![\"9](\"http:\/\/smashdigital.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/9-CTR-Optimization-Strategies-To-Grow-Your-Search-Traffic.png\")
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Welcome back to Smash Digital\u2019s weekly content series, where we give you actionable SEO strategies and tips that you can implement today and start seeing results.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s kick today\u2019s lesson off with a quick screenshot.<\/p>\n
![\"increasing](\"http:\/\/smashdigital.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/increasing-google-rankings.png\")
<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a keyword with 3,600 monthly searches jumping from #5 to #1 and staying there.<\/p>\n
What did we do to make this happen?<\/p>\n
If you guessed link building\u2026 You know us well, but not this time.<\/p>\n
Keep reading and I\u2019ll show you the strategies we used to optimize this page and many others to double the site’s traffic.<\/p>\n
Time to learn:<\/strong>\u00a015 minutes<\/p>\n Impact (1-10):<\/strong>\u00a08<\/p>\n Tools required:\u00a0<\/strong>Google Search Console<\/a><\/p>\n Tools suggested:<\/strong>\u00a0None<\/p>\n Now, let\u2019s get to it\u2026<\/p>\n You\u2019ve probably heard of this concept in a few different ways. It goes along the lines of\u2026<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a lot easier to make more money off existing customers than to acquire new ones.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Or\u2026<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s easier to make more money with your existing business than start a new venture from scratch.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n The same holds true for SEO. It\u2019s often going to be a lot easier to increase traffic on your existing pages instead of\u00a0going after new keywords<\/a>,\u00a0creating more content<\/a>, and building more links to a fresh page.<\/p>\n That\u2019s exactly what we did in this case and we used the power of copywriting to do it.<\/p>\n If you\u2019ve read a few of our previous SEO guides, you\u2019ll already know that your CTR is going to affect search engine rankings.<\/p>\n In other words, even if you\u2019re able to rank #2 with great on-page optimization and high-quality backlinks, if people are clicking on the #3 result more often than usual, Google might drop you further down for being irrelevant and not meeting the expected CTR.<\/p>\n Obviously, the opposite also holds true and that\u2019s what we\u2019re going to use to our advantage to improve our rankings and get more traffic<\/p>\n We\u2019re going to find pages that are close to getting some traction but have a poor CTR and then I\u2019m going to show you how to fix that up and hopefully climb to higher positions.<\/p>\n Not only that\u2026 Increasing your CTR literally means getting more people to visit your site.<\/p>\n First up you\u2019re going to head to Google Search Console and their \u201cPerformance\u201d report. You\u2019ll want to click on the CTR and average position boxes to get some additional data.<\/p>\n You\u2019re going to have a nice overview of thousands of keywords that are bringing you traffic, what position you\u2019re ranking in for these terms, and what kind of CTR you\u2019re seeing.<\/p>\n Our goal is to find pages that are already doing well but have a poor CTR in relation to the position you\u2019re ranking in.<\/p>\n According to data from 2019, the CTRs for the top 10 positions look something along the lines of:<\/p>\n These are averages and are going to vary massively from search to search, but they give you a pretty good idea of what is acceptable and what is not.<\/p>\n To actually find these pages, I recommend sorting the data by either the highest number of impressions or highest average position and then looking for odd CTRs. Sorting by position, we can clearly see that there\u2019s a bunch of keywords that have CTRs way below the average for #1 rankings.<\/p>\n We\u2019re going to be optimizing these on a page-level, not for specific keywords, but you\u2019ll want to save down any and all opportunities you see for later reference.<\/p>\n When sorting by impressions, you\u2019re going to see much lower CTRs across the board because the average positions will likely be lower and the queries more generic.<\/p>\n Nonetheless, you can find some pretty amazing, high-impact opportunities from here. Let\u2019s talk about how to actually go about increasing your clickthrough rate for a page.<\/p>\n To do that, let\u2019s first look at the Google search results. While the meta description definitely has an impact on the CTRs, it\u2019s going to be quite insignificant when compared to changes you can see from improving the title. So that\u2019s what we\u2019re going to be focusing on.