Click-through rate (CTR) is one of the factors that decides the popularity and rank of a web page. Even though you may not know it, your online activity has the power to sink an entire business. Read more to learn about click-through rate and 10 ways to improve it.
Have you ever found yourself on a webpage and thought about just how complex and powerful the idea of search engines actually is? Without any background knowledge about search engine optimization, it can be difficult to understand the technical language involved in organic click-through rate. Luckily, we are here to explain this valuable information.
Each time you search for something in a web browser, you are engaging in search engine optimization. If you are looking for answers about a certain skincare product, the mere act of clicking through search results determines some fairly important information for businesses, websites, and the browser itself.
What is Organic CTR?
Organic CTR stands for organic click-through rate. The click-through rate is defined as the number of clicks that a search result receives divided by the number of times it is viewed on the search engine results page. This is also referred to as “impressions.”
What is a Good CTR?
You may be wondering, what is a good CTR? On average, most websites receive a click-through rate of about 1.91% for search and 0.35% for display. A desirable click-through rate is typically between 10% – 20%. With highly targeted emails, a business can oftentimes achieve a rate above 20%. This typically depends on the campaign being advertised, the clientele, and, of course, the quality of the ad for a web page.
A click-through rate is typically associated with pay-per-click advertising, but when it comes to organic search, CTR plays a crucial role. Calculating click-through rate helps determine exactly how valuable every rank position is to your website. CTR allows you to estimate just how much web traffic you are receiving depending on your rates.
Questions about a marketing strategy or plan are answered using a click-through rate calculator. Whether you want to know if the newest campaign is performing as expected or if changing the titles and meta descriptions of your website improves the number of clicks, a CTR provides all necessary information about web traffic.
Organic click-through rates provide an understanding of your target market, what they are interested in, and how they operate. This information proves critical in the success of a brand or business.
Limitations of Organic CTR
There are some noteworthy limitations that come along with trying to improve organic click-through rate. One of the most prominent limitations is that a click-through rate cannot give you any sort of indication of the quality of the traffic that you are receiving. Irrelevant clicks can affect your data, skewing the understanding of your traffic.
Another limitation is that CTR cannot help in predicting conversions. This means that no matter your click-through rate, it does not determine whether or not someone actually engages in your content or product. Even if someone clicks on your search result, there is no guarantee that they perform whatever action that you have deemed a conversion i.e., download, buy, contact, etc.
The last significant limitation to CTR is that you cannot assume that it will improve your rank. Click-through rate and rank have been determined as causal, codependent, correlated, and unrelated all at the same time.
Without seeing for certain the true nature of the relationship between CTR and rank, it does not matter much. This is because if you put in the effort to improve either factor, there will be an evident impact on your website. Essentially, it is a win-win situation.
Importance of Organic CTR
Improving your site’s CTR is crucial to generating as many people for your product or business as possible. If you were to drop from position two all the way down to eight, this may result in a 42% decrease in traffic for that specific keyword. With this information, you can readily prepare a plan or strategy to improve your website’s ranking.
Your ranking position is important in terms of viewership. The more people who see and consume your content, the more likely they are to click it. So, in turn, click-through rates can determine ranking, which can then determine how many clicks are generated.
By improving organic CTR, you are also improving your Google ranking. Anytime a URL is being visited frequently, the search engine algorithm categorizes your page to be relevant and valuable to people. Improving your Google ranking means that more people will find your site and the likelihood of gaining a new audience or clientele skyrockets.
Not only does organic CTR play a huge role in generating customers, but it also helps when trying to understand your customers. The numbers will tell you what is working, what is not working, things that need improvement, and even if it is necessary to find a different target audience.
All of this information is vital when improving the way your business or site works. If you want to be competitive in a highly competitive online space, click-through rate is a valuable concept to understand that you can keep in your back pocket to gradually improve your website traffic.
Here are 10 ways you can improve your click-through rate
1. Identify the Weakest Link
One of the most important parts of improving your organic click-through rate is finding exactly where the problem stems from. To do this, you must find a comprehensive analysis of your traffic. You can do this by going to any website that has a CTR calculator or finding the information for you.
After finding out your rate, pinpoint which part of your website is receiving the least number of clicks. For example, you can go to Google Search Console to download an analysis report of your website. From there, you can navigate to performance and then queries to check the average CTR.
Here, you will be able to see where you generate the most impressions. If I found that people were more likely to click on the CSS examples with source code and least likely to click on my CSS animation examples with source code, I would be able to make improvements where needed.
2. Solve Keyword Cannibalization
Keyword cannibalization may sound like a scary concept, but it is actually quite common for people to be unaware that they have this problem. Keyword cannibalization refers to landing pages that are all optimizing for the same keywords, which spreads out any organic clicks.
It is your job to determine where you may be making this mistake. From there, you can consider differentiation or consolidating the keywords that you are trying to rank. This way, your click-through rate can be dedicated to only one page rather than 10 pages on your website.
Keywords are important for any website but it is equally as important to know how to use them. They are called keywords for a reason. They should not flood the page, take up the majority of words used, or be fairly noticeable to the customer.
With keywords, it is best to find related words that can be used to replace them. This way, search engine optimization is made more efficient and your click-through rate can be far more consolidated than it was before.
3. Be Creative
Getting people to click on your website amidst hundreds and thousands of others is a feat unlike any other. Luckily, there are many ways to improve your titles. First, avoid any heavy title tags. They are boring for the consumer, and they do not foster as many clicks as you would like. Search engine bots are also beginning to figure out if a title is not really written for readers.
