A/B testing or Split testing is one of the simple ways through which you can compare the two versions of the web page to see which page performs in a better manner. A/B testing can help you come up with an effective marketing strategy by helping you choose the right web design and elements for the promotion of your goods and services

Though A/B testing comes with several easy-to-use tools, it is usually seen that there are many testing blunders which are time and again committed by both experts as well as novices. Here is a list of the most common A/B blunders which are regularly committed and need to be avoided in order to get a real picture of the performance of your professional web design:

Conducting Before and After Tests

One of the most common blunders is running the ‘Before and After Tests’ even though you are warned against it. Whenever you conduct a ‘before and after test’ you measure conversions on your site for a period of time. Usually it is thought that by conducting before and after tests, you test the two or more versions of the web page – whereas in reality you end up testing different versions for different periods of time. This gives you a distorted picture of conversion rates which hurts your marketing strategy.

Not Running the Tests for Full Weeks

It is recommended that you run the A/B test for at least 7 days and until there is 95% or higher likelihood of getting a winning version. Apart from this you can also conducting tests until there are 100 conversions. Whenever these guidelines are followed, you are sure to get accurate results. But many times, it is seen that even experts miss out on this rule and run the test for hardly 3 days thereby getting faulty results.

Anticipating Small Changes will get you Big Results

It is usually seen that even with small changes like – headline changes or adding one line of copy to a page – webmasters expect great results. Thus it is recommended that only radical changes are tested in order to know how the conversions on your websites are impacted.

Running too Many Tests

There are instances when website designers conduct more than 15 tests all at one time. While one expects that more tests will bring greater conversion rates, the reality is that every test decreases conversions and thereby decreases the revenue.  Rather it is recommended that you gather enough data, analyze the results and then conduct educated tests based on the data which you have collected. This way you will not burn through several tests which may always not benefit you.

Not Testing Every Change you make

There are many website designers who think that making changes in the homepage or rearranging picture on their site will not affect the conversions. But the fact remains that in fact there are fair chances that even minor changes might affect the conversions on the site. Therefore it is very important that you conduct test on each and every change which you make on your website.

These are some of the most common A/B Testing blunders which need to be avoided in order to make real progress in optimizing your website and getting better conversions.