In our articles, we’ve stressed on how important SEO is for your website.
Do you want organic traffic without paying a single cent? SEO. Do you want higher conversions on your website? SEO. You want to ensure your visit is getting the best user experience they can get on your website? SEO.
So it’s kind of an understatement when we say that SEO is really important for your website. But today, we’re going to talk about something you need to pay attention to after SEO, which is CTR. In this article, we’re going to go over the 5 best ways for you to improve CTR in Google Search.
What Is CTR? Is It Really That Important?
What is CTR indeed. For the uninitiated, CTR may seem like one of those fancy acronyms thrown around by SEO experts and webmasters without anything being explained about them.
Don’t worry. Because today, I’m going to explain to you what CTR is.
CTR stands for Click Through Rate.
What is a Click Through Rate? It’s a metric that shows how much your link/button/url is getting clicked on by your visitors.
CTR equals to clicks/impressions. For example, if you had 100 impressions and 50 clicks, that means you have a CTR of 50%.
In making a successful website, CTR is a very important metric for you to pay attention to.
Because what use is a website that ranks #1 on Google search if no one is clicking on it?
That’s why CTR is important.
How To Improve CTR
Now that we know the definition of CTR, and why it’s important, let’s have a look at how to improve CTR in Google search.
But first before we go over what is an acceptable CTR.
An acceptable CTR actually depends on where the CTR happens.
What does that mean? It means that the average CTR varies wildly from one place to another.
Here’s an example; according to Hubspot, the average CTR for a search ad is 1.91% and 0.35% for a display ad.
This shows that for CTR, there is no one magic number that you should reach. Even the average CTR is dependent on many factors.
But what about for Google search? What is the average CTR there?
Now for Google Search, it depends on where you rank on Google Search.
Here’s an infographic from Backlinko to illustrate what I mean by this.
As you can see from this infographic, the average CTR varies according to your position on Google Search.
From the infographic, you can see that the higher you are in Google search, the higher your average CTR should be.
So you can use this as a guideline for your CTR. If one of your keywords is in the first position in Google search, but your CTR is lower than the average, then you should worry.
5 Best Ways To Improve CTR
Now that we’ve covered all the basics about CTR, let’s look at how you can improve your CTR. We’ve done a lot of research and testing, and here’s the 5 best ways for you to improve your CTR.
#1 Write Great Headlines
When someone searches for something on Google, your headline will be the first thing they see.
Step number one is very simple, you just have to write great headlines.
On the SERPs, (Search engine result page) one of the first things they will see is the headline of your website. So in order to maximize your CTR, you will have to write great headlines.
But what is a great headline?
Simple. A great headline is supposed to do two things; Grab Attention and Introduce The Problem.
A great headline that manages to take these two things and incorporate it in their headline will be compelling, and a compelling headlines will attract clicks.
One easy way for you to craft great headlines is by looking at other viral headlines. From there, you can deduce the formula they use and use it for yourself!
For this, you can use BuzzSumo.
Just insert your keyword in the space given, and they will pull up all the high-performing content for your keyword.
Here’s an example;
As you can see, Buzz Sumo will pull high performing content that you can use as a formula for you to craft headlines with.
Here, you can see that there are many headlines you can use for your content.
You can see that all the headlines in this example incorporates the two important factors in their headlines.
They are attention grabbing, and they introduces the problem.
So what you can do is take these headlines, and craft a formula from them that you can use for your next content.
But be careful not to copy those headlines word-from-word. Google doesn’t take too kindly to copied content, or you might be penalized.
#2 Make Use Of Your Meta Descriptions
Meta descriptions plays a very important role in improving your CTR
For the second step, we’re going back to the SERP. Under the headline of the search result, you can see a short description of the article. This is what we call a meta description.
If you ask SEO experts, they will say that the meta description is just another way for you to optimize your website’s SEO.
But actually, the meta description plays a more important role than that.
The meta description, just like the headlines, can help skyrocket your CTR. When your page is high up the rankings on Google, a good well-written meta description can drive visitors to click on your page.
With that being said, how do you write good meta descriptions?
Much like a good headline, a good meta descriptions includes two factors;
- Answer To The Question
- Relevant To The Topic
A meta description must always consist of these two factors. Here’s an example of a good meta description from Search Engine Watch.
Here’s a good example of a meta description. As you can see, this meta description contains both of the factors that make a meta description good.
As you can see, the meta description provides a sneak peek of what you can expect from the content. This provides the visitors with a bit of context on what they can expect from this article.
#3 Use Descriptive URLs
A descriptive URLs is one of the best way to increase your CTR.
Here’s one of the easiest ways you can increase your CTR, write descriptive URLs.
A descriptive URL is a great way to help the user know what they can expect from the content you’re offering.
What you can do is, use your headline as your URL.
If you followed this guide, your headline is both descriptive and attention grabbing so you can use that as your URL.
But what if you don’t know how to change your URL? Well changing your URL is simple.
If you’re using WordPress, then all you have to do is scroll over to the top, right below your title.
You will see an option for you to edit your permalink there.
Your permalink and your URL is one and the same. Try making a descriptive URL so you can entice the reader to clicking on it.
Simple, but effective. You shouldn’t underestimate just how effective a good descriptive URL is in improving your CTR.
#4 Make Listicle Content
Listicles are what they name says, articles in the forms of lists.
Thanks to popular content from publishers like Buzzfeed, Huffington Post, and Cracked, listicles are booming, and can be found in almost every major publications.
Some might think that a listicle might just seem like another creative way to put content on your website, the truth is that it’s much more than that.
Listicles are proven to help improve CTR in Google Search, and even organic traffic. In the modern era, where everything needs to be bite sized or snackable, even information, listicles allows the readers to get to the meat of the article without any fuss.
Take a list called “5 reasons your website is not doing well” for example. When a reader sees the title of the listicle, they already know what to expect. In this listicle, they will find 5 reasons their website is not doing well.
And the audience likes that. For that reason, listicles are very popular and one of the best ways we can improve our CTR.
#5 Test Everything Out
Last but not least, test everything out. As crude as it may seem, there is no better way to find out what works to improve your CTR in Google search until you test everything out.
Make multiple styles of headlines for your content, craft different versions of meta descriptions, URLs, everything.
If you test out everything, you’re bound to find at least one way that works.
And when you find something that works, stick to it until it doesn’t work anymore.
Then you switch up your style and find some new way that it’ll work.
Simple, but it works.
Conclusion
CTR is a very important metric for you to track on your website. After all, what use is a high ranking page on Google if no one’s clicking on it? So, try out our tips and tell us how it goes!
