SEO Split Test Result: Optimization for search behavior

Before you start: if you are not familiar with the principles of statistical SEO split-testing and how SplitSignal works, we suggest you start oz request a demo from SplitSignal.

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first we asked our followers on Twitter love:

There are other SEO experts here All-Stars Facebook the group must comment on this test and the result:

Trevor StolberDigital marketer at STOLBER.com

I think the organic click will be slightly reduced for the version. There are many studies showing that the number (and interestingly, the odd number works better) for the content of the list type works best. It’s different, but I think the point is to look for a lot of choice – so a large number like 10664 would work better.

Edward RobertsSEO Manager and Hovia

I go by increasing the organic clicks from the version. I think pictures and images of angry dogs attract users who are looking for related terms like angry dog ​​graphics, background, images and so on. There is also an undoubted discrepancy between the 10,664 photos of angry dogs with the title of the controller and the CTA in the description for browsing 41 photos.

Kevin Maguirehead of SEO at ONMARK

Removing the number will not only improve the CTR, but will also improve the organic ranking. The primary keyword at the beginning of the meta title will increase its relevance to the search engine. Removing a number for a search user is a more concise answer to his search purpose.

Mike FriedmanSEO Consultant at TheSEOPub.com

I assume that in this case the CTR has gone up. I know the numbers can improve CTR according to some studies, but 10,664 of them sound like a rabbit hole I don’t have time for. Probably the scale has shifted a bit as well, bringing the keyword closer to the beginning.

Let’s delve into a case study to find out who was right this time.

Case study

Search engines are the main source of traffic for almost all companies and organizations. On the one hand, traffic and thus search behavior are constantly changing. On the other hand, all changes to the website are also affected. To anticipate these moves, endorsing these changes is important, especially if you run a site with hundreds of thousands of page suggestions where even small changes can have a big impact.

For a great photo stock site, OrangeValley and the SplitSignal team researched how people search for photos and photographs, and found some great opportunities we wanted to check out before we posted this on the site.

Hypothesis

The site in question had the following page titles set up and changed as follows:

As you can see, the focus for these page titles is on “photos”, “angry dog ​​photos” and “angry dog ​​photos”. We’ve found that in addition to “stock photos,” most photo searches are used with keywords such as “images” or “photos.” In short, the volume of searches with these types of keywords is much higher than just searches related to “photography”. Therefore, we wanted to test whether including these keywords in the page title would have a positive impact on organic traffic.

The test

We used SplitSignal for test setup and analysis. 764 category pages were selected as a version or control page. We started the test and ran it for 30 days. We found that Googlebot visited 100% of the tested pages.

Results

The test ran from March 3 to April 2. The figure above shows the development / progress of the variant (orange line) compared to the modeled control group (blue line). We saw that the traffic on the variant pages was more successful than the control group, which means that the test is positive. The inclusion of keywords commonly used by people when searching for photos in the title of a page has resulted in an 18% increase in organic traffic!

Note that we are not comparing the actual control group pages with our page versions, but a forecast based on historical data. We compare this with actual data. We use a set of control pages to specify the context of the model for trends and external influences. If anything else changes during our test (e.g. seasonality), the model will detect and take this into account. By filtering out these external factors, we gain insight into what the impact of SEO change really is.

The test was statistically significant at the 95% level. On March 17, we were convinced that the increase we were observing was due to the change we had made and not to other (external) factors.

Why

Looking back, the introduction of this change seems pointless. Acquiring additional organic traffic confirmed the hypothesis and also allowed the customer to build a strong business case to implement this page title change in all categories.

Optimizing page titles with keywords that people often use when searching for photos has not only increased organic clicks on tested pages, but also increased page visibility across a wider range of search queries, indicating that tested pages have become more relevant to different search queries. . for which the pages were classified. In addition, the search results on the tested pages were more in line with the actual search query that users typically use when searching for photos, thus increasing relevance.

Divided testing not only helps our clients discover ways they can improve their organic traffic, but can also help demonstrate the impact of SEO changes by giving them an edge in the development queue. This test was performed on their most important site suggestions, so given the priorities, this will be a very preferred SEO optimization for the website.

The increase in traffic we’ve seen for this site has been very valuable, but it’s always important to keep in mind that something that works for one site may not work on another. The only way to know for sure is to try out what works for you!