When it comes to SEO, most people focus largely on ranking top of the SERP for their desired terms. Whilst this isn’t exactly wrong, it should most definitely not be seen as the be all end all. Increasing organic CTR is key to increasing your organic website traffic which is what will ultimately lead to getting more leads and growing your business.
Here’s how to improve organic click through rate (CTR):
- Check the current state of your organic CTR
- Write META titles for your audience rather than robots
- Consider the intent of the users search query
- Optimise your URLs
- Write more powerful descriptions
- Enrich your content with Schema Markup and structured data
- Improve your website loading speed
Want a bit more detail? Take a look below:
State of play (Where are you now)
The first step in improving your CTR is understanding what it currently is. For this you’ll want to head to the performance tab in Google search console. Here you will be able to see the overall average CTR and also the CTR for different search queries (keywords).
Perfect. Now that we have this data, we are ready to get to work on creating an action plan.
How to improve?
With the current state of play understood, you can now identify the keywords that are in need of improvement. These are the ones that get a good number of searches, rank relatively high but have a low or steadily declining CTR.
Consider Searcher Intent & Emotion
Whether you sell direct to consumers or offers services to businesses, understanding searcher intent and emotional buying is paramount to optimising and improving organic SERP click through.
Think about when you last searched for something. You most likely clicked on the result that seemed the most relevant, not necessarily the one that ranked in the first position. This is because the result probably answered your question or called to you on an emotional level.
For example, if you searched for SEO tips you are more likely to click on the titles that says:
13 Amazing SEO Tips to help you grow organically
Than
Free SEO Tips | Your Business Name | Blog
In short, try to consider what the person is actually looking for. The goal here isn’t to find SEO tips, it is to try and grow their marketing organically.
Write more Powerful Meta Descriptions
Your SERP ‘real-estate’ is quite minimal but can be quite powerful if you make your descriptions more…well…descriptive. This goes along with the searcher intent. You need to think not just about the content you have created, but also what will convince the searcher to choose your search result above others.
Below are two versions of the same meta description, they should give you an idea of how you can improve your meta details to increase organic ctr.
Version 1 is a very real example I found recently when researching for a project. I’ve written my own version of the description below.
V1 – Our product is an online productivity tool that allows your team to communicate better and streamline their workflow. Get your free trial today.
V2 – Dramatically increase productivity and communication in your organisation with our powerful suite of tools. Sign up for a FREE 14 day trial today.
Enrich your content with Schema Markup and structured data
There is only so much you can do with meta details to improve click through rate. Another way to enrich your SERP listings is with structured data.
What is Schema Markup?
Schema Markup is microdata that you add to your HTML to help search engines to present more informative results. If you’ve ever seen results with star ratings, breadcrumbs instead of just the url, the telephone number or even an image next to it, then you’ve experienced structured data/schema markup.
The example below shows how we’ve achieved the ratings markup for our listings.
It is things like this that make your listings stand out in search results and will help you to increase visibility and click through to your website.
Improve your website loading speed
You may be thinking how is my website speed going to increase my CTR? Well, a click to your website will only count if the website actually loads. If your website visitor clicks your link and heads to your website only to be met with a slow loading page, they are likely to leave. Whilst this will register as an impression, this won’t register as a click and thus give you a lower CTR.
What now?
Increasing your organic CTR should be a key component of your SEO strategy. Start working on the above tips and you should start to see an increase in organic traffic.
CTR optimisation is just part of the SEO strategy you need to implement. Get a FREE SEO audit to see other areas of optimisation for your website.
