The Importance of A/B Testing in Web Design

Posted by Myles Golden on Nov 18, 2016

Web design trends are constantly changing to adapt to what the consumer wants. Most web design professionals utilize an invaluable form of analysis known as A/B testing to determine the effect their efforts are having on SEO and conversion rates. Conversion friendly websites simply move more product, so it's no surprise that web designers put so much faith in this testing method. Read on to learn more about A/B testing and how you can use it to drive business to your website.

What is A/B testing?

The main premise behind A/B testing is comparison. When you want to find out which elements of your web design are working for you and which ones are losing business, set up a control group and a test group. The control group represents your current design without any changes, while the test group features one or more of the latest web design trends that you want to try. You can analyze your traffic in real time to determine whether or not the change had a drastic effect on your site traffic. By setting up goal conversion tracking between control groups and test groups, the variable can be narrowed down. For example, if your website sells a specific product, your goal for visitors to your website could be adding an item to an online shopping cart. If more customers complete the step of adding an item to their shopping cart when they visit the test group, you know the changes are worth implementing on your website. On the other hand, if the change has negative effects, you know it is not an ideal tool for converting website visitors to customers.

How A/B Testing Can Benefit Your Company

A/B testing is all about developing conversion friendly websites using great SEO and real-time analysis of consumer behavior on your website. The reason why it is so important to know which web design changes work and which don't is to eliminate unnecessary spending in your budget. By tailoring your website to the customers who achieve whatever goal your business sets, you can create a heavily targeted website that will appeal to the lucrative demographic that is likely to do business with you. Before A/B testing, there was no real way of knowing how web design trends truly affected the user experience. Now, web designers can get quantifiable data that directly affects their bottom line.

The most common reasons businesses choose to utilize A/B testing are listed below.

1. Low online conversion rates in spite of:

• New website changes
• More money spent on advertising
• Normally high volumes of traffic
• Good offline conversion rates

2. A drastic drop or stagnation in traffic.

3. Too much spending on web development.

How to Make A/B Testing Succeed

A/B testing is a powerful way to target your online efforts and trim down your budget, but it has limitations. One of the biggest mistakes businesses make is to rely completely on A/B testing for every minute decision when it comes to web design trends. The goal should be to use A/B testing strategically to create a lean, fit design where nothing is superfluous. Achieving the local maximum of two vastly different designs compared to one another as opposed to the global maximum is the key to a successful A/B testing strategy.

Managing Impressions

Making a first impression on visitors to your website is essential to good eCommerce and that impression occurs almost instantly. Visitors to your website will determine whether they want to do business with you within a few seconds of visiting your page. If your site is burdened with slow low times and a confusing layout, all the beautiful graphics in the world won't be able to convince them to do business with you. Because A/B testing can only work for a website that is always established, it can't be the only way you make decisions about web design. Instead, you must build a solid website foundation that will appeal to customers and keep them on your site before you start tweaking things to maximize conversion rates.

Know When to Go Beyond A/B Testing

At the end of the day, A/B testing can only tell you which of two existing options works better. The system can't tell you how to create a completely new option that will work even better. A/B testing should always be used in conjunction with a visionary approach. Conversion friendly websites not only keep up with the latest SEO and design trends, but they set them as well. If you are a visionary who is looking for ways to test the effectiveness of your new ideas, A/B testing is a powerful tool to have in your arsenal, but it is not effective when used alone. Human judgment is still the most powerful tool in designing a website that turns visitors into customers. Use A/B testing to measure your ideas and it will be a consistent and powerful way to boost your SEO and conversion rates.

Contact us today to talk about how we can help design a web application for your industry that can A/B test control groups utilizing our own progressive web app technology. It's as easy as clicking the icon on the bottom right of your screen and starting a conversation.