What Should You A/B Test First?

Every "what to A/B test" article gives you the same list: your headline, your CTA button, your hero image, your form fields.

That is like a doctor saying "eat healthy and exercise." Technically correct, completely unhelpful.

The real question is not what to test. It is how to find what is specifically wrong with YOUR site. And the fastest way to find that is to look at what your competitors are doing differently.

This article gives you a four-step framework for turning competitor research into specific, evidence-based test ideas. No generic checklists. No "test your button color" advice.

Why Generic Test Ideas Fail

"Test your button color" is the most cited A/B testing advice on the internet. It is also the lowest-impact test you can run. Color changes rarely move conversion rates in any meaningful way.

Generic advice ignores context. Your industry, your audience, your specific conversion bottleneck, and your current baseline all determine what will actually move the needle.

The highest-impact tests come from spotting gaps between your site and what works in your category. If every competitor in your space leads with outcome-focused headlines and you lead with feature descriptions, that gap is a signal worth testing.

You need data, not a checklist. You need to understand your competitive landscape before you decide what to change.

The framework: instead of starting with a generic list, start with research. Look at what is working for others in your market. Identify where you diverge. Test the divergence.

The Research-First Framework

Four steps. Each one builds on the last. By the end, you will have a prioritized list of test ideas grounded in real competitive data, not guesswork.

Step 1: Identify Your Underperforming Page

Open Google Analytics (or whatever analytics tool you use). Navigate to your top pages by traffic. Look for pages with high traffic and below-average conversion rate. Those are your testing targets.

Do not guess. Let the data point you to the problem. A page with 10,000 monthly visitors and a 1.2% conversion rate when your site average is 2.5% is screaming for attention.

If you do not have analytics set up, start with your homepage or your highest-traffic landing page. Those pages affect the most visitors.

Step 2: Analyze 5 to 10 Competitors

Look at competitors in your space. Not just direct competitors, but anyone competing for the same customer's attention and budget. For the same type of page (homepage, product page, pricing page), analyze each competitor and note:

• Hero headline approach: Do they lead with outcomes, features, or questions?
• CTA copy and placement: What do their buttons say? Where are they positioned?
• Social proof type and location: Reviews, logos, testimonials? Above or below the fold?
• Page structure and content order: What comes first, second, third?
• Trust signals used: Guarantees, security badges, certifications?

You are looking for patterns, not copying any single competitor. If 8 out of 10 competitors do something differently from you, that is a signal.

With Grona, you can ask the AI to analyze competitor pages through chat and get structured comparisons in minutes. But you can also do this manually with a spreadsheet. The method matters more than the tool.

Step 3: Spot the Gaps

Compare your page against the competitor patterns you documented. Where do you diverge from the category norm?

Common gaps that surface:

• Your headline focuses on features while competitors focus on outcomes
• Your social proof is buried below the fold while competitors put it in the hero section
• Competitors offer guest checkout; you force account creation
• Competitors show pricing transparently; yours requires a "Contact Sales" form
• Competitors use specific, value-loaded CTAs; yours says "Learn More"

Each gap is a test hypothesis: "If I change [element] from [current approach] to [competitor pattern], conversion will improve because [the pattern suggests this is what our shared audience responds to]."

Not every gap is worth testing. Some are intentional brand choices. But gaps you cannot explain are gaps worth investigating.

Step 4: Prioritize by Impact and Effort

Not all tests are equal. You want to start with the test most likely to produce a measurable result in the least amount of time. Rank your test ideas by three dimensions:

• Traffic on the page: Higher traffic means faster statistical significance. A test on a page with 500 monthly visitors will take months. A test on a page with 50,000 visitors will resolve in days.
• Size of the gap: A big difference from competitor patterns suggests a bigger potential lift. If every competitor puts social proof above the fold and yours is on page 3, that is a large gap.
• Ease of implementation: A headline change takes minutes. A checkout redesign takes weeks. Start with what you can ship today.

A useful scoring model: ICE (Impact x Confidence x Ease, each rated 1 to 10). Multiply the three scores. Test the highest-scoring idea first.

Start with the high-traffic, big-gap, easy-to-implement tests. Save the complex ones for when you have momentum.

5 High-Impact Test Patterns from Real Data

These are not guesses. Each pattern comes from documented tests with specific, measurable results.

Putting It Together

You now have an underperforming page, competitor intelligence, identified gaps, and a prioritized list of test ideas. Here is your next step.

Pick the number one test from your prioritized list. Write a clear hypothesis: "Changing [element] from [current] to [variation] will improve [metric] because [reason from research]."

Implement it. Test it. Measure it. Learn from it. Repeat.

The first test is the hardest. Not because it is complex, but because it requires you to move from planning to doing. After that first test, you will have data, momentum, and a growing understanding of what your audience responds to.

If you want to go from hypothesis to live test in one afternoon, Grona lets you describe changes in chat, preview them on your actual site, and launch with one click.

Most teams that start testing never stop. Once you see a 15% lift from a headline change you made in an afternoon, the ROI of testing becomes impossible to ignore.

The best test idea is not on a generic checklist. It is hiding in the gap between your site and what works in your market.

Find Your First High-Impact Test

The best test idea is not on a checklist. It is hiding in your competitor's website. You now have the framework. The next step is to run the research and launch your first test.