Many WordPress users can\u2019t figure out how to run A\/B tests on WordPress, though. Or, they can\u2019t afford the premium tools that make A\/B tests easy.<\/p>\n
To help solve the problem, I\u2019m going to show you how to run Google Analytics Content Experiments on WordPress for an easy, and free, way to split test your WordPress site.
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What Are Google Analytics Content Experiments?<\/h2>\n
While I said A\/B testing above, Google Analytics Content Experiments is technically an A\/B\/<\/strong>N<\/em><\/strong> testing tool. That means you can test up to 10<\/strong> different versions of a single page to see which performs better.<\/p>\n Unlike some testing tools where the page URL stays the same, but an element or two is dynamically switched, Content Experiments works by serving completely different pages<\/strong> to different samples of users. You can, of course, still test specific variables by serving up an almost perfect clone of a page, just with an element or two changed.<\/em><\/p>\n What\u2019s neat about Content Experiments is that you create them through the Google Analytics interface, which means you can view data for them in the full context of all of your other Google Analytics data.<\/p>\n Running Content Experiments requires two things:<\/p>\n Here\u2019s how to do it…<\/p>\n In this guide, I\u2019ll show you how to manually set up Google Analytics Content Experiments to work with WordPress.<\/p>\n I\u2019m going to assume you already have the basic Google Analytics tracking code installed in WordPress. But if you don\u2019t use Google Analytics already, you\u2019ll need to set that up before beginning.<\/em><\/p>\n The first thing that you need to do is create a variant of the page that you want to test. For example, if you want to test the CTA button on your WordPress site\u2019s homepage, create a duplicate of your homepage and make the change to your button.<\/p>\n For my example,<\/p>\n To create a new Content Experiment, go to your Google Analytics account and navigate to Behavior \u2192 Experiments.<\/strong><\/p>\n Then, click Create experiment<\/strong>:<\/p>\n On the next screen, you\u2019ll need to fill in some basic information:<\/p>\n Click Next Step<\/strong> when you\u2019re done.<\/p>\n On the next screen, you need to enter the original page for your test, as well as the variant page(s) you want to test against.<\/p>\n Remember – you can add up to 10 variants:<\/p>\n Click Next Step <\/strong>once you\u2019ve added all of your variants.<\/p>\n On the next screen, choose Manually insert the code<\/strong> to get your experiment code:<\/p>\n And then you should see your code snippet:<\/p>\n Leave this page open because you\u2019ll need to come back to it<\/strong>.<\/p>\n But for now, you need to hop over to your WordPress site and add the Content Experiments code.<\/p>\n To easily add the Content Experiments code to WordPress, I recommend using the free Code Snippets plugin<\/a> because it makes it easy to keep track of the code for multiple Content Experiments.<\/p>\n Once you\u2019ve installed and activated the Code Snippets plugin, go to Snippets \u2192 Add New<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, you can\u2019t just paste in the Content Experiments code because then WordPress would add the code to every single page, which you don\u2019t want<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Instead, you need to properly register the function and <\/strong>wrap the code in a PHP If statement to ensure that it only fires on the original page of your Content Experiment.<\/p>\n For my example, here\u2019s how that would look (don\u2019t worry – I\u2019ll give you templates for this code<\/em>):<\/p>\n In this script, If you\u2019re running Content Experiments on a subpage, you\u2019ll want to use Here are some templates for both:<\/p>\n To run a content experiment on the front-page, use this code:<\/p>\n To run a Content Experiment on a subpage, use this code and replace the example post ID with the actual post ID of your original page.<\/p>\n You can find the Post ID by looking at the URL while editing any post, page, or custom post type:<\/p>\n Once you add your code, scroll down and choose Only run on site front-end <\/strong>and then Save Changes and Activate<\/strong>:<\/p>\n Now, head back to Google Analytics and click Save Changes<\/strong>:<\/p>\n Google will verify that your code is properly installed. Then, just click Start Experiment to <\/strong>begin the experiment:<\/p>\n And that\u2019s it! Your test is live. You can monitor your Experiment from your Google Analytics account.<\/p>\n Once Google finds the version that performs best for your specific objective, it will let you know:<\/p>\n Now all you need to do is wait.<\/p>\n While it\u2019s fairly easy to set up Google Analytics Content Experiments on WordPress, you should make sure to follow a few best practices to ensure your site still operates smoothly:<\/p>\n While there are some Google Content Experiments plugins for WordPress, most are either:<\/p>\nHow Do You Run Content Experiments?<\/h3>\n
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How to Run Google Analytics Content Experiments on WordPress<\/h2>\n
Step 1: Create a Page Variant to Test<\/h3>\n
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Step 2: Create a Content Experiment in Google Analytics<\/h3>\n
![\"google](\"https:\/\/createandcode.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/google-analytics-content-experiments-wordpress-1.png\")
<\/p>\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/createandcode.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/google-analytics-content-experiments-wordpress-2-4.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/createandcode.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/google-analytics-content-experiments-wordpress-3-3.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/createandcode.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/google-analytics-content-experiments-wordpress-4-3.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/createandcode.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/google-analytics-content-experiments-wordpress-5-3.png\")
<\/p>\nStep 3: Add Content Experiments Code to WordPress<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/createandcode.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/google-analytics-content-experiments-wordpress-6-3.png\")
<\/p>\nis_front_page()<\/code> tells WordPress to only<\/strong> run the Content Experiments code on the front-page.<\/p>\nis_single(POST_ID)<\/code> instead.<\/p>\n\/**\r\n* Add GA Content Experiments Scripts Here\r\n*\/\r\nfunction content_experiments_head_script() {\r\nif(is_front_page()) { ?>\r\n\r\nREPLACE WITH YOUR OWN CODE\r\n;\r\n\n\/**\r\n* Add GA Content Experiments Scripts Here\r\n*\/\r\nfunction content_experiments_head_script() {\r\nif(is_single(73790)) { ?><\/pre>\n\r\nREPLACE WITH YOUR OWN CODE\r\n\r\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/createandcode.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/google-analytics-content-experiments-wordpress-7-3.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/createandcode.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/google-analytics-content-experiments-wordpress-8-3.png\")
<\/p>\nStep 4: Verify Content Experiments Code and Start Experiment<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/createandcode.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/google-analytics-content-experiments-wordpress-9-3.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/createandcode.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/google-analytics-content-experiments-wordpress-10-3.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/createandcode.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/google-analytics-content-experiments-wordpress-11-3.png\")
<\/p>\nBest Practices for Running Content Experiments<\/h2>\n
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Wrapping Things Up<\/h2>\n
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