Most writers today focus more on stuffing their content with keywords to rank first on Google without providing helpful content for searchers.
Well, newsflash: All these won’t matter if the searchers find no value in your content. Instead of focusing all your damn energy on taking that first spot, you should think more about how to get searchers into your site and turn them into customers. You can do this by increasing your click-through rate (CTR)
High click-through rates show that your advertisement, content, or copy is at least appealing to your customers, while low CTR means there’s a problem, and you need to fix it ASAP.
So: How do you instantly increase your click through rate?
You don’t need to worry. We got em here for ya! 7 proven ideas that will help you improve your clicks in no time. Trust me, these ideas aren’t easy to come by. It took so much research and experimentation to come across these 7 instant methods that actually work.
Ready? Let’s get to it:
What is Click Through Rate?
Click through rate is the number or ratio of clicks to impressions. It is the number of times people click through your content divided by how many times people see your search results. This is called impression.
Organic Vs. CTR
Let the word “organic” not confuse you. It is the way your site naturally appears on search engine results. You don’t pay Google to rank your page in the top spot.
Organic click-through rates are free “. It doesn’t add any extra cost of advertising. It also carries more weight because it shows your website is the leader in your niche.
Running paid ads to rank no 1 on Google may seem like the best idea at the moment, but in the long run, it becomes expensive and negatively affects your ROI.
Why is Your CTR Important?
As we all know, CTR is highly dependent on impression. You can relate impressions to search engine results. Cos, let’s face it: the more people see your content, the more likely they are to click.
But here’s the good news: the more effort you put into increasing your CTR, the more your page is likely to rank high on Google. When your target audience visits your site, often the Google algorithm deems it useful and features search results containing your keywords.
7 Ways to Improve Your CTR
Now you know what organic traffic is, why it is crucial, and why it is important, let’s talk about how to improve yours:
- Craft a Strong Headline:
Before now, you must have heard that a headline is your attention grabber. It connects your audience to your content. You have just 5 misery seconds to make your audience stop and say, “Yes, this is it,” so you gotta make it count.
When writing a headline, remember to strike a balance between emotion, relevance, and curiosity. A good headline should let the user know what the article is talking about and leave him craving for more.
The headline should also include emotional triggers. Remember, emotions are what makes people do things.
According to Kyle Milligan, there are big 4 emotions and their Alta egos that control the choices people make. The emotions are New, Easy, Safe, and Big. Try to weave in the big 4 into any headline.
For example, the headline: “3 new methods to remove tough stains from clothes is a good heading.
But 3 new methods to remove tough stains from clothes in 5 minutes is a better heading.
Tools like Coschedule’s headline analyzer will analyze and improve your headline for better SEO search engine optimization and click-through rate.
- Provide Value to Your Customers
Gluing readers to your website and increasing your CTR in the process starts with giving the customers what they want. Every website visitor has a problem they need to solve.
Your headline gets you clicks, but your content retains your site visitors.
Your content should provide value, answer questions, or solve a problem.
To produce top-notch content on WordPress, make use of structural headings, lists, or paragraphs. This makes information easy to digest and improves your SEO ranking.
It is also important to know that good quality contents reduce bounce rates.
- Use Schema Markup
You have seen some sites say cooking websites include extra information like rating and preparation time. This is what a schema markup can do.
Schema markup is a metric of structured data that helps search engines read and understand your content more.
You can include things like star ratings, cooking time, and other data by using structured data. Search engines with solid knowledge of your article can deliver snippets and appealing visuals in search engine results.
The snippets powered by schema markup make your listing different, increasing trustworthiness. And guess what? “People love different.” This action alone drives more clicks more often than not.
This type of site drives more clicks because:
- It ranks high on SERP
- They are more appealing than plain URLs
- They tell the audience all they need to know about content at a glance.
Free tools like topic relevance can help you generate entities immediately. You can use “the schema markup plugin in WordPress. This will automatically add structured data to your site.
- Write in a Listicle Format
I love lists, you love lists, everyone loves lists. Why?
List is that one thing that does not require much effort to digest. People always want easy things, nobody loves to work. (If they did, everyone would have been a billionaire by now).
Nobody wants to read a big chunk of text. If they did, they would be reading loads of marketing textbooks and not your blog.
Writing in a list format is a good content strategy to get more clicks because people can easily skim through your content and absorb the necessary information. Plus, listicles also increase your chances of being in Google featured snippets.
