A Beginner's Guide to Configuring A/B Testing Experiments in Google Analytics

When it comes to website optimization, A/B testing is a useful tool that allows you to test two variations of a landing page or website to determine which one performs better. By analyzing the results, you can identify the most effective approach and scale the growth of your website or online business. In this article, we will provide you with a step-by-step guide to configure A/B testing experiments in Google Analytics to help you boost your website's performance.

Step 1: Set Up and Build Landing Page Variants

Before configuring A/B testing experiments in Google Analytics, you must first set up and build your landing page variants. This can be done using any website builder such as WordPress or Wix. In the first two videos of this A/B testing tutorial series, Robby Richards shows how to set up and build landing page variants quickly and efficiently with little to no coding.

Step 2: Avoid Duplicate Content Penalty in Google

To avoid getting flagged by Google for duplicate content, you can set up a canonical URL for your landing pages. This tells Google which version of your landing page is the primary one. This was covered in the second video of this A/B testing tutorial series.

Step 3: Configure the Google Analytics A/B Testing Experiment

Once your landing page variants are ready, you can then move on to configure the Google Analytics A/B testing experiment by following the steps outlined below:

Step 3.1: Login to Google Analytics and Head to the Behavior Report

To start the process of configuring your A/B testing experiment, log in to Google Analytics and navigate to the Behavior Report.

Step 3.2: Scroll Down to "Experiments" and Create a New Experiment

Scroll down the Behavior Report until you see "Experiments." To create a new experiment, select this option.

Step 3.3: Title Your Experiment and Set Your Objective

Title your experiment using a name that will help you distinguish it from others. Next, set your objective for the experiment. You can either create a new one or select a predefined goal.

Step 3.4: Set the Traffic Distribution, Confidence Interval, and Duration

Set the percentage of traffic you want to send to this A/B test experiment, the confidence interval, and the duration. Once these are set, click "Next."

Step 3.5: Copy and Paste the URLs of Your A/B Test Variants

In this step, you need to copy and paste the URLs of your A/B test variants. You can add as many variations as you like.

Step 3.6: Set Up Your Experiment Code

Set up your experiment code using a free plugin called Header and Footer Scripts. This plugin allows you to insert the code without touching it manually.

Step 3.7: Validate Your Code and Start the Experiment

Validate your code and start the experiment. Once started, you can monitor the variations' performance based on the Google Analytics goals you have set.

Conclusion

A/B testing is a valuable strategy for optimizing your website's performance and growing your online business. By following this guide's steps, you can configure a Google Analytics A/B testing experiment and test the effectiveness of your landing page variants. Remember to continually tweak, optimize, and scale your website's approach to ensure continued success.