Let’s all be honest for a minute here and answer this question: Are we really doing as much testing as we should? Probably not. But as it turns out, getting started is not that difficult. In most cases, you can set up some basic tests in a matter of minutes.
Here’s where to begin:
Split Testing
The idea of split testing is that you can take two different versions of “something,” run them alongside each other simultaneously, gather some data and then check which version is performing better. Next, you can scrap the other version, create a new one and run the test all over again.
The great thing about split testing is that you can test virtually anything. For example:
- headlines,
- sales copy,
- article copy,
- calls to action,
- design,
- button placements,
- color schemes, and many more.
When it comes to the test itself, performing it is not difficult at all. You can start by going to the Content Experiments section in your Google Analytics, creating some tests there, getting a piece of embed code, and placing it on your site with the Google Content Experiments WordPress plugin.
Test HTML Errors
These can actually play a role in your search engine presence (your rankings). If your site has a lot of HTML errors then Google will have a hard time crawling your site and essentially, indexing your content.
You can check for errors with various browser plugins like: HTML Validator for Firefox or Validity for Chrome.
Malware
There are many types of malware that can infect your site. Depending on the security hole used, you might have to deal with: password hijacking, session hijacking, problems caused by using outdated versions of WordPress, outdated plugins, bad .htaccess protection, and more.
Why would you care? Well, Google is very cautious of this kind of things. So if they find any kind of malware in your site, you are out…no rankings at all.
To prevent this, do regular scans with Sucuri and get a couple of security plugins like: AntiVirus and BulletProof Security.
Test Speed
Site speed is yet another ranking factor. Also, fast sites are more user-friendly and provide an overall better experience.
You can perform a site speed test with the Full Page Test tool by Pingdom Tools.
If your site appears slow then there can be three main causes for this: bad web host, slow theme/design, slow plugins.
The most effective method of speeding up your web host is to simply switch to a different company. For themes, it’s quite similar too. For plugins, you can use an analyzer plugin like P3 to determine which plugins are consuming the most of your load time, and then find better alternatives for the slowest plugins on your list.
This post presents just a small, “starter pack,” if you will, but we believe that it can still do a great job at improving the results your affiliate site brings.