The Definitive Guide to SEO Testing: Ideation, Analysis, & Reporting

You know where many SEOs go wrong? They don’t do enough SEO testing or analysis. To put it bluntly, they suck at metrics.

Sure, some SEOs will tell you it’s flat-out impossible to test SEO theories and that you have to approach the whole thing with pure intuition and the touchy-feely advice of industry experts.

What a load of crap.

I don’t want to downplay intuition’s crucial role in SEO (and marketing in general). However, if you aren’t doing SEO tests and proving your theories, you waste resources on ineffective strategies and even develop counterproductive SEO testing ideas.

All legitimate experts know that SEO testing and metrics are the key to everything, but the subject rarely sees the light of day. I think it is time to change that, so this post is about how to experiment with SEO testing, stop wasting time, and start getting results.

Ready to learn more? Then, let’s get going with an explanation.

What Is SEO Testing?

Perhaps you desperately want to adjust your SEO strategy but are not quite ready to commit.

I get that.

Adopting tactics that don’t deliver results costs you time and money, so you don’t want to get it wrong.

That’s where testing the SEO changes is invaluable. Changing your SEO strategy may significantly impact your position in the SERPs, but not always in a good way. When you do an SEO test, you can spot potential problems before introducing changes across your site. If an SEO test benefits a page, you can do more of the same. 

Changes you might make can include modifications to:

Schema

Meta tags (Researching new keywords, etc.)

Content length/format

As I’ll explain, running search engine optimization tests is essential for plenty of reasons. Let’s discuss these next.

Why Do You Need SEO Testing?

If you want to outperform your competitors, then SEO testing is crucial. As I already mentioned, intuition isn’t enough on its own. Neither is theory. You have to test those theories. If they prove correct, then this can help your SEO efforts. Here’s how:

Measuring the Impact of Changes: By using performance comparisons, SEO testing helps you understand the effectiveness of specific changes. It’s basically making data-driven decisions rather than making a wild stab into the dark to try and achieve better search engine rankings.

Improving User Experience: By measuring elements like page load speed, mobile responsiveness, and navigation, SEO testing identifies issues affecting user satisfaction and engagement on your website.

Staying Ahead of Competitors: By running regular SEO tests, you can identify new opportunities, adapt to search engine algorithm changes, and keep a competitive edge in search results.

Maximizing Return on Investment (ROI): Who doesn’t want to get their money’s worth? SEO testing helps you allocate your resources effectively by identifying the strategies that deliver the best results.

Optimizing Website Performance: SEO testing lets you experiment with different strategies so you can understand what works best. That means analyzing keywords, meta tags, content, and site structure to optimize your website’s visibility in search engine rankings.

SEO Testing Ideas

When it comes to SEO testing, there are various ideas and approaches you can explore to improve your website’s performance on search engine result pages (SERPs). Here are some SEO tests to run:

Title Tag Variations, URL Variations, and Meta Description Tests. For instance, you could experiment with different meta descriptions and keywords to see which results in higher CTR and better search visibility. 

Content Length and Format. Test different content lengths and formats (bullet points, lists, or paragraphs) to see what resonates best with your audience and search engines. You could also do content refreshes to update stats, keywords, etc. Alternatively, fill out thin content so it’s more actionable and valuable to readers. Vary your keyword placement and density, too.

Schema Markup Implementation. Test schema markup implementation to enhance search engine understanding of your content and potentially improve rich snippet appearances.

Mobile Optimization. Conduct tests to optimize your website’s mobile responsiveness and ensure a seamless user experience across different devices.

Page Load Speed Optimization. Test different techniques and optimizations to improve page times and reduce bounce rates.

Structured Data Testing. Experiment with different structured data types (such as product, event, or review markup) to enhance search visibility and attract more targeted traffic.

Whichever approach you take to SEO testing, ensure you measure and analyze the results.

How to “Split Test” an SEO Theory 

You’ve probably heard a million times that putting your keyword in the title tag is important. I agree with that.

