Running tests on your blog is essential if you want to discover the best strategies for driving more blog visits, and turn more of those visits into subscribers and bookings.
Fortunately, you can run tests on practically every aspect of your blogging campaign to optimise for clicks and conversions. Here’s a list of things you should get into the habit of testing on your resort’s blog. Remember, what doesn’t work for one blog, might bring great results for you!
Blog Publishing OptimiSation
Here are 2 simple tests to help you strategise your blog publishing activity:
- Frequency
Is more often always better? A simple test should help you pinpoint your frequency sweet spot.
To get started, increase or decrease your publishing frequency for a couple of weeks. Next, compare the number of views you receive for these posts against the views of the new posts you typically publish within the same timeframe. Is there a point at which publishing more blog posts doesn’t actually lead to better results? Continue testing until you have a definitive answer.
- Timing
Is there a pattern between your time and day of posting and the volume of traffic your posts generate? What about the number of days you leave between publishing posts, how does that impact each post’s performance?
To answer these questions, experiment by publishing your blogs at a variety of times. You can then sort your view figures by time of day and day of the week, and analyse to identify any patterns in performance.
Blog Subscriber Email OptimiSation
Do you send notification emails to your guests when you publish a blog? Here are two ways to test and optimise these emails for better results.
- Subject Line
Do your guests tend to click-through more when you use a generic subject line such as “Check out our latest blog post” for your subscriber emails or when you take the title of your latest blog as the subject line?
Test both kinds of subject lines over several weeks, then analyse your results (in terms of click-through rates) to see which type performs best.
- Email Calls-to-Action
Are the CTAs you include in your resort’s blog subscriber emails successfully driving click-throughs or actually distracting your guests from visiting your blog?
Using the same sample size, compare the performance of emails that include calls to action against those that do not. How much referral traffic to your blog do your CTAs drive? And how are they performing in terms of bookings?
Blog CTA OptimiSation
2 tests to optimise the calls-to-action on your blog:
- CTA Offer, Design & Copy
In what way does your choice of layout and copy affect the performance of your calls to action? What about the special offers you are promoting in your resort’s blog posts? Would other offers perform better?
Try running A/B tests with variations in your call to action copy, layout design and offer type to find the formula that works best for you.
- End of Post vs. Slide-in CTAs
Unlike a standard call to action at the end of a blog post, slide-in CTAs slide into the reader’s vision as they scroll down the page. Does adding this type of CTA increase or decrease bookings? Do they perform better than your standard end of post CTAs? Should you include just one or the other or both types within a single post?
Choose a sample of your old blog posts that still drive traffic, and add slide-in CTAs to these posts. After a couple of weeks, you can compare the conversion rate of these edited posts to their performance prior to the addition of the slide-in CTA, to see which type of call to action your guests respond to best.
Do you run tests regularly as part of your property’s blogging campaign? Let us know in the comments below!
RELATED PAGES AND BLOG POSTS:
- 5 Reasons Your Guests Aren’t Engaging With Your Blog
- How To Identify The Blog Topics Your Guests Want The Most
- How Long Is Too Long? Content Length Guidelines For Your Blog, Facebook & More
