It’s likely that if you’re reading this guide, you’re interested in learning about A/B tests for local business websites. Also at this point, you are probably already aware of its potential to increase website conversions and, consequently, benefit your company.
But if you’re like many marketing agency or local business owners, you might want to learn more on how A/B testing works for landing pages, marketing funnels etc.
Let’s start by spending some time discussing what an A/B test is and how it functions.
What is A/B testing?
A/B testing, which is also referred to as split testing, is a randomized experimentation process in which two or more variations of a variable (web page, page element, etc.) are presented to various groups of website visitors at once to see which version has the greatest impact and influences business metrics.
You might have initially believed that all you needed to do to create a website was organize a few pages, add text and images, and add a few links and buttons to your contact pages. It sounds simple, right? If only things were that easy.
The fact is that building a website that generates leads and attracts new clients to your company is a continuous process.
Finding out what appeals to your potential customers the most is essential if you want to make your website as effective and efficient as possible. So how do you go about doing that?
If you’re not sure what A/B testing is, you’re in the right place to learn more about it. You can start testing (and enhancing) your website right away with the help of this comprehensive guide.
Why is A/B testing important?
A/B testing essentially takes all the guesswork out of website optimization and gives experience optimizers the ability to make data-backed decisions. Your website can be optimized and your business ROI can be raised by implementing the changes of this winning variation on the page(s) or element(s) that you have already tested.
The metrics for conversion are unique to each website. For instance, most local businesses would consider a conversion if they generate a qualified lead through a call or form submission.
As one of the main steps in the Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) process, A/B testing allows you to collect both qualitative and quantitative user insights.
With the help of the collected data, you can learn more about user behavior, engagement levels, problems, and even user satisfaction with new and improved website features. You are undoubtedly losing out on a lot of potential business revenue if you aren’t A/B testing your website.
Process of conducting an A/B test
In A/B testing, “control” or the original testing variable is referred to as “A.” The term “variation” or a new iteration of the original testing variable is used in B. The “winner” is the version that causes your business metric(s) to change for the better.
Additionally, control and test groups are used in A/B testing. However, in this instance, your website is being tested, with your visitors serving as both the control and test groups.
For example, if you wanted to test a particular element on your website (like a button or form), you would show the element to the control group, designated as “A,” in its current form. The test group would see an updated version of the element with the label “B.”
The results of the test are compared to determine which group of users responded to the element more favorably. The element ought to stay the same if the A group responded better.
The element should be adjusted to match the B group’s performance if it did. In marketing terms, what constitutes a better “reaction”? It’s usually conversions, or the number of people who use your site to make a call, fill out a form, or carry out any other desired action that is valuable for a local business.
Common goals of A/B tests for local business websites
There are many types of split tests you can run to make the experiment worth it in the end. Here are some common goals marketers have for their business when A/B testing:
- Increased Website Traffic: By testing and optimizing various titles for the blog posts or webpages, the number of people who click on the link. In other words, you can improve the click-through rate (CTR). As a result, website traffic may rise.
- Higher Conversion Rate: The number of people who click your CTAs to go to a landing page can change if you test different CTA placements, colors, or even anchor text. This could boost the number of website visitors who fill out forms, send you their contact information, and subsequently “convert” into leads.
- Lower Bounce Rate: If visitors to your website leave (or “bounce”) quickly, testing different blog post introductions, fonts, or featured images can help lower this bounce rate and increase visitor retention.
- Optimize landing pages: By running landing page A/B testing, you can find out which version of a landing page generates more clicks, better conversions, and a lower bounce rate. Additionally, by conducting numerous tests, you can keep improving your landing pages.
What should you test for in an A/B test?
As we previously mentioned, the majority of A/B tests concentrate on components that influence conversions in some way. Because of this, A/B testing is regarded as a key component of conversion rate optimization (CRO), the process of improving a website in order to increase conversions.
This allows you to alter more than just the “Click-to-Call” button’s size and color or the look of your “contact us” form. Let’s look at some of the website components that might be ideal for testing.
Buttons
Using buttons as a testing element is simple if you use them anywhere on your website. See if visitors’ reactions change if you alter the button’s color, size, or even shape.
Although you might not anticipate that changing the color of a Click-to-Call button will have any discernible impact on your conversion rates, numerous studies have shown that color can have a significant influence on a visitor’s decision to click.
In fact, according to this HubSpot test, switching from green to red increased conversions on one site by 21%!
Calls to action (CTA)
In addition to CTAs that appear as buttons, you should consider experimenting with text or link CTAs. A greater number of visitors may be persuaded to take the desired action by using more forceful or specific language.
You might also experiment with changing the link’s color, font, length, or even just the wording if you end a page of content with a link to another page that contains a wealth of related information.
Additionally, rather than just placing a CTA on the page, you might try testing it in a pop-up. Pop-ups can be very effective, but you must be cautious too.
Forms
There is a lot riding on that one form if your website uses one to gather leads. To see if you can collect more data, try experimenting with the form’s size, number of fields, and appearance.
One thing to keep in mind when using forms is that sometimes asking for too much information can turn away potential leads. You might want to experiment with making the fields as few as possible or by adding labels that are more explicit about what is required vs. optional. Any form on your website, besides the contact forms, can be tested.
If you manage an local business website, for instance, you can compare a one-step or multi-step contact form to see which your users prefer. You can experiment with various labels on too.
Locations
We provided an illustration of product copy being positioned above the product images rather than below them earlier. Perhaps a button or link on your page would perform better in a different location, or it might attract more clicks in a different location.
You can also test the placement of any other component that might be related to conversions, such as signup forms for your email list. The bottom of your website, where visitors land after reading your content, may have a much higher conversion rate for email CTAs than the top.
Visual elements
You can test something if you can change it. You should test your website’s colors, fonts, layout, spacing, special effects, and many other visual components.
Change the background color of your website as a simple test. If you use a dark background, experiment with a lighter one to see if visitors find the B version to be more aesthetically pleasing and worth staying on the page for a little while.
Other ideas
What else could you examine? The possibilities are endless as long as it’s a variable you can influence and for which you can accurately assess the results after a predetermined amount of time.
For a local business, you might even think about running A/B tests on your displaying various services offered. In order to gauge whether more people are interested, this may entail presenting several services packages in a different way or even lowering the costs of some plans for a test group.
