Content marketing has been a booming field in the past couple of years and will continue to grow for a long time. However, it is essential to be relevant and strike the right chord with the audience.

There is one proven way to crush your competition online, establish trust with your target audience, and rank well in search engines. That is through continual split testing of your content.

Through split testing, you can repeatedly deliver a targeted message and find out what content resonates well with your target group. In the same vein, you also need to look at efficacy as well as assess the want and needs of your customers.  

Here are some of the proven ways to optimize your content marketing with split testing. 

Split test your headlines

As per a study, 8 out of 10 people read the headline copy, but only 2 out of 10 read the rest of the content. Your headline is powerful and determines the effectiveness of the entire piece.

Simultaneously, you need to find out your audience’s response to your content beyond the headline. You want to know whether they are commenting on your content or whether your comment is getting more shares.

If you are using a scroll mapping tool, does it show that your viewers reach the bottom of your page while scrolling? All these things have to be taken into consideration besides the headline.

The best headlines focus on getting more than just clicks. It helps the content to rank and also puts the reader in the right mood. It makes the readers know what to expect from your content.

If your content is funny, your headline should be able to put the readers in that mood. 

For those websites with fewer visitors, it is enough to test one or two different headlines. A simple A/B or A/B/C test will help you understand your customers.

But for a bigger site with lots of visitors in a month, you can test multiple headlines.

Split test the length of content

 As per a study that analyzed 1 million Google search results, the average length for websites that rank on top of Google’s search results is 1,890 words. But of course, the ideal length of any content piece depends on the different specifics of that content. 

Each site is different, and the audiences vary as well. The only way to discover the length of content your audience best responds to is to split test it.

To do that, create two different versions of your content. For a more accurate result, repeat the test with several content pieces. You can test different content lengths every time till you find the sweet spot.

While split testing your content length, you can always split test the length of videos and infographics.

Also, consider taking the help of SEO experts to create optimized content that ranks.  

Split test images

Images in content illustrate points and break up long pieces of content, making it more attractive and easier to read. But all images are not created equal.

Images irrelevant to your content can perplex and distract readers, and stock images can decrease conversion.

For instance, when Visual Website Optimizer replaced a stock image with a real image, their conversion rate increased by over 45%.

Source

While testing your images, consider testing:

• Images you have clicked yourself vs. images that are found online.
• Images with people vs. images with no people.
• Diagrams vs. images.
• Photos vs. illustrations.

1.   Split test Calls to action (CTAs)

Your readers should know what to do next after they read the content. Note that CTAs used in the content are not the same as those used on a service page.

The CTA button on content asks readers to usually Comment, Share, Learn more, Visit a service page, Subscribe to your email list, download an eBook, or Query about a product or service.

Source

The nature of the call to action will be determined by your content’s subject matter and your goals. To find out which words you should use, conduct a split test.

2.   Positioning of suggested posts

You want excellent quality content on your page that can lure readers into reading more. One way to make your content more interesting is to link it to other content, as shown in the example below.

Source

The way you position these links can impact their effectiveness. In order to increase your effectiveness, you will have to test them. You can test the ideal number of links to include, the type of links, and the right place to add those links in your copy.

3.   Split test content depth

Some customers like to read high-level information to get a general idea of a topic, while others want in-depth content that explains everything about the topic. You want to find out in which category do your target customers fall.

You can create two pieces of content to test the content depth. One piece of content should be considerably longer than the other and offer more profound insight.

Content depth can impact SEO, conversion rate, and time spent on a page.

And that’s where split testing comes into the picture. A split test will let you find the perfect balance between the two. This is not only for informational content, but it can actually have a considerable impact on landing pages as well.

When Crazy Egg ran an A/B test on their landing page to determine whether a long- or short-form page would work better, they found out that the more extended page performed 30% better.