If you are a person who is learning about internet marketing for the first time, then you probably have read your share of articles, books, blogs on the topic. One phrase that you might have heard about with regards to marketing your site or your pay per click campaign, is called split testing. It might sound complicated, but it’s not only very easy to implement, but it’s also very smart to implement split testing. Split testing in short is a method of testing out what is working in your marketing campaign, while identifying what isn’t working. This saves you lots of time, money and frustration. You can stop using the same marketing tactics that aren’t working for you while you implement what is working, and build upon the working methods.
You can split test on an image, title, or entire paragraphs of content. Actually, you can do A/B testing on any part of your page.
But let’s face it – we all love the results of testing our sites, but hate the work involved! After you’ve written several versions of your copy, you have to setup some kind of system to randomize between them and show different samples to different people. That alone involves technical skills. You then need to gather the huge amount of raw data and filter it so you end up only with relevant information. And data alone means nothing if you don’t process it and get some conclusion from it. So at this point you could use some laborious spreadsheets or some kind of program that will finally transform the statistical data into the long-awaited result. After all these technical and demanding tasks, you finally get to implement the findings and then start to see some results. Honestly, all this work is very tedious!
It’s clear that a plugin that automates a part or all of these tasks would be very helpful. Thankfully, we have some good plugins to choose from. Lets take a look at what I’ve found:
Nelio A/B Testing
Nelio A/B Testing is the most advanced split testing solution (plugin) for WordPress. With it you can perform unlimited experiments for all your posts, pages, and theme.
Simple Page Tester
Simple Page Tester is an incredible new split testing plugin for WordPress.
It will help you quickly setup A/B split tests for your pages to improve your landing page conversions.
How it Works:
The Simple Page Tester plugin for WordPress lets you split test pages and posts without having to edit a single line of code.
After installing the plugin you will be able to:
- Conduct really simple split testing with a step by step interface
- Run split tests without having to insert lines of code into your templates
- Track your results easily with goals in Google Analytics
- Declare the winner of your split test and have it automatically morph into the master page while removing the other variation (saving you the clean up)
We’ve taken the complicated task of split testing, an activity that is crucial to your success as a webmaster online, and made it as simple as possible.
A/B Theme Testing
With so many amazing themes out there, it can be difficult to decide which theme best suits your site and visitor’s needs. Well, now you don’t have to choose! With the new A/B Theme Testing plugin from WPMU DEV you can run two or more themes at once – each visitor gets one of at least two themes.
Download A/B Theme Testing plugin
Optimizely
This plugin helps you configure your WordPress website to use Optimizely. This plugin is a dramatically easier way for you to improve your website through A/B testing. Create an experiment in minutes with our easy-to-use visual interface with absolutely no coding or engineering required. Convert your website visitors into customers and earn more revenue today!
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21 Responses
I developped an alternative to the above options because I was dissatisfied with the different offerings available, it is called GA Experiments+. At this point, I only developed the first tier which is free and serves as an MVP while still allowing to do simple AB tests or complex ones if you know some basic CSS and/or code (or just ask your favorite developer). It is powered by Google Analytics and is compatible with Google Tag Manager.
Find the plugin here :
great writing on split testing…
Hello,
Could you tell me please, which of these plugins is compatible with google tag manager?
Does Tag Manger gets data or should I have to reconfigure the analytics scripts to get data? I hope I explained… 🙂
I’m not sure about that as I haven’t use Google tag manager till now, I have only used Google Analytics.
I would also suggest a cheaper option for the A/B Theme Testing
Alex I think you’ll have to do quite a good number of improvements to that plugin and its marketing before it can compete with those mentioned in the post. Good luck though!
does wpcash + still work??? it was released back in 2011… i am a bit reluctant to buy it considering the age
I have updated the post, I recommend Nelio now, it’s a better alternative.
A/B Theme Testing is pretty cool wordpress theme.
Jordi – I like what you’re putting together. Would this work for landing pages in Gogiro Business Central too – I believe they are wordpress based?
Hi Shawn. Glad you like it. I don´t know Gogiro (but we’ll definitely take a look). We do have a list of “Landing page”-type plugins that we will make sure integrate well with our approach (based on the way the plugin side of our service is implemented they should integrate right away but we´ll need to verify it more thoroughly)
Hi,
We are launching a new WordPress Conversion Optimization Service (A/B testing and more). I’d like to invite you to join our FREE beta:
I like using AB Press Optimizer when I want to only A/B Test specific elements in my WordPress Sites.
Would running these A/B plugins bypass W3TC or WP SuperCache if those were running? Thus straining the server it was a popular site?
Real good review, last link is nothing but a scam.
Why is it so Johnny?
Its worth looking at Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics Content Experiments.
Yes Matthew these are also good tools, thanks.
I was looking for something like this
It’s not a WordPress-specific thing, but we’ve found Optimizely to be an excellent hosted service.
Actionable results, easy interface, no load on your WP site.
Thanks for suggesting Optimizely, will have a look at it.