Search engines are amongst the most important traffic sources for websites. Marketers need to optimize organic click-through rate (CTR) beyond just focusing on their traffic optimization tactics.
Achieving high traffic on SERPs doesn't help if nobody clicks on the content. Under such circumstances, search rank becomes just a vanity metric, and hence marketers need to optimize the organic click-through rate.
CTR and search rankings are intertwined. Clicks are an important criterion on Google's relevancy radar and if you do everything right and yet fail to create enough clicks on your content, Google will demote your rankings.
If you work to optimize organic click-through rate, this is also a great way to improve your search rankings.
According to a piece of research data published by Moz, improving the Click-Through Rate by 3 percent improves the rankings on SERPs by one spot.
Moz also rates the method of click through rate optimization as an effective way to increase traffic without creating new content.
Ways to Optimize Organic Click-through Rate for your Website
The one question that bothers every marketer is: How can they work towards the organic click through rate optimization of their websites?
The following are the 7 powerful tips to optimize organic click-through ate of your website:
1. Check your CTR Status Quo
Checking their current CTR should be the top priority of the marketers before they aim at making the situation any better.
Before you take targeted action to improve your organic click-through rate (CTR), you should use several analytical tools to measure and assess the performance of your campaigns.
Before you can optimize the performance of your ongoing campaigns, you should measure the CTR of the ongoing ones and figure out the opportunities to optimize the campaigns.
If you make changes in your ongoing campaigns you can measure the impact of the changes on a quarterly, half-yearly, and annual basis and figure out the scopes for further improvement.
You can compare the data using the Google search console as well. You can look for the section "Search Analytics" to figure out the data and can then compare the initial and the final data points.
2. Write Catchy Titles and Meta-Titles
The page title is the most important part of the search results. Marketers should concentrate on making the title and meta-titles of their blog posts and other pieces of content including product and service descriptions as effective and eye-catching as possible.
This can be done by implying the following methods:
- Test Different Headline Formats
The first step of creating great headlines is to keep your options open. You can try different alternatives and figure out which format is the best fit for your post. The quality of blog posts can be considerably improved by testing different formats of a headline before deciding the final one.
- Focus on Evoking Emotions
Along with keyword centricity, your headlines should also contain words that evoke emotions in the minds of the target audience groups and cause them to click on a particular post.
- Employ Listicles
Listicles provide information in a perfectly digestible format. Creating list posts, especially those involving even numbers such as Top 10, 20, 30, etc. cause your blog post views to considerably shoot up. The most popular listicles seem to contain Top 10 and Top 20 items per list.
- Prioritize Formatting
The appearance of your blog post titles matters. Appearance becomes a decisive factor in determining whether the audience will click on the content on the SERPs.
Yoast SEO and All-in-One SEO Packs are two popular SEO tools that help marketers preview how their pieces of content will appear on the SERPs.
Each of these tools also allows marketers to set up sitewide title structures and custom the titles for each page and post.
3) Test the Effectiveness of Your Headlines
Marketers should take appropriate measures to improve the effectiveness of their content titles by using the right tools such as CoSchedule, Headline Analyzer, and Emotional Marketing Value Headline Analyzer.
Titles to be used on social media platforms can also be improved for their effectiveness using tools such as Buffer.
The alternative forms of headlines can also be tested for effectiveness using the paid PPC (pay-per-click) ads. Marketers can simply purchase the ads for the page for which they desire a higher CTR and can test different titles. Once such ads run one can figure out which headline format works better.
Marketers can also use several word-press plug-ins for A/B testing the different headline formats.
4) Include Keywords in Your URLs
Marketers can place keywords in the URL of their content. This signals Google and to an extent to the other visitors as well what to expect in the content on the page.
According to Microsoft, descriptive URLs perform 25% better than generic ones.
Besides, keywords the structure of URLs can be also improved by the use of categories and sub-categories in the link structure.
Thus, the context of the content is widened, and the visitors know that there is more than one article or product in the area they might be interested in.
Visit Settings > Permalinks to set it up on your WordPress website.
5) Write the Meta-Descriptions Correctly
Meta-descriptions allow potential visitors to know what to expect in the pieces of content. On the search engine result pages (SERPs) meta-descriptions appear under the results title and link.
Meta-descriptions let the potential visitors understand how the information provided in the content will help them and are helpful in considerably improving the organic CTRs.
Marketers can use custom meta-descriptions with power words to considerably improve their organic CTRs and web visibility. The ideal length of meta-descriptions is between 140-160 characters.
6) Employ Schema.org Structured Data
Schema.org Structured Data creates rich snippets that contain additional information for web content like ratings, images, preparation time for recipes, etc.
According to Search Engine Land, such rich snippets can increase the organic CTR by up to 30%.
Moreover, Google increasingly brings organic data to play to display information to the extreme right on the SERPs. Such information is placed higher than all the organic results in fact.
Implementing structured data on your WordPress website, thus, is critical to gain an advantage in the organic rankings.
7) Optimize Your Website Loading Time
Google's search rank is directly correlated with your website loading speed. To increase their click-through-rates (CTRs), marketers need to optimize their website loading time.
A click only counts if a visitor lands on your page. So, always be watchful of your website loading time.
According to pingdom.com, when the average page load time shoots from 2 seconds to 5 seconds, the website bounce rate sores from 9% initially to 38%.
So, optimize your page design and size for minimizing the page load time so that audience engagement isn't adversely impacted.
Wrapping Things Up
Organic click-through rate (CTR) remains an important determining factor in the success of your website. There is no point in creating high-value content if nobody will ever click on it and it will stay hidden in the SERPs.
Using the tips provided in the article will make it easier for you to improve your organic CTRs and audience engagement. Once visitors will click on your website, though, you will always need to have high-value content in place to keep them engaged and drive them down the sales funnel.