If you’re like the majority of bloggers and business owners, you’re always looking for “more.” Increasing the traffic to your website is one approach to get “more.” Another strategy to gain “more” is to increase the amount of traffic you already have.
A/B testing, also known as split testing, aids you in achieving the latter by providing you with the means to improve your existing content and pages to boost conversion rates. It allows you to discover which variations of your landing pages, popups, and copy get the best results from the traffic you already have.
Your conversion rate is affected by everything on your WordPress site. Some factors may be minor, while others may have a significant impact on your sales.
As a result, you should plan to test each component of your website along the route. Of course, there are both useful and ineffective methods for testing and measuring their efficacy. But, before we get into some of the best WordPress A/B testing tools, let’s talk about why testing your web pages is important and why it leads to greater conversions.
What is A/B Testing?
Two forms of testing are used by successful web developers. A/B testing, also known as split testing, sets two-page elements against one another in a head-to-head situation to determine which element readers prefer.
If you want to test a headline, for example, you can create 2 identical web pages with different titles and send visitors to each one to see which one gets more page views, time on page, conversions, and so on.
Multivariate testing is another prominent sort of testing among web marketers. Multivariate testing allows you to compare and test various variations of the same page to see which one users prefer. It’s an excellent testing strategy, however, it’s limited in terms of narrowing down the best precise page parts to test.
A/B testing is more successful at determining how website visitors respond to specific items on a web page.
Although a multivariate test can inform you which variant of a website page is more beneficial, A/B testing is the favored method to test individual web page elements since it allows you to dig deeper into each page element and decide which one best suits your viewers and converts more traffic to sales.
The upside is that A/B testing is a time-consuming technique that yields the most detailed and accurate findings for the parts you’re assessing.
How Does A/B Testing Work?
Let’s take a look at a marketing scenario. Let’s imagine you’re launching a new product and you’ve prepared two advertisements to help generate interest, but you’re not sure which one would provide a greater return on investment (ROI).
A/B testing can be beneficial. Decide where you want these ads to appear – Facebook, Instagram, emails, etc. — and then choose your metrics.
The number of emails opened, the number of new visitors to your site, or the number of conversions are all examples of these metrics. It doesn’t matter what the measurements are in practice; what matters is that they are consistent throughout both tests.
You’re now ready for the real thing. Begin with “A” as your first ad. Run it on your preferred platform for a set amount of time — say, two weeks — and then keep track of the outcomes. Rep the test with ad “B” while leaving the rest of the variables the same. Measure the results after using the same platform for the same amount of time.
Best WordPress A/B Testing Plugins
1. Google Optimize
Google Optimize, formerly known as Google Content Experiments, is a fantastic re-developed Google tool! This is now fully integrated with Google Analytics and is both simple and powerful to use. The best feature is that you can run up to five tests at once for free. That should suffice for the majority of you. Optimize 360 has a premium version available. The distinctions between Google Optimize and Optimize 360 can be found here.
There isn’t a WordPress plugin for this, but you may add a piece of code to your website’s header. Testing different copy on our WordPress sidebar widgets is an excellent illustration of how we use this. Change the copy, add various UTM parameters and an event to the button, and then run the A/B test in Google Optimize. Then we can see which sidebar widget converts the most and receives the most clicks.
Even better, it’s integrated with Google Analytics by default, allowing you to link it directly to your objectives. It’s cool! At the moment, our preferred A/B testing tool is Google Optimize.
In Google Optimize, you can easily update any HTML or CSS element on your WordPress site.
2. Nelio A/B Testing
The most effective and adaptable conversion optimization service for WordPress is Nelio A/B Testing. It combines robust and appealing Heatmaps with the ability to define, organize, and track A/B-testing trials. WooCommerce is also supported by Nelio. Never leave WordPress; anything can be done from the admin dashboard.
The most basic package costs $29 per month. A professional-level service is also available for $89 per month, which is ideal for small organizations. Last but not least, the enterprise-level plan costs $259 per month. Although it is pricey, you may use it on up to ten websites, plan your tests, and make use of other neat features such as Auto Stop Experiments. Annual billing can help you save a little money on these costs.
If you’re searching for a product that works seamlessly with WordPress, we recommend Nelio A/B Testing.
3. Split Hero
Split Hero is a WordPress A/B testing solution that is straightforward to use. It’s largely targeted at freelancers, agencies, and their clients, but it’s also ideal for the DIY web builder wishing to advance their site.
All you have to do now is choose up to four variations of a page to test, as well as the conversion page (for example, a contact form thank you page), and enter the campaign run dates.
In comparison to more complicated tools, Split Hero places a big emphasis on keeping things simple and providing users with only the information they need to take action.
Because Split Hero is based solely on the pages/posts you have in WordPress, you can continue to design your pages in any way you like, including using any page builder.