Brackets in your title are surprisingly efficient. HubSpot did a study that found that brackets in headlines tend to increase clicks by a whopping 40%. Similarly, Conductor found that by using a numbered list in the title, CTR was boosted by 36%.
Another strategy is utilizing your content library. The company Sleeknote actually found that by using this method, they increased their organic traffic by about 300% in just three weeks. It is also recommended to always test your headlines. You can do this by testing a headline in your pay-per-click ads, social ads, and even in your Facebook posts.
4. Use Descriptive URLs
A descriptive URL matters, which is something that not a lot of people take into consideration when trying to improve their CTR. Although there is no set-in-stone click-through rate formula, it is important to note how useful descriptive URLs are in generating more clicks.
People tend to click on URLs that have a bit more description and explanation in their wording. If it is just a whole bunch of numbers and words beside each other, you are less likely to want to explore the information on that particular website. For example, is searchenginejournal.com/blog/5-tips-for-success more attractive than searchenginejournal.com/product=success/12345?
Optimizing the slug any time you create new pages helps in adding more description to your URLs. Always look from the perspective of making your website more SEO-friendly.
5. Optimize Descriptions
A website description is typically one of the first things people see that determines their interest and if they want to continue to the page. You should put a substantial amount of thought into why people are seeing your listing and then cater your description so that it is relevant to the reason.
Using emotional words like “power” or “secret” or “instant” makes people more inclined to click on your website. Similar to strategies you can use when developing your titles, descriptions are just as relevant.
Adding things like calendar years and further details that you go into on your website allows for the customer and search engine to have a clearer idea of what you are advertising or producing. Try having the most checkboxes as possible between your headline and description.
6. Make Use of Structured Data
Structured data is probably the best way you can “speak” to search engine algorithms. To do this, you can simply use a website like Schema.org to alter your content into code that search engines easily process.
Having structured data can substantially boost your clicks for multiple reasons. Firstly, structured data shows up at the top of search engine results pages (SERPs). They are also more attractive than just plain URLs while also giving essential information about your website’s content at a glance.
If you implement structured data, your organic click-through rate will increase because people tend to love interactive content. They will feel like they have a comprehensive and important understanding of your site compared to others. The primary factor to improving organic CTR is pleasing the customer, which is exactly what utilizing a resource like structured data can do.
7. Leverage PPC
Not many people consider the importance of leveraging PPC ads in order to generate more organic click-through rates. You can quickly improve your click-through rate by utilizing this proven approach.
All you have to do is identify a specific keyword that has a low click-through rate, but you rank high enough for. From there, you can create a paid search ad for that word. By doing this, you are increasing the likelihood of your website being seen even though you are basing it off of a low CTR keyword.
This is because you are taking up more real estate online. You are also quickly and efficiently testing different descriptions and headlines in order to determine a winner. After, all you have to do is apply that copy to your organic listing.
8. Use Emotion
Although displaying too much emotion may not align with your brand or business, it is typically a great indicator of whether a consumer is drawn to your website. Incorporating any kind of emotion generally captures consumers’ attention.
You do not have to go overboard with the words you use, but make sure they are strong and relevant to your website. As mentioned before, words such as “instant”, “secret”, “best”, “amazing”, “proven”, etc. can do a lot more good than harm to your website’s CTR. If you decide to put words like these in your titles or description, it will add an extra something for you and your customers.
If you decide to use either a positive or negative sentiment in your titles or description, you are likely to see your CTR improve as well. Although this has been tried and proven multiple times, you will find that most titles have a neutral sentiment.
9. Use Proper Title Case
Title case is an important aspect when trying to improve organic click-through rate as well. Title case refers to the words capitalized versus the words that are not capitalized. It may seem like an insignificant factor but having the correct title case can potentially boost your site’s ranking.
When it comes to title case, major words are capitalized while most minor words are lowercase. Sentence case is different. All major and minor words are typically lowercase. Having this small discrepancy can affect the number of clicks you receive.
The reason that using title case is generally attributed to higher click-through rates is because it can make the heading stand out more. A heading standing out is significant when it comes to being noticeable amidst thousands of competitors.
10. Use Featured Snippets To Structure Your Content
Featured snippets are fairly valuable when it comes to improving organic click-through rate for many reasons. They are considered rich search results that show up as a box of content on search engine results pages. Any featured snippet is typically positioned at the top of SERPs right below the paid ads.
HubSpot found that click-through rates for high-volume keywords increased over 114% when the results showed up as featured snippets. Look to find if a featured snippet appears when searching the SERPs for your primary keywords. If you find one, you should structure your content based on the way the featured snippet shows up.
An example of this is if you find a featured snippet beneath your keyword that is list-based, you should make sure your content similarly has a numbered list format. By doing this, you are ensuring your content appears close to the featured snippet due to their likeness.
The Takeaway
An organic click-through rate is critical for any online presence that is trying to improve revenue. Camberlion can help you design and market your website so that the clicks can go your way. Whether it is a new website that you have not yet gotten into the rhythm of or an existing website that needs a bit of renovation, Camberlion is a service you can utilize for beneficial results.
When building, researching, or simply looking through a web page, many underlying factors need to be taken into consideration. CTR is a concept that not a lot of business owners are aware of that is a crucial part of online marketing and generating customers. For the best possible traffic to your website, make sure that aspects like click-through rate are not ignored.