You must test your SEO Theory with these Case Studies. That
Here, we’ll demonstrate SEO tests that will show you the importance of using SEO tests to test your ideas. If you’re in search of a TL;DR, here it is:
We’ve got hundreds of different SEO-related changes applied to dozens of websites. However, the exact change will only sometimes produce the same result, regardless of how carefully you attempt to replicate the same thing you’ve previously done.
Before you move ahead and copy the methods from the SEO expert beside you, check their strategy (or your ideas) in real-time on your website. This can help you save a lot of money, time and energy over the long term.
The Big Issue
Enhancing the performance of newly launched or poorly managed pages is relatively easy for most SEO experts. We’ve worked with clients who’ve performed well but enhancing their performance can be complicated.
Let us help you set the scene. A well-known brand with millions of users has contacted you to recruit you as your newly appointed SEO director. Your task is to boost the rankings and the conversion rate of their product pages. When you start reviewing all the common mistakes, there is nothing to see. (We know it rarely occurs, but we’ll let you enjoy us for a moment.)
You indeed can. In most instances, it will assist. However, the more extensive the site is less impact you can expect from new content (relatively being a general rule).
What can you do if you’ve been commissioned by a company that already contains thousands of pieces of professionally written content and has used the best practices as well as it can? It’s time to start exploring.
One of the best ways to beat websites that are following the best practices is to step away from the usual routes and try your own thoughts.
This is the place SEO Split Testing comes into the picture.
SEO Split Testing
Split Testing is an effective tool to help marketers make the most of their marketing efforts. It allows you to test two campaign versions to determine the best results. Once you have the data, you can apply it to an even larger scale and increase your performance.
What happens when you apply that to SEO? Indeed, split Testing using SEO can be challenging. However, luckily, Semrush has released a new, highly effective tool known as Split Signal that will do nearly all the tasks for you (at most, the manual part).
We will give details about how to run the SEO Split Test. We’ve done it before. Instead, we’ll focus on why it’s vital to test your results.
Return to the Point
What was the reason we took the time to discuss all this? It’s because, in all areas of existence, individuals do to learn from others’ experiences. If you’re looking to improve the strength of your bench, look up online to see the work that others with muscular pecs have accomplished. If you’d like to learn to play the guitar, contact other players who have done it before you.
But not everybody is the same; indeed, we aren’t all with the same musical ability. Therefore the fact that something worked for someone else does not mean it can be effective for you.
The same holds for your website. Any change that works for your competition could do your site no good. It may be a significant problem for your website.
We’ve seen that in our tests in the past. We apply the same changes across three websites and receive three different outcomes. Therefore, to prevent any new SEO myths from coming up in the future, let’s look at some tests that appeared extremely conclusive but later proved not to be the secret for hacking SEO we hoped they were.
The addition of CTA to Title
It’s a simple idea. Include CTAs in your titles to boost your CTR! It’s a saying that many people have heard since the day that they started SEO. As we’ve said, it has worked flawlessly for a few. That’s the way SEO myths get created. But, the magic only works for some.
Achieved Test
In October 2021, we conducted an exercise that was elegant in its simplicity. The only thing we had to do was use the tool SplitSignal to include”Buy” and “Buy” at the start of more than 800 pages for products on a site. The website experienced an increase of 8.3 per cent in the total number of clicks due to the change.
What is straightforward? Right? Everyone “knows” the importance of adding CTAs to titles can be beneficial. Adding just one word to your designation can boost performance by more than eight per cent. What are we wasting time on?
However, as previously stated in this article, it’s different from how things work in example number two.
The negative result
After the test in July 2022, we decided to retake the test. Instead of adding “Buy” to the start of the title, the CTA for that day would be “Order.”
Let people determine what the outcome would be. Exactly zero per cent of them predicted that traffic would go down. This is precisely what happened.
Everyone was already in love with the thought of an easy hack that no one even thought this test might have an unfavourable result.
You can now go through both blogs to discover the main distinctions between these two sites; however, this is different from the current focus of the article you’re reading.
The addition of dates to your titles–Dating Your Content
Indeed, the suggestion to people to follow this isn’t as common as “adding CTAs to your title tags” was. However, we have an exclusive vantage advantage due to earlier tests conducted by the SplitSignal team. In particular, they’ve completed this test three times, and it is interesting to note that they obtained the three results.
Remember, John Muller went out of his way to promote this to inform us that adding the publication date should remain the same.
The significant Rise
In October 2022, we observed the test on a travel and fishing website. In this test, it was discovered that the SplitSignal Team added “Daily” at the beginning of the title and added the year and month of publication towards the very end. The 929 pages that received the fresh paint instantly exploded with clicks. The impact of this slight modification was around 14 per cent.
No Significant Change
As this isn’t an enchanting tale of 3 bears in it, the porridge that is in the middle appears to be cold at best. In August, only two months after the positive test, we attempted to add the words “Updated” and the date (2022) at the start of our title tag. However, this time the effort did not amount to anything. People wouldn’t be happy about a 1.5 per cent change in the lowest confidence level.
The Soft Drop
The last case study we will review this morning is the most recent one. It was published in November 2022. It was one month after the “great breakthrough.”
For more depth–we put the name tag with the latest month’s and years’ date on it—travel website. Then, we added around 900 pages to the website’s product pages. We also kept an additional 900 pages for control.
The test was as similar as it could be to the change used for the October test.
Based on what we’ve witnessed, the results would improve by at least a little. The tests were so similar we believed this would be a slam dunk.
It’s easy to guess the surprise we felt when we realized clicks fell by 6.6 per cent in just 16 days after we allowed the test to run. And the longer we waited, the worse the results became, which is why we decided to end the test at a certain point in this test to avoid further loss.
The conclusion is that you must test Your theories
What can these examples teach us? Based on only the results of what has worked for other companies isn’t necessarily enough for SEO. The rules are not only updated every few months due to Google’s “dreaded” Google core updates. Our competitors never get exhausted and constantly look for ways to beat the rest of us.
One of these cases could have inspired you to change your behaviour, and you’ll see a massive reduction in your scores. It may have made you more cautious and prevented you from making the tiny change that could boost your score by 14% within one or two minutes of effort.
As you probably can guess, either of these choices is ideal. It wouldn’t pose an issue if you had just a tiny website. However, if the job is to ensure that the product pages of thousands on the (or clients’) site see a steady growth in their performance, it is essential to be willing to risk it all and remain on top of SEO. SEO game.
The only way to accomplish this safely and avoid paying the equivalent of tens of thousands (or greater) in developer time and fixes to theories that fail is first to test them with a program like SplitSignal.
