Why should I split test my SEO strategy?
Posted: Sun Jan 19, 2025 8:19 am
Conversion Rate Optimization ( CRO ) has made its way onto the marketing table. With traditional CRO and UX testing, you can simply perform user split testing by creating multiple versions of a page/element and randomly presenting one or the other version to your audience. You can then pool the results and run a simple Chi-square test to measure and validate the impact.
SEO testing is often lumped together. But with SEO, Google's bots the advantage of afghanistan phone numbers in business add a whole new layer of complexity to the equation. You can't just submit two versions of the same web page to Google for indexing. That's defined as "cloaking" and is against search engine guidelines.
We need to get a little more creative with statistical SEO testing. You're not trying to change user behavior on a page (like getting people to convert). Instead, you're focusing on Googlebot. It's not about optimizing what the reader sees, but rather what search engine bots read to decide where a page should rank.
Of course, SEO and CRO go hand in hand. The more people you get to your site through SEO testing, the more traffic your CRO team has to convert. But they are not the same activity.
Now that we know the difference between SEO and CRO testing, you might be wondering if it’s worth your time. After all, your SEO department is busy, so asking the development team for time to run a test? It better be worth it.
Let’s take a look at four major challenges that SEO split testing helps solve.
SEO testing is often lumped together. But with SEO, Google's bots the advantage of afghanistan phone numbers in business add a whole new layer of complexity to the equation. You can't just submit two versions of the same web page to Google for indexing. That's defined as "cloaking" and is against search engine guidelines.
We need to get a little more creative with statistical SEO testing. You're not trying to change user behavior on a page (like getting people to convert). Instead, you're focusing on Googlebot. It's not about optimizing what the reader sees, but rather what search engine bots read to decide where a page should rank.
Of course, SEO and CRO go hand in hand. The more people you get to your site through SEO testing, the more traffic your CRO team has to convert. But they are not the same activity.
Now that we know the difference between SEO and CRO testing, you might be wondering if it’s worth your time. After all, your SEO department is busy, so asking the development team for time to run a test? It better be worth it.
Let’s take a look at four major challenges that SEO split testing helps solve.