What is SEO Testing?

In today’s dynamic digital landscape, having an effective SEO strategy is paramount for businesses striving to maximize their online presence. However, simply implementing a static SEO plan may not be enough to stay ahead of the competition. This is where SEO testing strategies come into play. By employing well-crafted testing methodologies, businesses can gain valuable insights into what works best for their specific target audience and adapt their SEO tactics accordingly.

SEO testing strategies involve conducting controlled experiments to assess the impact of various SEO elements on website performance. From analyzing keyword effectiveness to testing meta tags, page structures, and content optimizations, these strategies enable businesses to make data-driven decisions and fine-tune their SEO approach. By continuously testing and refining their strategies, companies can optimize their online visibility, attract more organic traffic, and ultimately boost conversions and revenue. 

Why Is SEO Testing is Important?

How can you use SEO testing to gain competitive advantage in your niche? SEO testing enables you to identify and check key ranking factors and whether you are leveraging properly. With the ever-evolving search engine algorithms and changing user behaviors, you need to adapt and constantly optimize your SEO strategies.

Here is a list of the most popular experiments to improve organic traffic of the site:

SEO Title

The title tag is one of the first elements that users see in search results, so it has an important impact on the clickability of the snippet and in SEO Testing.

CTR and its derivatives are important ranking factors in search engines that Google algorithms take into account when evaluating the quality of organic traffic. A higher CTR in SEO Testing will contribute to a better ranking of the site.

You can conduct SEO Testing, tracking changes in positions and CTR, for the following variables:

  • Add or remove the company name in the title.
  • Use action words such as “buy”, “order”, etc.
  • Add or remove the phrase “free shipping”.
  • Add the company’s phone number.
  • Change the length of the header.

Remember that users read the title before going to one or more search results.

After testing the changes on a separate group of pages, you can see how they can affect the CTR and position of the entire site and organic traffic.

SEO Description.

The description meta tag is displayed immediately under the snippet header, giving the user and the search engine information about what this page is about. It can also be used to stimulate transitions by listing your advantages.

To run an SEO test, for example, add or remove:

  • Rating stars.
  • Promotions such as “free shipping”, etc.
  • Additional keywords.

Think about what changes in the description can evoke a stronger response from your potential customers, and, in turn, improve CTR and organic traffic.

Add H1 – H6 To Improve Organic Traffic in SEO Testing.

H1-6 tags are page elements that help Google understand the content of the page. You should have one title for each page and several subheadings, from H1 to H6, to break up the text.

You can experiment with H tags to help improve the clarity of the page content for search robots, so they can better find the results they need for their users.

Do a split site SEO Test to find out if any of the changes will affect your traffic:

  • Add the h1 tag.
  • Change the length of the header.
  • Break the text into subheadings h2 and h3.
  • Use keywords in heach subheading.

Alt Images for SEO Testing

Search engines rely on alt text to interpret images and search for suitable user results. Alt tags, also known as alt attributes or alt descriptions, are HTML attributes used to provide alternative text descriptions for images on a webpage. These alt tags serve multiple purposes, including accessibility for visually impaired users and enhancing search engine optimization (SEO). Here’s an example of how alt tags can be used for SEO:

Let’s say you have a website for an online clothing store, and you have a product page featuring a red dress. The image of the red dress is an essential element on that page. To optimize the image for search engines and improve SEO, you can use an alt tag that accurately describes the image. 

You can test, and change the Google ranking of a page or image search when editing the  alt tag.

Some SEO Testing Experiments related to alt include:

  • Remove hyphens and special characters.
  • Use keywords.

Deleting Elements for SEO Testing

All the previous SEO tests that are recommended are related to specific elements on the page, such as title, h1 and alt.

However, it is likely that you have elements that are not essential to the page itself, but can still be part of experiments for SEO testing.

You can check whether removing any elements has a positive or negative effect on the ranking in the search, for example:

  • Bread crumbs.
  • Images.
  • Social media buttons.
  • Pop-up forms.

Moving Elements is One More SEO Testing Experiment To Improve Organic Traffic

It is not always necessary to completely remove elements for testing. You can check if just moving elements affects SEO results, for example:

  • Move the navigation menu.
  • Move the block with the main content;
  • Move the images.

Keep in mind that such changes may affect user behavior on the page. In this case, you will have to take into account not only changes in positions in the search but also behavioral metrics. This way you can determine the optimal page template.

Internal Links For SEO Testing.

Internal links direct users and search robots to other pages of the site. They can improve user behavior, particularly the bounce rate, time on the site and the number of pages per session. 

You can run a test with internal links to determine how this will affect SEO Testing:

  • Change the placement of links on the page.
  • Adjust the pages to which the links lead.
  • Experiment with the nesting level.

SEO Testing: Markup.

Markup refers to the use of specific tags or codes added to the content of a webpage to provide structure, formatting, or additional information. This markup helps search engines understand and categorize the content more accurately, potentially leading to better rankings and the display of rich snippets in search results. Let’s say you run a recipe website. By using schema.org vocabulary, you can provide specific information like ingredients, cooking time, and nutritional data. This helps search engines categorize and display your recipes more accurately in search results, giving you a better chance of being found by hungry users. To test it out, make sure you’ve implemented the markup correctly without any errors. Use the validator tool to verify your markup. Then, keep an eye on your search rankings, click-through rates, and user engagement to see if it’s making a positive impact. The goal is to boost your visibility and get more food lovers discovering your delicious recipes.

Anything that is healthier and more attractive than improved organic traffic will attract more attention. So you can test the hypothesis:

  • Whether markup matters.
  • Try different data structuring formats.
  • JSON-LD and microdata.

If you see positive results, and they are statistically significant, you will be able to apply the changes more widely, covering other pages.

Are You Ready to Start SEO Testing?

As you can see, there are many fairly simple SEO experiments that you can run on the site to find ways to improve organic traffic.

Noxster SEO team will be of great help to you in this. Start a project with semantics, divide the URL groups into control and test ones, wait for the results and draw conclusions. Our team can advise you on the SEO testing strategy, or handle the entire process end-to-end, leaving you more free time to focus on other areas of your business.  Contact us today to discuss your goals and see how NoxsterSEO can help!