Here’s the thing, though: you shouldn’t take this on faith.

Granted, if you throw everything at the wall, some things stick. However, without SEO tests, you’re making work for yourself.

What if you want to SEO test the notion that putting the keyword in the title tag is a good idea? How would you go about it?

I’m about to explain how, but let me begin with this preface: It’s for testing an SEO theory. It’s not what you want to do on your main sites because it’s slow. Don’t worry; we’ll get to “real-world” methods later in this post.

For now, just realize that this is all about discovering individual changes you can make that you won’t necessarily read about on top industry blogs. Leave it for your microsites.

The biggest obstacle we face here is that split-testing SEO isn’t really possible. In a genuine split test, you must have two identical samples, change just one condition for one of your samples, and then measure the results.

However, that doesn’t happen in SEO because you can’t set up two identical websites with identical link profiles and change just one thing. Instead, you would go through a process that looks something like this:

Why do all this, then? Well, what works for me is using a ten-day minimum testing phase. I also use a total sample size of at least forty.

Why switch it back and forth? Because you’re looking for patterns relating to the specific SEO tests you’re running.

A one-off change in traffic could be the result of a seasonal shift or a general trend. It’s still possible that some other random factor could cause a difference, but the odds of it coinciding with four site changes that don’t follow a weekly cycle or any other obvious trend are pretty low.

Finally, you need to pay attention to Google’s cached page because that’s the copy it’s using to rank you. For the most accurate results, you’ll ignore the days between when you made the change and when it showed up in the cache because nobody’s quite sure if Google might be using the data before it shows up in the public cache.

So, what’s a two-sample t-test? Well, it basically uses the same math as a traditional split test, but your split test software probably isn’t going to be able to handle it for you, and that’s about all you need to know about it. I’m not trying to turn you into graduate-level statisticians here.

There is a two-sample t-test calculator here. This is how to use it:

In the calculator above, you would enter daily visits to your test URL as your data points.

On the right side, you’ll see results like this:

In this example, we can be 95 percent sure that the average traffic in the experimental sample is between 17 and 30 visits higher than in the control sample. That’s a measurable difference.

As long as this interval doesn’t include zero, we have a conclusive result (95 percent of the time). If it’s negative, like it is here, it means that the experimental group won, so, in this example, putting the keyword in the title tag was a smart move.

Before I move on, here’s a brief description detailing how to get data:

Sign in to Google Analytics 4 and choose “Reports” from the left menu, followed by “Aquisition,” then “Traffic Aquisition.”

You can isolate data for one traffic source, so to find organic traffic from Google search, you can enter “Google / organic” into the search bar on the report and hit enter to generate data: 

You can find traffic sources in Google Analytics 4 by going to Engagement and selecting “Pages and Screens” from the menu. From there, you can see viewers and user’s numbers. 

If you’re changing only a single page, limit the data to that page. Otherwise, the noise from the rest of your site makes it hard to find anything useful.

Ten days for each measurement is an absolute minimum, and sometimes Google’s algorithm is slow to react, even after the page is cached. You’ll want to at least eyeball a noticeable difference before switching cases back and forth.

If you want to get things done quicker, you can avoid the back and forth and take 20 straight days of measurements for each case. This means you have less time waiting for things to cache. Just keep in mind that the possibility of other factors playing a part is much higher.

As I said, this is a slow method you can’t employ on your main sites. It’s also impossible to test external signals, like links, without walking into “black hat” tactics like private link networks.

Where does that leave us with the messier world of live sites that must be constantly updated and where high-risk tactics aren’t acceptable? Is there any way to search optimization test and experiment with these kinds of sites?

You bet there is!

SEO Tests for the Ugly Real World

The first thing to say about “real world” SEO testing is that it’s not about the algorithm. You’ll never reverse engineer the algorithm, not even using the method discussed above. What you can do is figure out how to maximize metrics that truly matter, like lifetime visitor value.

Let’s get this out of the way.

