CTR – an abbreviation for the term click through rate – is an important key metric when you want to calculate you campaign result.
Essentially, you can find this abbreviation everywhere on the internet. You will find that it’s a metric that allows you to see how many people have clicked on your link in relation to the number of people that have seen your link.
The better your CTR, the higher you’ll rank.
Therefore, learning tips on why you should increase your CTR on Google is something you want to pay attention to, bookmark and come back to when you need.
In this article, I’ll explain to you some very simple tips that you can implement in order to get a better CTR and thus, a better rank.
Put your Principal Keywords in your Titles
How do search engines work?
They look for principal places first. This means that they check from the uppermost to the deepest place, from the titles to the text they contain. Needless to say, the best place to put your keyword is in your titles; and – whenever possible – in the beginning of them.
Google continually attempts to make their algorithm behave like a real human. It’s proven that people read almost only the title of an article and most of them skim the content of each subtitle.
When Google’s bot crawls your website, it first analyses the name of your page, then the title inside and only at the end your content. Of course, every part of this should be linked together. If your page name is about “cat” then your titles are about “how to fish” and in your content, you explain what you ate yesterday; then there isn’t a lot of chance that the algorithm understands what’s your page about.
Next, we’ll explore how to write your content to get the best CTR with this technique.
Your Content should be Written with a Certain Technique
SEO functions with keywords.
- Create a post with a keyword in mind. (Fish)
- Use this keyword with synonyms and related words in your article. (sea – boat – water – tuna – …)
- Search engines will then pick up that your post is about that keyword.
- User types this keyword (or something similar).
- Your content comes up (ideally on the first page).
A perfect example of seeing how this works is by looking at your own search habits, i.e. what keywords you would enter when looking for something, and how you choose your results.
Apart from a keyword rich title, if you want to increase your CTR, you also need to know how to craft an attractive title.
An Attractive Title in Link with your Content
Writing your title in an attractive way for search engines (with right keywords) is the first step to be ranked in the first page of the search engine. Your secondary aim would be to have people click on you link to get more traffic and maybe generate a call to action (sale, subscription to a newsletter, contact you, etc.).
This point is very important because you have to be distinguished from other competitors.
There are some rules to respect:
- Don’t write in capital letters;
- Don’t use strange characters (¨, ???, !!!, ~, }, ]);
- According to moz research, your optimal title length is between 50 and 60 characters;
- Make your title attractive for people;
- Don’t attack people, write with a polite tone of voice;
This is a perfect example of a bad title: we don’t see the subject, too many characters, and it is not very attractive…
Keep in mind that you write for real people. So put yourself in their shoes, and think about which links you prefer to click and which you don’t.
The Meta description is your very short Introduction
The meta tag is the description you will see just below the title in your search engine.
What should it contain?
This is a longer description of your title. Once again, use synonyms or words from the same topic of your principal keyword. You will get a better rank and visitors will directly know what your article is talking about.
The meta description can be added and edited on your WordPress if you are using an SEO plugin such as YOAST or the All- In-One SEO tool.
According to Google, meta description is not a ranking signal. Regardless, the quality of your meta description will influence your CTR rate.
With regards to the length of the meta description, write between 135 and 160 characters. Not more.
Here is a good meta description
Here is a bad meta description
Branded Keywords Get More CTRs
This may be both a curse and a blessing for you, depending on your strategy.
Branded keywords often get a very high click through rate. A perfect example would be the “ANCHOVY” keywords which get a massive 68% CTR.
This is obviously good for us, and it can also be good for you if you have a brand that people are searching for, but this is where the curse might hit you:
You are not getting new people.
Obviously, whoever is looking for your branded keywords already knows about your company, so while you are getting a high CTR, you are not gaining new customers, even though you have an SEO strategy for that place.
Again, this might be a blessing or a curse, it’s just how you look at it.
Write a Proper URL
When talking about proper URL, it means that when you read your URL you can directly see what your article is talking about.
Here are two different kinds of URL:
This one is good
This one is not good
A High CTR get you a Better Ranking Factor?
Now that we’ve gone through shared some of the best methods of how to increase your CTR on your organic SEO strategies, I also want to share with you a little organic SEO secret which explains why a higher CTR is important.
As I said at the beginning, “The better is your CTR, the higher you’ll rank”. Let me explain why.
A higher CTR will indicate to search engines that your post is grabbing the attention of its users (either by an attractive meta or attractive title), and as a result, the search engines will rank the pages with a high CTR higher in the listing pages. However, don’t forget to provide your visitors with the content that they expect to find by reading your title and meta description. A high bounce rate indicates to the search engine that your content didn’t convince them.
You can measure and see your CTR (and improvements) inside your Google Webmaster Tools Console.
In Closing
Here were my best tips to increase your CTR on your organic SEO. It is very simple and I think that everyone who has a website should do this to get better ranking.
Bear in mind that an honest and data driven SEO strategy takes time, while if you manage it well you’ll see a great result after a couple of months.
If you have any questions, be sure to let me know. I’d be happy to answer you.
About the Author: Antoine Rouvroy is an SEO & digital marketing junior executive at ANCHOVY, a digital marketing agency based in Malta & Dubai, UAE.