<\/p>\n Think about it\u2026 Unless you\u2019re doing a highly important or specific search, you\u2019ll likely simply skim through the top 5 results by looking at the titles and choosing the most compelling one.<\/p>\n I\u2019m going to share 9 strategies and tips you can use to stand out in the search results and increase your CTR.<\/p>\n Google\u2019s gotten pretty damn good at making search results relevant. In fact, it\u2019s one of the most important ranking factors – if your pages serve a different intent than what is currently on Google\u2019s first page, you\u2019re probably not going to rank well.<\/p>\n But\u2026 There are also search results that display\u00a0mixed<\/strong>\u00a0intent.<\/p>\n You might see some e-commerce stores and some product reviews\u2026 Or how-to style articles and listicles.<\/p>\n This is the first question you\u2019re going to want to ask yourself when it comes to both improving your position by being more relevant as well as increasing your CTR –\u00a0what does the average searcher actually want?<\/strong><\/p>\n If you\u2019re ranking #7 for a keyword with a product page while everyone above you has informational content – you won\u2019t really have anything to optimize for. You\u2019re irrelevant.<\/p>\n It\u2019s time to decide whether to create a new page and angle to rank with or move on to the next keyword.<\/p>\n Other times it may be as simple as shifting the angle of your page. Maybe you\u2019re ranking with a listicle style post\u00a0(15 tips for achieving X)<\/em>\u00a0but everyone ranking above you\u00a0(and what the searchers want)<\/em>\u00a0are\u00a0\u201chow to achieve X\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n In summary – give people what they want and Google might give you what you want.<\/p>\n I always try and read through the top three ranking pages and try to put myself in the searchers shoes on a deeper level\u2026 Beyond whether they want to see some reviews or to buy a product.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s say I had an article reviewing the email marketing tool ActiveCampaign and was ranked #4 but not getting very many clicks.<\/p>\n The top three results are titled:<\/strong><\/p>\n These titles don\u2019t set the bar too high but let’s roll with it\u2026<\/p>\n One of the best ways to increase our CTR is going to be standing out from the search results and doing something unique.<\/p>\n If everyone else is putting pricing, features, comparisons, and other boring stuff in the title tags, I need to find a different angle.<\/p>\n From experience as well as reading through the top pages, I know that this is more of an advanced tool. This means that the searcher likely doesn\u2019t need to be convinced that this is a good tool or that email marketing is necessary.<\/p>\n What they\u00a0really<\/strong>\u00a0need to be convinced of is to ditch their old email marketing provider and make the switch over to ActiveCampaign.<\/p>\n This is something we can take advantage of.<\/p>\n I might call the page something along the lines of:<\/strong> This is just an example but there are a million other angles you could take with it, that create a lot more curiosity and interest than a generic\u00a0\u201cwhen to use it\u201d\u00a0<\/em>or\u00a0\u201cwhy it\u2019s good\u201d<\/em>\u00a0title.<\/p>\n Some additional ideas:<\/strong> So simply doing something different from your competitors is going to be one side of it and the other goes back to our previous point about matching the searchers intent and what might compel them most.<\/p>\n To give you another example\u2026 We had a website ranking for a keyword where the top five results were all listicles along the lines of\u2026<\/p>\n We tested several titles that were radically different from this, but they ended up going a bit too far from the searchers intent.<\/p>\n The winner of the test?<\/p>\n X Strategies to Improve Your Sleep [TRIED AND TESTED]<\/em><\/p>\n The hypothesis for the page was that we all had already heard of tips for sleeping better – sleep in a cold room, stop using screens before bed, etc\u2026 But what people really wanted to know was which ones are actually important and make a difference.<\/p>\n This is probably one of my favorite little tricks when it comes to SEO\u00a0(and it applies to more than just titles\u2026)<\/em><\/p>\n Whatever you\u2019re trying to achieve – in this case – a better title tag\u2026 Someone has already put countless hours into doing it the right way and finding the best approach.<\/p>\n I like to look at other similar niches or markets and see how they\u2019re optimizing their title tags.