SEO testing is not about experimenting with different “ranking factors.” It’s about testing SEO strategies and tactics to get the biggest boost in your KPIs. (Hint: “traffic,” “twitter followers,” and “email subscribers” aren’t KPIs.) You’re looking for click-throughs, conversions, etc., the things that actually grow your income and your business.

You can’t approach an SEO test as a “throw everything against the wall and hope something sticks” free-for-all.

This is how you do it:

Does that look overly complicated? Then stay with me while I break it down:

Define a List of Tactics You Use

This is all about doing the hard work of figuring out your current strategies. While getting too granular is a bad idea, you’ll want to be specific. These are tactics that your team needs to act on. Here are a few examples:

Spend X hours contacting influencers on social networks

Spend X hours building links with guest posts

Spend X hours on keyword research

Incorporate Dr. Robert Cialdini’s 6 principles of influence into the content

Incorporate at least one image

Use a number in the headline

Use the keyword in the headline

Incorporate Dr. Jonah Berger’s 6 principles of virality into the content

Defining what tactics you use is beneficial outside of these kinds of experiments and keeps you consistent.

A word of caution, though.

You’ll want to focus on principles or minor, individual tweaks. Don’t attempt to plan how to develop and promote each piece of content too precisely. Falling into “big design up front” is dangerous, and that’s not a great idea.

Giving your team flexibility with how they implement these tactics is crucial. However, it’s equally essential to measure team members’ tactics and monitor these results as well.

Define an Experimental Tactic

There are two possible reasons you’ll want to define an experimental tactic. These are:

A tactic is particularly costly, and you want to measure whether it is effective enough to justify the cost (or even effective at all).

You have an idea and want to test whether it’s worth incorporating into your main strategy.

Either reason is justifiable. However, it’s worth noting that every company is different, so there’s no simple answer to whether you should focus on growth or cutting costs.

You also should recognize that some of your tactics may hurt revenue.

Additionally, remember that you can define an experimental tactic as a ramped-up or toned-down version of a tactic you already use. In other words, instead of adding or removing a tactic from your arsenal to see if it makes a difference, you can try changing the “amplitude” to see if you get improved results (or reduced costs without losing results).

Brainstorm 40+ Content Ideas

There is no reason to change your brainstorming strategy here (unless it’s what you’re testing). Just do what you always do.

As you might have guessed, 40+ is the number we need for a reliable statistical test, so that’s where this comes from.

If you’re a more “news” driven site, you may need to skip this step and just take the content ideas as they come. You’ll still need to find a way to incorporate this next step, though.

Randomly Assign the Ideas to Two Groups

Split the ideas into two groups. Randomness is essential here. We must ensure we aren’t biasing things by pairing our favorite content ideas with our favorite tactical approach, or we could get a false result.

The same goes for your team. They need to be randomly assigned to the topics, or at least assigned before anybody knows which topics employ which tactics.

You can use this random assignment tool to do this for you. Just assign each idea to a number. If you entered this data into the tool, you would get numbers 1 to 40 assigned to groups A or B:

These inputs would assign ideas 1 through 40 to one of 5 employees (or teams).

If randomly assigning your teams is taking things a bit too far in the name of science, let the teams pick their own ideas or allocate them yourself. If you do this, though, you should make the assignments before splitting the ideas into two groups. (I know I’m repeating myself, but it’s important!)

Remember, the point is to avoid bias in the results by accidentally putting your best employees with the set of tactics you really want to succeed.

Alternate Between Content Types

Yes, we’ve touched upon this before, but let’s dive a bit deeper into it. 

Because you experience a sudden surge in success, it might not be entirely down to your brilliant strategy. That’s why you want to alternate between different approaches or content types.

For example, decide which SEO tests to run, like publishing some short, snappy content for a while and then comparing it with long-form content. You can then compare KPIs like search rankings, visibility, and backlinks.

By alternating between tactics and carefully measuring the results, you can make more informed decisions about what’s working and what needs tweaking.

