I’m sure you must have heard countless times that testing is very important for your SEO efforts to yield solid, sustainable results. But many people still don’t know how exactly to go about it. A very common and easy-to-use type of testing is A/B testing (also called split testing). Basically, A/B testing involves creating two (or more) versions of a page (or a banner or a search ad) and comparing the results each of those versions produce.

First, you must know and understand exactly what you want to achieve through your experiment. You may be looking to increase your traffic; or increase your conversion rate; or find out what page elements affect your users’ satisfaction level. Whatever your objective, you must use that as a guideline for creating different versions of a page (or banner or search ad). The results that each version produces should then be compared to find out the version that best achieves your objective.
However, for A/B testing to work, it should be treated like a scientific experiment where you change only ONE element at a time while keeping all others constant. The various elements that could be tested include copy text, layouts, images and colors.

Sure, A/B testing is very time consuming since you have to conduct repeated tests to get accurate results; however, if done properly, it can help you eliminate guesswork from your marketing efforts.

The only thing to remember is that A/B testing is science, not art.