Hi guys,

I wanted to cover something that seems like a rampant problem: changing too many things at once!

Rule: One Change at a Time.

When taking on a new client, I always apply that rule. Unless of course, there’s some emergencies to handle on the site.

I use this method whether it’s for PPC optimization, onsite SEO, design, content, etc.

This rule is especially valid if you have successful actions, good traffic to certain pages and so on. But often times, the clients are in a rush to change things around! I then have to calm them down and reassure them that we will be working on testing the site to improve its performance. It’s not the clients fault. He doesn’t know that sometimes little changes to the site can improve conversion and performance.

And this is no justification for moving slow. Moving fast with a plan is different than being in a hurry and unintentionally breaking things that were at least somewhat successful.

Main Reasons for “One Change at a Time” in Testing a Website

There are several reasons but I just wanted to highlight the ones I think are more important:

  • Understanding. By making one change at a time on a page or section of the site or even the whole site, you start to understand better what is going on. Testing is about getting more understanding and if you starting testing too many things at the same time, you may loose track or have false analyses, then finding the wrong whys and implementing the wrong actions. Testing is still creative but here we are focusing on analytical observation. What is actually happening on the site. If we did just that in testing, we would get somewhere. When you find out something that’s actually happening on your site, just one, you have a better understanding.
  • Finding Correct Whys. Once you get that understanding or that reason why something is happening on your website, then you can act with much more certainty. Find that understanding and then implement the changes based on what you just discovered. And if done right, you should start to see your conversion going up.
  • Pinpointing Faster the Elements in Need of Change. Though you may say, “yes but testing takes time!” And indeed it does. But at the end of the month, we usually save time and money! It almost feels reverse. “Yes but you could make that change right now!” And yes, when obvious I will make the change right away of course. But here I’m referring to things that we are testing because we are not sure of what would work best or that we are simply supposing.

Test one thing at one time for a certain amount of time = Save Time!

How long you test for and what to test first are great questions but here I just wanted to emphasize one aspect of optimization.

Hope this help you think with what we are doing on the site.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

🙂
Patrick