Back in 2013, Paul Ryazanov had the opportunity to sit down with Search Engine Journal at PubCon Las Vegas to discuss one of my favourite topics: how A/B testing can help business owners make smarter decisions with limited marketing budgets.
At the time, I was working with Promodo and helping ecommerce businesses understand that you don’t need a massive budget to improve your website’s performance. You just need to test the right things.
Why A/B Testing Matters for Ecommerce
Too many store owners throw money at ads without ever looking at what happens when someone actually lands on their site. A/B testing flips that approach. Instead of spending more, you learn more — and then you spend better.
The core idea is simple: compare two versions of a page element, see which one performs, and let the data guide your next move. No guessing. No gut feelings. Just measurable improvement.
What I Recommended Testing First
During the interview, I shared the elements I’ve consistently seen move the needle for ecommerce stores:
Headlines and headers. Your headline is the first thing visitors read. Testing different messaging here can dramatically change how people perceive your offer. It’s not about being clever — it’s about being clear.
Forms. Shorter forms almost always convert better. Every extra field you ask a visitor to fill in creates friction. Test the number of fields, the placement, and even the labels.
Call-to-action buttons. Colour, size, placement, and wording all matter. Something as simple as changing a button from “Submit” to “Get My Quote” can increase conversions significantly.
Images. Swapping one product image for another can shift conversion rates more than most people expect. The only way to know which image works best is to test it.
Tools That Make It Accessible
For business owners working with slim budgets, I recommended tools like Optimizely, which provides a simple JavaScript snippet you embed on your site — and it handles all the measuring for you. No developer required for basic tests.
I also recommended Yandex Metrica for heat mapping. It’s free, and it shows you exactly how users behave when they land on your pages. You can see where they click, how far they scroll, and where they drop off. From that data, you can make much stronger assumptions about what to test next.
The Bigger Picture
What I’ve learned over the years — and this still holds true today — is that conversion rate optimisation is the highest-leverage activity most ecommerce businesses ignore. You can double your ad spend, or you can double your conversion rate. The second option costs a fraction of the first.
This interview was one of many conversations I’ve had at industry events like PubCon about making ecommerce more data-driven and less guesswork-driven. If you’re interested in the full conversation, you can watch the full video interview on Search Engine Journal.
Since then, I’ve continued speaking at conferences and on podcasts about conversion optimisation, user behaviour tracking, and practical growth strategies for ecommerce businesses. You can see more of my speaking engagements on my Speaker page.
300% Conversion Increase with Iterative Testing — My Conversation with Alex Harris — a practical deep dive into how iterative testing delivers dramatic conversion improvements, building on the A/B testing principles from this SEJ interview.
Conference Speaking: From PubCon Las Vegas to Building a Global Ecommerce Practice — the broader story of how presenting at PubCon and other conferences shaped my approach to ecommerce consulting.