Many think that SEO is all about getting discovered by people on search engines. Because of this, they spend all the time and effort on optimizing the website using keywords with the objective of ranking higher among search engine results. But what if I tell you that ranking #1 or #2 in search results will not help you achieve your objectives. It will not guarantee visitors or conversions. The most important thing you have to do is to understand what converts the searchers into readers and ultimately into conversions through improving your website’s organic click-through rate (CTR). Just focusing on Google rankings will not help in improving your organic CTR. But if you focus on improving your organic CTR, it will definitely help to improve your Google rankings. In this article, we’ll be sharing some of the main methods on how to improve your organic click-through rate.
01. Use long-tail keywords
Long-tail keywords are one of the main ways that you can use to improve your organic CTR. Long-tail keywords are very specific and highly targeted. The search volumes of these keywords are comparatively lower, automatically reducing the level of competition. When a user comes across a search result that is very descriptive and highly related to the search query, they are more likely to click the URL.
When finding long-tail keywords try to search using specific details of your niche market. For example, if you are a company that offers digital marketing services, try using keywords like digital marketing company in Melbourne, digital marketing company for start-up businesses, award-winning digital marketing companies, digital marketing companies for small businesses, etc. When you use these types of keywords, especially in places where it is visible to search engine users like title tag and meta description, they will feel confident that your website will offer a solution to their problem.
02. Craft compelling title tags and meta descriptions
Title tag and meta description are the elements that are visible on the search engine results page. Your title tag should be able to give an overall idea of what the page is about. You can use long-tail highly specific keywords in the title tag. The title tag is the first thing a searcher sees in a search engine and it should be able to compel people to click the URL.
Meta description should give a description of the page content. People should feel that your website will answer their problems when they read the meta description. It is important to answer the most common and major questions of your target audience, make it highly relevant and specific and use powerful and compelling language in writing the meta description.
03. Implement structured data
Structured data allows you to show the important details about your business even before people visit your website. You can mark important details about your business on the website such as an address, contact information, opening and closing hours, price range, awards, reviews and ratings, etc. and this information will be visible on the search engine results page. This gives a clear idea of what your business is, what are the products and services you offer, the benefits your customers get and a lot more about you just by having a look at the search results and people are motivated to click the URL and visit your website.
04. Use optimized URLs
The URL of your website is one of the major elements that is shown on the search engine results page and an element that has a major impact on your organic CTR. One method of doing this is to make the URL as descriptive as possible. Try to add your selected keywords to the URL in a meaningful way. Make sure that whoever sees your URL can easily get an idea of the content of your web page. However, it is important to keep in mind that your URL should not be too long. People like to see clean, easily readable, easily understandable URLs. A very long URL makes it harder for the users to read and understand hence causing usability problems and ultimately can lead to a lower CTR.
05. Offer localized content
Did you know that more than 65% of the global website traffic is recorded from mobile devices? Therefore it is important that your content matches the requirements of mobile users. Most of the mobile devices have their location turned on allowing Google and other search engines to provide them more geo-specific and local solutions. One way of localizing your content is to include the location in the title tag, meta description, URL and content. Through this, you can target high-intent customers who are actively looking for the solution that you have to offer. Another thing you can do is to list your business on Google My Business and optimize your account. This allows your website to appear alongside the rest of the competitors when local searches are made.
06. Create posts with images
It is common to use images in your web pages, in web articles. But did you know that having images on your website can positively impact your CTR? Most people go through visual content as well when they are looking for content. Daily pageviews recorded from Google images is more than 1 billion! If you are not utilizing images properly, you are missing out on a very large audience. However, just adding images to your website and articles is not just enough. You have to optimize them for Google. Some of the main ways of doing this are to write clear and specific file names, write alt tags and include keywords in them and compress the images so that it will help you minimize the storage size while maintaining high quality. You can even go beyond and create your own images and watermark them. Yes, it is a lot easier to download stock images. But also they are very common and just like you, anyone can access them. Seeing unique and interesting images motivates people to click on the image which will improve your organic CTR.
07. Optimize site speed
At first glance, you might not see website load speed as a factor that directly affects your organic CTR. Yes, even if your website is not fast, people might click on your URL. But they will definitely quickly bounce off and this will negatively affect your organic CTR. There are many tools that you can use to measure your website loading speed such as Pingdom, PageSpeed Insights and GTmetrix. If your website takes more than 3 seconds to load, conduct a website audit and identify the reasons for the high load time and rectify them.
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08. Use Yoast Preview (in WordPress)
If you are a WordPress user, Yoast is one of the best SEO tools that you can use to improve your organic CTR. Before you publish your website page or your post, it allows you to preview your snippet as it appears on SERP. It is very important to look at things from a customer perspective. Also, Yoast SEO gives recommendations as to how you can improve your title tag, description, URL and content and you can make the changes accordingly.
09. Identify different CTRs of your website
It is very important to know what is working and what is not, so you can make the required changes to your website. Google Analytics is one of the best and easily usable platforms to get this information. Here, under Search Console, you can easily access all the information such as clicks, impressions, CTR, average position on the SERP, bounce rate and conversions. You can check these data for individual landing pages. You can easily identify what works and what doesn’t and make the required changes to improve the web pages.
10. Be creative with your title tag
Since the title tag is the main element Google searchers get to see, it is crucial to have a title tag that can motivate people to click. Adding an emotional component such as love, anger, anticipation and trust can make a dramatic increase in the CTR. Also, it has been proven that adding numbers in the title tag can increase the interest of people and motivate them to click. Using power words such as “secret”, “special”, “premium” and “proven” can also drastically increase the organic CTR.
Organic CTR is a major determinant of the success of your overall digital marketing plan. We have outlined a number of ways to increase your organic CTR in this article. Most of them are very easy to understand and implement. If you need any help in improving your organic CTR, our team at DigiFix is more than happy to help you!
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Hi, we are an Australian digital agency doing groundbreaking work to help a business like yours reach its full potential. My only question is will you qualify for our services?
Do you want more traffic?
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Hi, we are an Australian digital agency doing groundbreaking work to help a business like yours reach its full potential. My only question is will you qualify for our services?