Search Engine Optimization All-in-One For Dummies, 3rd Edition

Chapter 3

Mastering SEO Tools and Reports

In This Chapter

• Getting started with conversion testing
• Getting to know page and site analysis tools
• Tracking conversions from multiple referral sources
• Seeing how your visitors travel through your site

In this chapter, we cover the nuts and bolts of conversion testing. We walk you through it, step by step, and hopefully demystify the process a little bit. We show you how to fix common conversion and usability problems, and we introduce you to some page and site analysis tools. Finally, we discuss how to use link analysis tools.

Getting Started with Conversion Testing

Say that you've gathered your data and done the proper analysis, and now you’ve decided that some things need to be changed on your website. Making major overhauls to your site requires A/B testing. A/B testing is testing the original version of the website (Version A) against the one you made the major changes to (Version B). The A/B test is a tool that tells you which changes have a better effect and to what degree.

We discuss A/B testing in Chapter 2 of this minibook, but in the following sections, we go a little more in-depth and tell you how to actually do an A/B test. Before we get started, here are some cardinal rules you need to keep in mind for running an A/B test:

• Change only one variable at a time, especially when A/B testing involves major changes to your site. If you change more than one variable at a time, you can't determine which variable is responsible ...