What we can learn from losing SEO tests
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Will Critchlow's presentation at BrightonSEO October 2022. At SearchPilot, we run huge numbers of tests. It's natural to look first to the winning tests, but there is a lot we can learn from the tests that fail - both the inconclusive ones and the negative outcomes. Learn how we run SEO tests, how we analyse winners and losers, and take advantage of the lessons we have learned from dozens of losing tests. Take away actionable insights you can use in your own testing or SEO program.
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What we can learn from losing SEO tests
- 1. What we can learn from losing tests slideshare.net/willcritchlow @willcritchlow Will Critchlow SearchPilot
- 3. You cross over (Find an amazing keyword research insight)
- 4. Pull up (Modify titles and meta data to match search intent)
- 8. -27%
- 9. We’ll come back to this
- 10. Tweet me: @willcritchlow #BrightonSEO What about this?
- 11. Request a change / create a ticket
- 12. Engineering says it’ll take 18 months
- 13. ? I feel like a lot of SEO is asking “Will you come on an adventure?”
- 14. Tweet me: @willcritchlow #BrightonSEO Will you come on an adventure? We don’t know what works
- 15. Tweet me: @willcritchlow #BrightonSEO Will you come on an adventure? We don’t know what works But it’s OK because our recommendations don’t get implemented anyway
- 16. Tweet me: @willcritchlow #BrightonSEO Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in event of success. Ernest Shackleton
- 17. Tweet me: @willcritchlow #BrightonSEO What if there were a better way?
- 18. Tweet me: @willcritchlow #BrightonSEO What’s the benefit of SEO testing?
- 19. SEO testing means you can tie individual on-site changes to organic search performance (reference).
- 20. SEO testing means you can tie individual on-site changes to organic search performance (reference).
- 21. SEO testing means you can tie individual on-site changes to organic search performance (reference). +14% organic traffic
- 22. Tweet me: @willcritchlow #BrightonSEO How are we running these tests?
- 23. Tweet me: @willcritchlow #BrightonSEO Flights NYC Search LA Search Seattle Search Austin Search Boston Search Dallas Search Find a group of pages using the same template
- 24. Tweet me: @willcritchlow #BrightonSEO Create a hypothesis you want to test {{City}} Flights Search {{City}} Flights Search Current template Proposed template
- 25. Tweet me: @willcritchlow #BrightonSEO SearchPilot creates test buckets Dallas Flights Search Austin Flights Search Boston Flights Search NYC Flights Search LA Flights Search Seattle Flights Search Control Pages Variant Pages Dallas Flights Search Austin Flights Search Boston Flights Search NYC Flights Search LA Flights Search Seattle Flights Search
- 26. Tweet me: @willcritchlow #BrightonSEO Flights NYC Search LA Search Seattle Search Austin Flights Search Boston Flights Search Dallas Flights Search SearchPilot applies changes to the variant pages Austin Search Boston Search Dallas Search
- 27. Tweet me: @willcritchlow #BrightonSEO Flights NYC Search LA Search Seattle Search Austin Search Boston Search Dallas Search SearchPilot applies changes to the variant pages
- 28. Tweet me: @willcritchlow #BrightonSEO Search engine A/B testing is different from user A/B testing Key point
- 29. Tweet me: @willcritchlow #BrightonSEO A B A B A B A B A B A B Splitting pages not users SEO Testing VS User Testing
- 30. Tweet me: @willcritchlow #BrightonSEO Conversion rate optimisation focuses on converting more of your existing traffic (bottom of the funnel) Conversion Rate Optimisation
- 31. Tweet me: @willcritchlow #BrightonSEO Search engine optimisation focuses on getting additional traffic to your website (top of funnel) Conversion Rate Optimisation Search Engine Optimisation
- 32. Tweet me: @willcritchlow #BrightonSEO Full funnel testing combines these approaches to do both at the same time Full Funnel Testing
- 33. Tweet me: @willcritchlow #BrightonSEO
- 34. Tweet me: @willcritchlow #BrightonSEO Let’s talk business cases
- 35. Tweet me: @willcritchlow #BrightonSEO Obvious benefits! Positive
- 36. Tweet me: @willcritchlow #BrightonSEO Avoid losing changes Negative
- 37. Tweet me: @willcritchlow #BrightonSEO Save time and money No benefit
- 38. Tweet me: @willcritchlow #BrightonSEO
- 39. Tweet me: @willcritchlow #BrightonSEO
- 40. Tweet me: @willcritchlow #BrightonSEO
- 41. Tweet me: @willcritchlow #BrightonSEO Save time and money No benefit Avoid losing changes Negative ← we’re going to talk about these cases
- 42. Tweet me: @willcritchlow #BrightonSEO Negative tests
- 43. Tweet me: @willcritchlow #BrightonSEO #1 Titles!
