Learn how understanding user behavior and running tests can improve your SEO strategy and drive traffic effectively. |
This article applies to: UserTesting
On this page:
- About testing search, SEO, and search results
- Types of search and SEO tests
- Test plan example
- Best practices
About testing search, SEO, and search results
- Search engine optimization (SEO) testing helps you identify the website elements that contribute to high performance on the search engine results pages (SERPs).
- Understand how customers use your native search engine on your website to find content.
- The UserTesting Platform helps you understand your customers, their journey to your site, and their actions on it.
When it comes to search and SEO, you can test:
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Types of search and SEO tests
Unmoderated user tests
- Observe how users search for content and navigate your site.
- Have contributors complete search tasks and review insights in the Interactive Path Flow (if available).
- In your tasks, you can ask contributors to use search, avoid search, or observe their natural behavior.
A/B tests
- Present users with one of two design versions (an A version or a B version).
- Use A/B tests to see how users respond to search ad designs, CTA buttons, or webpage layouts.
- If testing two designs within the same test, use the Balanced Comparison feature (if available on your plan).
SEO split testing
- Similar to A/B testing, except you're comparing two groups (a test and a control) containing similar pages/designs.
- Use SEO split testing when testing different versions of product pages, category pages, or blog posts.
- This article by SEOClarity.net explains this approach in more detail.
Live Conversations
- Moderated interviews you conduct with contributors.
- Conduct real-time tests to observe how contributors search and ask follow-up questions instantly.
Short tests
- Available on the UserTesting Flex plan.
- Can help you get focused feedback from higher sample sizes.
- Run short tests for CTA button preference or initial impressions of a website's credibility.
Card sorts
- Card sorts help you understand how customers categorize information, providing insights into how they search.
- For example, open card sorts can reveal the keywords users would use to search for a new car.
Still looking for inspiration?
Check out the marketing templates in our Template Gallery for topics like "Ad testing," "Discover needs and frustrations," "First impressions," "Mobile app navigation," "Social influencer discovery," and more.
Test plan example
Here's a test plan example that includes questions and tasks you might use when testing your search or SEO strategy:
- Written response: Think about a National Park you would like to visit and enter the name into the text box.
- Written Response: Now, imagine you are looking for information about that National Park. What keywords would you use to search?
- URL Asset: You have been taken to a new site. Move on to the next task when you're there.
- Task: Using the search function, use the keywords you mentioned previously. Stop when you see the search results.
- Rating Scale: On a scale of 1 (inaccurate) to 5 (very accurate), how accurately do the search results reflect your expectations?
- Rating Scale: On a scale of 1 (not likely) to 5 (very likely), how likely are you to select one of these search results?
- Verbal Response: Spend 1-2 minutes explaining how relevant these search results are to the National Park you were looking for.
- Task: Without clicking on anything, show and tell us what you would do if these results were NOT the information you were looking for.
- Task: Now, show us what you would do to explore these search results further.
Best practices
- Use screenshots when running preference tests. This will ensure that views/clicks on paid search ads don't affect the data collected in the backend.
- Pair quantitative A/B tests with qualitative preference tests. If you run tests with high sample sizes, also run qualitative tests to help you understand the 'why' behind interesting trends and patterns you notice.
- Try testing one or a few elements at a time. For instance, run a test on just a section or a webpage title to get more focused results.
- Use a mix of multiple-choice questions and open-ended questions. This will help you learn how each user felt about certain situations in their search.
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Ask questions related to Google's Quality Rater Guidelines. These could be questions like:
- "Would you trust the information presented in this article?"
- "Does the information on the page seem valuable to you compared to other pages in the search results?"
- These can be good questions to include in the verbal tasks of your test plan.
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