Youtubers always use transcripts in their YouTube videos. This enables viewers to skim through and understand the content more. This drives more engagement and increases your average CTR.
As you can see in the pic above. The article title has no number, yet it appeared as a featured snippet on Google. Google SERP knows what searchers want and gives it to them. Using listicles can no doubt drive more traffic to your site, thereby increasing your CTR.
- Add Visuals to Your Content.
Visuals create realistic imaginations for your audience. Most writers use visuals like images and videos to enrich their posts, ads, or write-ups but don’t know it can increase their CTR. Images create realistic expectations and are nice ways to boost engagement and user experience.
It is mostly important in ads, emails, or educational information like how-to’s because it grabs attention and makes information sink. It’s a must-do if you want your content to appear in Google’s featured snippet and SERPS.
Please do not flood your content with images and videos and make it too overwhelming for your audience. Remember, moderation is key.
It also increases the probability of users clicking on your site when they search for results in the image section. Captivating content gets more clicks.
This only works if you optimize your image properly like adding appropriate description and alt text. Do not forget to reduce the size of your image to reduce loading times.
- Talk with Your Readers in the Comment Section
You can use high CTRs, reduced bounce rates, and social media shares to measure the success of writing. Creating valuable content and optimizing your writing is a good way to earn CTR, but people always neglect a small important factor, “relationship building”.
Building a great relationship with your customers is important because it builds trust and professionalism, which drives shares.
And what do more social media shares do?
It drives traffic to your website and increases your site’s CTR. Encouraging readers to drop comments promotes engagement and makes visitors spend more time on your site. But addressing or replying to comments and concerns draws a thin line between you and the searcher.
(Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t say you should reply to all the comments below your posts. You are not a robot, of course, but you still reply to the ones you can from time to time).
Picture this: Imagine your favorite celebrity replied to the comments you dropped on one of his posts. How happy will that make you? You’ll probably screenshot that particular chat to cherish it forever (I definetly will). This is relatable to replying to readers’ comments.
Most people neglect this important step, but if you want to turn your visitors into customers, you have to build a relationship with your audience.
- Use Direct Mail Advertising
Direct mail advertising is an indispensable tool as far as digital marketing is concerned. It works well, no matter the level of sophistication and market awareness of your ideal audience (as long as you follow the principles of email marketing).
But if you manage to pull it off, it is an excellent source of traffic generation. You can add links to your site at strategic places in your emails, which drives more traffic to your content and increases your site CTR.
To make sure your marketing campaign succeeds, you have to:
- Understand the basics of email marketing, what it is, and how to go about it.
- Use an email automation tool that can improve your writing and make email advertising easy and convenient.
These practices will increase traffic potential to your web page and increase your number of clicks.
Frequently Asked Questions and Answers for CTR
Is 10% a good CTR?
Yes, 10% is a good CTR, although it strongly depends on the content you’re analyzing.
Eg, If you are analyzing it for YouTube, it is more than OK because most YouTubers struggle to have a 5% CTR. Why?
As you produce new content, the old ones keep going down the ladder, getting fewer clicks. Well, nobody wants old content. Everyone wants to join the trend.
How do you calculate your CTR?
Calculating your CTR is very easy. The formula is thus: how many people clicked on your content divided by the number of people who saw it times by 100, which is: Clicks/impressions × 100.
For example, let’s say you sell cookware. You ran an ad for that and got 3000 impressions/views. It got around 300 clicks. Your CTR will be 300/ 3000 × 100 = 10%.
What causes low CTR?
Low CTR can be because of many reasons. The common reason may be that you neglected one or all of the reasons listed above. It can also be beyond that.
The secret behind a successful website building is constantly analyzing and monitoring your site’s health. This will help you dictate what is wrong and fix it ASAP.
Ready to Increase Your CTR?
Obviously, these 7 ideas listed above are just the tip of the iceberg. There are several ways to increase your site’s CTR, which includes different tasted and trustworthy methods.
You could increase your site’s loading speed, Use A/B testing (on social media), use descriptive URLs, or use long tail keywords. You can choose whichever method you want to use, but remember, to increase your CTR, you have to offer valuable content.
Give them searchers something that’ll inspire, educate, or entertain, and for instant results, be sure to employ email advertising.
How do you increase your click through rate? Feel free to drop your comments below.