- 44. Tweet me: @willcritchlow #BrightonSEO
- 45. Tweet me: @willcritchlow #BrightonSEO
- 46. Tweet me: @willcritchlow #BrightonSEO Video and slides here
- 47. Tweet me: @willcritchlow #BrightonSEO #2 Removing terrible(*) content (*) not terrible, apparently
- 48. {{City}} Flights Search {{City}} Flights Search Control Variant That text looks like it’s just for SEO. What if we remove it?
- 49. “I would think about what you can do to make those pages rank well without having to put a giant paragraph of content below the page.” – John Mueller, Google
- 51. Read the full “removing SEO text” case study here
- 52. Tweet me: @willcritchlow #BrightonSEO #3 Adding timely offers
- 53. You cross over (Find an amazing keyword research insight)
- 54. People modify their searches with “Easter” (travel deals / flights)
- 55. -14% -11% Why?!
- 56. Read the full “Easter” case study here
- 57. Tweet me: @willcritchlow #BrightonSEO #4 Avoiding terrible(*) auto- generated snippets (*) not terrible, apparently
- 58. Tweet me: @willcritchlow #BrightonSEO
- 59. Tweet me: @willcritchlow #BrightonSEO
- 60. -3% Why?! Read the full Google meta description rewriting case study
- 61. Tweet me: @willcritchlow #BrightonSEO Inconclusive tests
- 62. Tweet me: @willcritchlow #BrightonSEO Alt attributes #1
- 63. Tweet me: @willcritchlow #BrightonSEO
- 64. Tweet me: @willcritchlow #BrightonSEO
- 65. Tweet me: @willcritchlow #BrightonSEO
- 66. Tweet me: @willcritchlow #BrightonSEO Read the full ALT attributes case study here
- 67. Tweet me: @willcritchlow #BrightonSEO E-A-T & authorship #2
- 68. Tweet me: @willcritchlow #BrightonSEO E-A-T has been on our minds recently (ahem, “helpful” content)
- 69. Tweet me: @willcritchlow #BrightonSEO You might get “Authorship” recommendations
- 70. Tweet me: @willcritchlow #BrightonSEO
- 71. Tweet me: @willcritchlow #BrightonSEO
- 72. Tweet me: @willcritchlow #BrightonSEO So be cautious if anyone says “we just need to add some authorship signals to this page”
- 73. Tweet me: @willcritchlow #BrightonSEO Read the full authorship and E-A-T case study here
- 74. ACTION: get access to all our test results: www.searchpilot.com/newsletter
- 75. SEO testing
- 80. We are celebrating test momentum and cadence
- 81. & winning tests new pages Modern on- site SEO should cut out untested changes and focus on:
- 83. Things to DO
- 84. For everyone - including agencies and smaller websites www.searchpilot.com/newsletter
- 85. Things to DO For those of you who work in the SEO equivalent of the NBA:
- 86. Get me to speak to your whole team for free
- 87. Tweet me: @willcritchlow #BrightonSEO Thanks! Follow @SearchPilot to take part in polls Get on the email list at www.searchpilot.com Ask me questions: @willcritchlow