic sessions increased by 11%

Running your own tests

1.How much traffic do you need?

2.How long should you run a test for

3.What kind of things are easy to test?

4.How can you do all the maths?

1.How much traffic do you need?

2.How long should you run a test for

3.What kind of things are easy to test?

4.How can you do all the maths?

Average of 1,000 organic sessions per

day to your set of pages

1.How much traffic do you need?

2.How long should you run a test for

3.What kind of things are easy to test?

4.How can you do all the maths?

Typically takes 2 - 3 weeks to reach

significance.

1.How much traffic do you need?

2.How long should you run a test for

3.What kind of things are easy to test?

4.How can you do all the maths?

Anything where you’re making changes to a

page

1.How much traffic do you need?

2.How long should you run a test for

3.What kind of things are easy to test?

4.How can you do all the maths?

distilled.net/diy-splittester

bit.ly/testing-lessons

Thanks!@dom_woodman

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