Simply put, it comes down to keeping your eye on the bigger picture so you make the right decisions.

Run a Two-Sample T-Test

I already covered how to do this, but it’s worth addressing a few extra pointers here:

Use a more meaningful metric than traffic as the outcome of your testing, like “lifetime revenue minus lifetime cost” or even “employee satisfaction.” The point is to choose metrics you genuinely care about as a business so that you can make informed, purposeful decisions.

Consider revisiting these SEO tests later when you have more data to work with. The ultimate value of each strategy isn’t necessarily measurable immediately after the SEO test.

Understanding the difference between “statistical significance” and practical significance is essential. If your confidence interval doesn’t include zero, you’re 95 percent sure something real is happening. However, that doesn’t mean that what’s happening is important. Look at the size of the effect from your confidence interval as well. Is it big enough to matter? You want to focus on the tactics that make the biggest impact, not pour resources into minute, inconsequential gains.

It’s also not immediately obvious what data you should be pasting into each column of the calculator in this case, so let me elaborate on that. There are three basic ways you could approach this by treating each:

Piece of content as one observation

Observation split between the two groups

Piece of content as one observation

All of these are valid approaches, depending on what you’re going for. It’s even worth running the SEO tests all three ways to see if you get the same basic conclusion.

Remember that you’re not measuring the same thing in each of these three scenarios. This is what you’re doing with each test; you’re comparing the average:

Total value (to date) of a piece of content from one group with that of the other group

Daily value of one strategy against another

Daily value of a piece of content from one group with that of the other group

This can get a bit taxing on the brain, so I’d rather you didn’t overthink this. Just remember it’s better to do some SEO testing than not. If it doesn’t seem obvious which one you should test, measure them all.

Analyze Results and Optimize

You’ve run your SEO tests and gathered a ton of data, but you’re not done yet.

All that testing is pointless if you don’t analyze your SEO test results and then optimize your content. It’s simple enough to do. Just follow these tips.

Begin by Checking Your Data

Don’t let all that data put you off. Specifically, you’re looking for patterns, spikes, and anomalies.

Do these relate to the changes you made? For example, did click-throughs increase when you published long-form content? Then you could be on to a winner!

Or maybe you got a spike in traffic when you used long-tail keywords in meta descriptions. That’s another check in the box.

Pay special attention to KPIs like web traffic, page views, organic keywords, and bounce rate.

Pick Out the Losers

Some techniques just won’t work. That’s precisely why SEO testing is important.

If there are changes that didn’t move the dial in terms of traffic, clicks, or conversions, you can ditch them, learn from them, and move on.

Make Some Tweaks and Optimize

Apply the techniques that are working on other areas of your site. For instance, if changing the keyword strategy in your home page meta description worked, then make changes to the rest of them.

Fine-tune your SEO based on what you learned from your results and get ready to SEO test again.

Set SMART Goals

Hopefully, you’ve learned a lot from your first round of SEO testing. Now’s the time to ask yourself what you want to achieve next.

Don’t just make any goals. Make SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound) goals.

For instance, you might decide you want to increase organic traffic by 15 percent in the next three months. That’s something you can easily measure with an SEO tool.

To achieve the above goal, you’d use some proven SEO strategies, such as keyword research, content optimization, and increasing backlinks. All of these tactics should help you grow the organic traffic you’re looking for.

If you want some more examples, Ahrefs has a few ideas.

One more thing. Keep testing. It’s one of the ways you can keep ahead.

What About Flywheel Strategies?

Oh boy, I opened Pandora’s box when I started talking about SEO testing, didn’t I?

I’ve talked about comparing individual pieces of content (and the strategies behind them) to determine which tactics work and which don’t. However, this ignores a big part of the value of SEO – cumulative effects.

If you’ve been building or attracting links for years, you don’t necessarily have to do any link-building to get significant traffic on a new piece of content. This is where things start to get tough to measure.

