Imagine you’ve recently revamped several of your website’s product pages, hoping to increase conversions, but you’re unsure which versions drive better engagement due to the unpredictable timing of traditional crawlers. One way to help determine this is through AB testing, but it could take months to gather sufficient data from A/B testing, making it difficult to quickly iterate recent changes and remove underperforming elements.
However, when the free SEO protocol, IndexNow is implemented on your website, the time it takes to obtain actionable data is significantly reduced, with data collection starting as soon as changes are made, and content is updated. That’s because IndexNow communicates your changes immediately to its participating search engines, eliminating the need to wait for crawlers.
And by integrating Microsoft Clarity into your A/B testing process, you’ll be able to see exactly how users interact with different site elements, helping you gain insight into which variants to test and how they are performing.
Essential steps for conducting an A/B test
A/B testing is an extremely helpful tool for SEO strategists seeking to optimize website performance and improve rankings. By adjusting on-page SEO elements, you can directly affect your site’s rankings, user engagement, and SERP click-through rates. And with the integration of AI-generated content, you can take your A/B testing efforts to the next level.
For example, AI content generation tools can create diverse versions of your website’s elements, from headlines to product descriptions, keywords, and more. If you do choose to go this route, ensure you use a reliable AI content generation tool such as Microsoft Copilot.
Tip: If your website belongs to a content management system such as Wix, Duda, or WordPress, check out plugins and select tools made specifically for your site. Regardless of which tool you choose, ensure it can generate high-quality, relevant content.
Refer to the graphic below to review the steps in the process. Depending on your desired outcome, you may want to follow all or only some of the steps.
Identifying elements for testing
A/B testing is a powerful method to compare two versions of a webpage or app to determine which one performs better. By systematically testing changes to your content, you can make data-driven decisions to optimize user experience and increase conversions.
There are multiple elements you can test to help improve your SEO. Some of them include:
Title Tags: Manipulating title tags can significantly improve your rankings and click-through rates. When A/B testing, look for variations that maximize SERP visibility and drive the highest engagement.
Tools that can help: Bing Webmaster Tools can offer insights such as letting you know if you have duplicate titles, titles that are too short, and other suggestions for effectively optimizing your title tags.
Meta descriptions: Well-crafted meta descriptions have the potential to make your pages more enticing in SERPs, helping to improve click-through-rates. In A/B testing, focus on variations that enhance user engagement and produce higher click-through-rates, with increased SERP performance.
Tools that can help: Bing Webmaster Tools can help optimize descriptions and reduce errors through features such as search queries reports and performance metrics. These tools help you align your descriptions with what users are searching for and understand which descriptions are effective and which need adjustments.
Headings (H1, H2, etc.): Optimizing headings helps structure your content and signal the main topics to search engines, impacting your relevancy and rankings. A/B testing different variations that affect user engagement and content accuracy can influence SEO.
Tools that can help: Bing Webmaster Tools’ Top Insights offers insights into how well your headings are optimized for search engines and suggest improvements. Site Scan provides a more detailed report highlighting specific problems with headings (like missing H1 tags or improper heading hierarchy) and offers recommendations for fixing them.
Keywords: Strategic keywords are essential for enhancing search relevancy and attracting targeted traffic. A/B testing different keyword strategies can help determine which keywords are most effective at driving traffic and driving users.
Tools that can help: The Keyword Research tool in Bing Webmaster Tools can help identify relevant and effective keywords for your niche or industry, while the Search Performance tab displays your average position for each keyword, along with the number of impressions, clicks, and click-through-rates (CTR) for each.
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Page Layout and Design: These elements can significantly impact user engagement and session time. When testing different variations, focus on identifying the most effective layout for enhancing user experiences. Note: If you’re creating significant structural changes, we recommend hosting each version on separate URLs, or split URL testing.
Tools that can help: Microsoft Clarity’s heatmaps and session recordings analyze how users interact with different layouts and help determine what components may be worth improving.
Tip: Clarity’s heatmaps compare feature comes in handy for a side-by-side view of your A/B test variants.
The IndexNow advantage
Where IndexNow really shines is in its ability to implement results immediately in IndexNow participating search engines, which may help to inform you of how your tests and content will perform in other engines. For example, in the case that your (B) test is not as successful as you hoped, you can easily roll back all URLs to (A) and publish them to IndexNow or remove all (B) URLs from search engines to instead test and publish a new set of (B2) URLs.
You may also receive positive results on (B) but want to further iterate your changes and split (B) to (B and C). With each new idea and variant you’d like to test, IndexNow allows you to get all new URLs quickly indexed and listed in search engines, while enabling you to immediately remove unsuccessful URLs. Once successes are determined and testing is complete, you can easily fast track them with IndexNow’s real-time indexing for immediate reflection in search engines.
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Tracking for success
Once your tests are complete, use your free Bing Webmaster Tools account to help determine which of your variations performed better. Review and compare metrics for comparison on your URL variants pages under the Search Performance tab in Bing Webmaster Tools. These reports provide detailed insights into how each variant performed in terms of clicks, impressions, and other key metrics, helping you make informed decisions for future optimizations.
And from the IndexNow tab, view how quickly your content updates and tests are indexed or submit specific URLs for indexing. As always, be sure to review your own reporting tools to determine how your URLs performed against your previously set KPIs.
Easy analysis with Microsoft Clarity
As you receive traffic to your A/B variants, it’s essential to understand how each of your variants are performing. Microsoft Clarity, a free tool, offers visual analytics to easily understand user behaviors to help identify the winning variants.
Clarity’s recordings allow you to watch how people navigate each variant, while Clarity’s heatmaps aggregate where user attention (like clicks and scrolls) is happening. With additional Copilot features and friction metrics, you can quickly zoom into key pain points and identify trends. Clarity’s existing integrations in A/B test tools, like AB Tasty or Kameleoon, also make it simple and code-free to start measuring your data immediately.
Optimizing for Success
By incorporating IndexNow and Microsoft Clarity into your AB testing framework, you can take control of your SEO game through continual refinement of your content and SEO tactics, based on real-time user data and search engine feedback. This approach allows you to adapt to the evolving demands of search engine algorithms and user preferences while working towards enhanced online visibility, increased organic traffic, and better conversion rates.