<\/p>\n This becomes even more efficient if you can look at much more competitive or lucrative areas that are similar.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s say you\u2019re ranking for the best law firm in Charlotte\u00a0(that\u2019s a US city)<\/em>\u00a0and want a better title tag.<\/p>\n I would start to Google for law firms in some of the bigger and more competitive cities. See how other law firms have approached this in New York, California, Chicago, San Diego, San Francisco, London, etc.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re an online business, the same logic applies but on an industry level.<\/p>\n Ranking for best facebook ad agency?<\/strong>\u00a0Look at the SEO agencies, marketing agencies, Google Ads agencies etc.<\/p>\n Ranking for the best coq10 supplement?\u00a0<\/strong>Try searching for magnesium, fiber, fish oil, calcium, and other way more popular supplement types.<\/p>\n An affiliate site ranking for long-tail tech stuff?<\/strong>\u00a0Look at the most popular titles in tech and how they do it – best bluetooth earbuds, best wireless headphones, best gaming laptops etc.<\/p>\n Sometimes you\u2019ll see the same formulas repeated over and over that you can implement in your own business.. Other times you\u2019ll just get one word that\u2019ll help you turn things around.<\/p>\n Either way it\u2019s super easy and you\u2019ll learn a lot by doing it\u00a0(and not just in terms of titles).<\/em><\/p>\n Other than the above points and SEO best practice in general, you\u2019re going to benefit from learning more about copywriting and headlines.<\/p>\n Here are five principles I try to follow with each title tag:<\/p>\n While it\u2019s great if your headline creates some curiosity, it shouldn\u2019t be regarding what the page is about or what value you\u2019re going to add to the reader’s life.<\/p>\n The more specific you can be about what they have to gain from reading it, the more likely you are to get the click.<\/p>\n Here are a few examples I found on Google \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n Problem:\u00a0<\/strong>How to fix your posture Problem:<\/strong>\u00a0Improve copywriting Problem:\u00a0<\/strong>Creating an SEO strategy Problem:\u00a0<\/strong>Learn guitar Whether it\u2019s discussing additional tools you provide on your page to solve the readers problem\u00a0(e.g. templates, calendars, exercises)<\/em>\u00a0or simply indicating that this is targeted to them\u00a0(beginners, experts, kids, old folks)<\/em>\u00a0– the more detailed you get, the more attention you\u2019ll receive.<\/p>\n Have you ever searched for a product review for\u00a0\u201cfinal confirmation\u201d<\/em>\u00a0only to see that the first Google result calling it a scam?<\/p>\n You get a strange feeling in your gut, quickly click the result to see what the fuss is about, only to see the article conclude\u2026 “No, it\u2019s not a scam – here\u2019s my\u00a0(affiliate)<\/em>\u00a0link to go buy it.”<\/p>\n While that\u2019s one of the worst examples of this, it\u2019s also the best proof that this strategy works.<\/p>\n You want your titles to have either positive or negative sentiment – avoid anything neutral if your goal is to get as much traffic as possible.<\/p>\n Tell people about:<\/strong><\/p>\n Traditionally great headlines come in two parts – the headline itself and a subtitle.<\/p>\n With meta titles we don\u2019t always have the luxury of fitting that in due to character limitations but for some topics, it\u2019s still a great strategy to keep in mind.<\/p>\n The only difference is that in search results, the first part will often be your target keyword. This\u2019ll ensure you rank well while also establishing some relevance for the query.<\/p>\n The subtitle will help you convince people to actually click on the result and differentiate yourself from competitors.<\/p>\n An example from our own site:<\/strong> Using numbers in headlines to increase interest is probably one of the oldest tricks in the book.<\/p>\n Hell, I used in for the guide you\u2019re reading now!<\/p>\n BECAUSE IT WORKS.<\/strong><\/p>\n While behavioral psychology is much more complex, the simplest explanation is that it creates curiosity\u00a0(can there really be 65 ways to walk your pug?!)<\/em>\u00a0and has the potential to deliver a lot of value in a compressed format\u00a0(I\u2019m going to skim the headings and learn all 65 ways, fast.)<\/em><\/p>\n There have also been studies conducted that show that headlines with odd numbers in them generate more clicks.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve never noticed a huge difference in this and recommend you do the same. Write the best damn content possible and go with whatever number of items you end up having.