It’s next to impossible to pinpoint which cumulative tactics are making things easier over time. Does the traffic come easier because:

You have a better link profile?

Google has more positive user data on you?

Your social presence is larger?

You’ve literally grown the demand for content like yours on the web?

At the beginning of this article, I said I didn’t want to downplay the role of intuition. That applies here.

Intuition about your audience, the future of your industry, the future of search engines, and the future of the market as a whole all play a major part in your long-term success.

(Not to mention luck, the most underrated thing that separates winners from losers.)

As a data-driven marketer, I tend to sidestep the issue of flywheel tactics. It’s not because I don’t believe they exist. They do, unquestionably. However, immediate results always take precedence, no matter what you tell yourself. And no matter what you claim, you can’t predict the future.

I like to focus on things we can do right now that have a directly measurable impact on lifetime value. The strategies I’ve discussed so far address how to do this.

Cumulative effects are higher-order factors. They’re basically impossible to measure in a real-world setting. You can demonstrate that they exist by pointing to case studies or cumulative results over time, but you can’t identify which strategies were most responsible for the gains.

Don’t even try. Just know they’re there.

Does Traditional Testing Play a Part in SEO?

The punch line – yes.

First, it’s important to understand that user experience and design come before link building. Put simply, these factors increase the value of traffic from any source, including search engines. If you aren’t doing split tests and usability tests to maximize the value of your site, what’s the point of doing SEO in the first place?

There’s even more to it than that, though. You can use traditional tests like these to improve your “pure” SEO.

First, if you don’t know anything about split testing, look at this beginner’s guide. It should be easier to follow than some of the more advanced stuff we’ve been talking about today. I also have to say that I completely agree with Peter Sandeen; you should test strategies, not page elements. (Hopefully, this article has made that clear already). The basic structure of split testing looks like this:

If you don’t have software for this, you can run split tests in Google Analytics 4 or use an A/B SEO testing tool like A/B Tasty or Adobe’s Target Testing tool.

Now, most people run split tests to maximize conversions or other financial factors, but there’s also another interesting possibility:

You can split test landing pages for their ability to earn links.

For example, you can:

Run ads on two different pages to see which earns the most natural links

Alternate between two different pages during outreach to see which page gets the most links

Split test landing pages for their ability to propagate through social networks

Remember to use the randomization tool I mentioned earlier to keep these tests fair.

I prefer to use the value of referral traffic from these links as the primary metric. In the long run, I suspect that is the most useful way to measure the value of a link in Google’s eyes. In the short run, it’s clearly the most beneficial metric financially.

There are two different ways you can approach these kinds of split tests. You can use:

Different versions of the same page

Two entirely different pages

Again, either one of these is perfectly fine, depending on what you’re trying to accomplish. Two completely different pages will work great if you’re testing the message. If you’re testing the amplitude or the mix of the messages, it’s better to test two different versions of the same page. Again, take a look at Peter Sandeen’s article to learn how this works.

If you end up testing two different versions of the same page, you’ll want to ensure one is noindexed. After the test, you can remove the noindex tag and redirect it over to the other page, assuming the pages were similar enough to deserve the same links.

These tests can help you gain direct insight into the kinds of pages most likely to earn links, so be sure to record and learn from your results.

FAQs

How to test SEO for a website?

Conclusion

This is a monster of a post, so congratulations on wading through this. The central point here is that SEO is testable.

Once you’ve got the SEO basics nailed, You can use SEO testing for theories, strategies, and individual pieces of content. As long as you recognize that people and direct results come first, it’s actually easier to measure than you probably think.

Use these SEO experiments to weed out what doesn’t work and discover the truly remarkable road forward. I hope you find this useful enough to pass along to your teams and your audiences. Thanks for reading.

About the Author: Manish Dudharejia is the co-founder of E2M Solutions, an internet marketing agency specializing in ethical and organic search engine optimization, natural links acquisition, content marketing, and more. You can follow Manish on Twitter or Quora.