Split Hero, in keeping with the principle of simplicity, offers only one simple account option for $27 per month. This covers its use on an infinite number of websites, with an unlimited number of page views and visitors, as well as all present and future capabilities.
The sole constraint is that you can only conduct three campaigns at once, but extras can be purchased for $5/mo each if you need them.
4. AB Press Optimizer
AB Press Optimizer allows you to make dozens of different variations of your images, buttons, content blocks, forms, and headlines quickly and easily.
For $49. you can use the personal version of this WordPress plugin to install it on one website.
You can test up to three websites for $99 each.
For $199, the Agency plan includes unlimited site testing.
Each level of service allows an unlimited number of visitors to participate in an unlimited number of tests. You get real-time reporting as well as expert features and assistance.
Shortcodes can be used to test themes, posts, pages, and custom post kinds. It’s simple to use and set up. This is also useful for comparing different WordPress widgets and adverts to discover which has a higher click-through rate.
5. Title Experiments
Title Experiments is a simple plugin that allows you to A/B test the titles on your website to discover which ones garner the most attention. Find out what type of title your site visitors prefer, which headlines create the most income, and then optimize your headlines going forward to increase traffic, engagement, and conversions.
Using Title Experiments to A/B Test Your Forms
You might think that Title Experiments can’t be used to test your forms, but you’d be wrong. If you’re giving site visitors a content upgrade in exchange for their email address, make sure you’re giving them your most viral posts.
You may build your email list by testing your website’s headlines and determining what type of information visitors prefer. You can then provide that type of content as a lead magnet.
All you have to do with Title Experiments is set the title variations of your post’s content and let the plugin handle the rest. When a title begins to outperform the others, Title Experiments will automatically show the popular title to more people. You can then use this information to optimize your lead magnet efforts to gain more subscribers.
6. Thrive Optimize
Thrive Optimize is a prominent A/B testing plugin from Thrive Themes, which also creates the Thrive Architect page builder.
One of the major advantages of Thrive Optimize is how simple it is to set up an A/B test. We’ve tried a few different approaches for creating A/B testing on WordPress and have yet to find one that is easier to use.
This is pretty much all you need to do to start a new A/B test:
- Create a new page or clone an existing Thrive Architect piece of content.
- Make the changes you’d like to test.
- Choose your objective (i.e., what constitutes “success”).
- Begin gathering information.
You can also set it up so that Thrive Optimize starts applying the winning variation automatically if certain criteria are met.
You can easily split traffic across the many options to achieve the exact split you desire. You can also see all of the critical data on your Thrive Optimize dashboard, along with some lovely charts.
Thrive Optimize allows you to build an unlimited number of tests with an unlimited number of variants. You can use those tests to try to achieve three different objectives:
- Earnings (you manually set a certain value for each conversion).
- Go to the Goals Page.
- Subscriptions.
It’s worth noting, though, that Thrive Optimize only supports conventional A/B tests, not the more complex multivariate tests. However, for the vast majority of users, this should suffice.
Price: $167 for the standalone product with Thrive Architect or $299 for the Thrive Suite (includes all Thrive products).
7. Leadpages
A prominent landing page builder and lead generation tool, “Leadpages”. Although it is a stand-alone service, it is quite easy to integrate with WordPress thanks to its dedicated WordPress plugin.
Leadpages features an easy A/B testing tool as part of its landing page builder. For this blog, we’ll concentrate on the A/B testing feature, but you can learn more about the complete Leadpages package by reading my Leadpages review. The A/B testing functionality of Leadpages is similar to that of Thrive Optimize.
It doesn’t get any easier than this in terms of ease of use. It’s no more difficult to run an A/B test than it is to create a conventional landing page, which makes Leadpages ideal for non-technical users.
Leadpages can also perform both A/B and multivariate testing, which is useful if you need the extra depth that multivariate testing provides.
While Leadpages starts at $27/month (paid yearly), you’ll need to upgrade to the $59/month (billed annually) plan to use the A/B testing feature.
8. Instapage
Instapage, like Leadpages, is a single landing page builder tool that also comes with user-friendly A/B testing. It also has a specific plugin that makes it easy to integrate with WordPress.
In this section, I’ll concentrate on Instapage’s A/B testing capabilities, but you can read more about all of Instapage’s other features in my Instapage review.
You may start an A/B test with Instapage by cloning an existing landing page or creating a whole new landing page from scratch.
Optimizing is Instapage’s only package, and it costs $149 per month (billed annually) or $199 per month if paid monthly.
Conclusion
A/B testing features on your website will become one of the most important duties for you if you are serious about making money from your website and converting your traffic into customers. Headlines, content titles, website design, images, forms, page layouts, content, and a slew of other factors can all have an impact on your sales or traffic.
One thing to remember is that running A/B testing to improve your website experience is a never-ending process if you want to maintain a successful online business and continually boost your website traffic.
