While most bloggers write to the best of their ability and manage their SEO very well, they get a lot of impressions but with low CTR. Without clicks, your efforts are for naught.
There are ways on how to improve CTR in Google search. Be it an ad or a URL at the top of search engine results pages (SERPs), you want people to click your content. But how? There are five techniques I want to share with you to improve your click-through rate.
1. Optimize for Feature Snippet
The featured snippet is what we see as “People also ask.” Below is an example:
So, if a person wants to know how to become a freelance writer, Google will show several things that people also ask. If you’re going to boost your CTR, it will help if your article is found in one of these snippets.
To do this, you need an SEO tool. For example, Moz offers a feature where you can run a query, and this query will return keywords that do not have a lot of featured snippets. Next, you have to try to rank for that.
What if you do not want to pay for a software program? The trick is to write a “question and answer blog.”
An example of a question and answer blog is this: What Is The Difference Between Shopify Plus And Shopify? As you can see, the title is a question.
At best, you can write the article in such a way that all your subheadings are in the form of a question. If you do this, one of your subheadings may just be what other people are asking for.
And if this happens, Google will use that part of your content in the featured snippets, thus increasing your CTR.
2. Write Interesting Headlines
How do you increase CTR on search results? Focus on your headline. The headline is the title that a searcher reads first.
What you want is a headline that offers value—a promise to the reader that the content of your article is what he needs.
Take a look at the headline below:
As you can see, the headline for Fauna Facts matches the keyword in the search box. In this case, the reader is more likely to click this article than the rest.
Why?
For one reason: the abbreviated version of the word “versus” is there. The article’s headline is a better match to the keyword than the article from That Pet Place.
A person looking at this search result is going to get more clicks. In addition to the keyword “versus,” the title says, “are they the same?”
Indeed, the person doing the research is keen on knowing if there is a difference between the two snakes.
Another alternative is to add the phrase, “who will win?” In this context, you are presenting information about a battle between the two snakes, which a searcher may also be interested in as far as the term “versus” is concerned.
3. Optimize Meta Description
The meta description is the text below the headline, and it is a summary of what the web page is about. Think of it as a book. A book has a synopsis at the back, and it helps a reader decide whether or not to buy the book.
The meta description in the example above uses the keyword and what the product does. When writing a meta description, you have to tell what the reader can expect from your article in as few words as possible.
4. Use Long-Tail Keywords
Long-tail keywords are the now and the future. Most bloggers fail at this because it is a tad challenging to look for long-tail keywords.
Long-tail keywords are extended phrases that are much more precise regarding what a reader is really looking for.
Here is an example of keywords:
- Nike shoes – short-tail
- Red Nike shoes for women’s basketball – long-tail
As you can see, there is a big difference between these two keywords. If you only write about Nike shoes, you compete against so many contents that used the same keyword.
If you use the second one, you are closer to what a person is looking for. Any person searching for basketball shoes for women, specifically, Nike would click on the article.
Obviously, you need to use the long-tail keyword in your URL, headline, and your meta description. The reader would see this and tell herself that this is the information she is looking for.
5. Use a Descriptive URL
The URL is the path that the consumer follows to get to your webpage. To increase the click-through rate on a website, your URL must contain your keywords. Yes, it has to be the long-tail keyword.
If you look at the screenshot above, the URL contains the keyword, which is also found in the headline. The trick to optimizing your URL is to keep it short.
Why is this important? It is crucial because people read. If you use a URL made of numbers and codes, like https://faunafacts.com/snakes/1214cdf32353454, then it does not make sense to the reader.
Good practice on how to improve click-through rate is the match the URL with the search phrase. Then, the reader would know that the site he is going to is not spam and thus is more likely to click on that link.
Summary: 5 Techniques for Improving Search Engine Click-Through Rate
When people ask me how can I improve my click-through rate SEO? I tell them that SEO is not the issue. If you are getting impressions at the top of SERPs, SEO is no longer the issue—the problem is how you convince readers to choose your article over the others.
The same thing goes when people ask me about how to increase the click-through rate on YouTube. However, YouTube is a different type of search engine as your thumbnail has a lot to do with your CTR.
Focus on the value that the reader sees. Your URL, title, and meta description must have enough information to convince the reader that your article contains what he is looking for.
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