Testing in SEO offers a data-driven way to know what works best to advance your organic search program and drive KPIs.
There are a number of tests you can run (here are a few SEO testing ideas for you to try) to gather data. Then, those results can be used to help prioritize projects or to earn buy-in from key stakeholders, or even the dev team!
Of course, we understand the importance of SEO testing, but what do SEO industry thought leaders have to say about it?
Here are industry experts’ takes on the importance of SEO testing.
Recommended Reading: SEO Split Testing vs. Standard A/B Testing: What's the Difference?
When you think of SEO as search experience optimization instead of search engine optimization, you realize that chasing the algorithm is a fruitless endeavor.
SEO testing allows you to do just that. Instead of chasing the algorithm, you prioritize what works for your audience. More importantly, testing reveals what works for your site.
Gone are the days of generalized SEO checklists. Testing is your way to figure out what’s worth implementing further, and what’s not worth keeping around.
Martijn Scheijbeler is the Senior Vice President of Marketing at RVshare. Stay in touch with him on LinkedIn and Twitter.
In an increasingly competitive world of search, testing lets you compete. SEO is largely a zero-sum game: while one person will earn organic traffic, the other won’t.
As Kevin Indig explains on Jason Barnard’s podcast, Brand Search (and Beyond), “If you don’t do SEO testing these days, your chances of succeeding are very, very low.”
That’s not all. Kevin also points out that there is constant change and evolution to the Google algorithm — so much so that no single person understands it in its entirety (another reason not to try to beat it). For this reason, you can’t generalize, but rather, you should test!
With the nuances of the SERPs from vertical to vertical, if you’re not split testing, you’re shooting in the dark.
Kevin Indig is a Growth Advisor for top companies like Nextdoor and Snap Inc. Stay in touch with him on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Nick Sawn puts it simply: “SEO testing shows you what actually works.”
That’s not all. His article also highlights the thoughts of a few consultants as well. Here’s what they had to say.
Suganthan Mohanadasan, Digital Marketing Consultant: “A good SEO test gets rid of all ‘guesswork’ when it comes to making significant changes to content.”
Brad Smith, Founder, Codeless: “ … discover what works best for you (instead of reading someone else’s best guess.)”
Nick Leroy, Nick LeRoy Consulting: “It might only take 1-2 successful tests to generate enough incremental revenue to justify several months of an SEO retainer costs.”
Nick Swan is the Founder of SEOTesting.com. Stay in touch with him on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Recommended Reading: SEO Testing Framework: Prioritizing What to Test and When
If you’re asked for an SEO recommendation on a complex situation, don’t feel pressured to explain right away, says Aleyda Solis.
Instead … test!
In this context, testing also lets you learn something new.
Aleyda Solis is the Founder of Orainti and Host of Crawling Mondays. Stay in touch with her on LinkedIn and Twitter.
As Lily Ray explains, testing helps you understand whether or not a site change is worth keeping as it relates to your KPIs.
She exemplifies this point with the FAQ schema — while the impressions of a page with the structured data may increase, traffic may actually decrease.
Lily Ray is the Senior Director, SEO & Head of Organic Research at Amsive Digital. Stay in touch with her on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Areej AbuAli says that SEO is a marathon, not a sprint. In this vein, SEO testing helps to know what to work on next, and what needs to be tweaked.
She offers a helpful framework: Test → Learn → Iterate.
Areej AbuAli is the Founder of Women in Tech SEO and Crawlina. Stay in touch with her on LinkedIn and Twitter.
What about a real-life use case of SEO testing?
Dan Taylor was able to use testing to determine that blocking the indexing of product detail pages affects the rank performance of category pages.
Dan Taylor is the Head of Technical SEO at Salt Agency. Stay in touch with him on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Loren Baker connects SEO experimentation to Google algorithm updates. As we saw earlier, no one knows for sure what the algorithm consists of.
And yet, when there is an algorithm change, SEOs want to know what they’ll have to do differently in order to provide that value to users. This is where experimentation comes in, Loren notes.
This approach to testing also means understanding your vertical and your site at a deeper, date-driven level.
A tweet from Loren adds to his emphasis:
Loren Baker is the Founder of Search Engine Journal and Foundation Digital. Stay in touch with him on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Will Critchlow says that SEO testing gives you statistical evidence that a change is or isn’t worth fully investing in.
As an example, he explains using copy from a professional copywriter versus boilerplate copy. They tested the change from boilerplate copy to unique, page-specific copy to see if it would be worth making that investment across a larger set of pages.
Will Critchlow is the Founder and CEO of SearchPilot. Stay in touch with him on LinkedIn and Twitter
Kate Miller explains how SEO testing helps attribute success to organic search and SEO versus other marketing channels.
This, in turn, can be used as buy-in for more SEO projects and initiatives.
Kate Miller is the Content Marketing Manager at Inflow. Stay in touch with her on LinkedIn and Twitter.
No matter their reasons, these experts agree that it’s important to test in SEO. Here’s a summary of what these industry influencers have to say:
Those are all pretty great reasons to start SEO testing. If you’re looking to implement tests at scale, you can now do so all without the dev team.
SEO Split Tester lets you implement your own tests to prioritize projects that make an impact on your SEO results - schedule a demo today and harness the power of SEO split testing.