<\/p>\n Point being –<\/strong>\u00a0some numbers > no numbers.<\/p>\n According to\u00a0The Psychological Review<\/a>, people can keep seven, plus or minus two, objects in their working memory at a given time.<\/p>\n In other words, we\u2019re not great at paying attention when too much is going on.<\/p>\n While it\u2019s critical to have your headlines be concise and clear, you\u2019ll want to stick between 5-9 words for the best CTR.<\/p>\n You\u2019ve probably seen featured snippets in search results. Google has been making them more frequent for the last few years.<\/p>\n What\u2019s a featured snippet? Here\u2019s a screenshot of a featured snippet explaining and showing it.<\/p>\n Featured snippets provide an answer to the searchers query straight within Google, without having to visit a website. While it\u2019s great for a quick overview, most searches are far more complex than the limited amount of space in a featured snippet – this means they still get a myriad of clicks, especially considering they rank above all the other search results.<\/p>\n Why are these a big deal?<\/p>\n Well, because you don\u2019t really have to \u201cearn\u201d that ranking in the traditional way. Anyone who ranks on the first page may be selected for the featured snippet instead. It\u2019s a lot easier to rank within the top ten than to lock down the first position PLUS this ranks even higher than that.<\/p>\n So how does Google choose who gets the featured snippet?<\/p>\n They algorithmically choose\u00a0\u201cthe best answer\u201d<\/em>\u00a0to the search query, which effectively means that they mostly focus on the content itself and its relevance\u00a0(as long as you\u2019re on the first page already.)<\/em><\/p>\n The best tip I can give you to score more featured snippets is to be a lot more concise with your writing. Instead of writing sentences along the lines of\u00a0\u201cTo summarize things, featured snippets are basically blah blah\u201d<\/em>\u00a0you\u2019d do better with\u00a0\u201cFeatured snippets are X.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Beyond the words on the page, it\u2019s clear that Google also takes on-page SEO into consideration when it comes to selecting the featured snippet. This includes the use of things like numbered lists, use of headings\u00a0(and doing so in the right order and a logical way)<\/em>, the cleanliness of your code and much more.<\/p>\n What if the search results already have a featured snippet but a competitor has it?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Well, that\u2019s the best part,<\/p>\n It\u2019s possible to steal featured snippets from your competitors and do so\u00a0instantly\u00a0<\/strong>by asking Google to reindex the page using Google Search Console.<\/p>\n I\u2019m going to write a dedicated guide about this in the future that\u2019ll walk you through the entire process. To give you an idea though, it mostly revolves around analyzing what the current featured snippet has done to obtain it\u00a0(their length, format, structure, etc)<\/em>.<\/p>\n What better way to get more attention than to take up more space?<\/p>\n That\u2019s exactly what you\u2019re able to do\u00a0by using FAQ schema<\/a>.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a screenshot of a blog post that has FAQ schema attached to it and as you can see, it takes up nearly double the space of a traditional search result.<\/p>\n The best part? You have 100% control over what the questions and answers are and you can make this appear for almost any page, instantly with some simple code.<\/p>\n Click here<\/a>\u00a0to check out our detailed guide on how to implement this, step-by-step.<\/p>\n Beyond the FAQ schema, there\u2019s a bunch of other types of page-level markup you can use to get Google to enhance the search results and stand out more.<\/p>\n I\u2019m sure you\u2019ve seen the recipe snippet, which displays user ratings, their count, cooking time, and nutritional information:<\/p>\nWorking With What You Have<\/h2>\n
Enter Clickthrough Rate (CTR) Optimization<\/h2>\n
How to Find Underperforming Pages<\/h2>\n
![\"google](\"http:\/\/smashdigital.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/google-search-console-underperforming-pages.png\")
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\n![\"low](\"http:\/\/smashdigital.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/low-CTR-pages-1.png\")
<\/p>\n
\n![\"sorting](\"http:\/\/smashdigital.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/sorting-by-impressions.png\")
<\/p>\nHow to Improve Your Organic CTR<\/h2>\n
\n![\"a](\"http:\/\/smashdigital.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/a-google-search-result.png\")
There are really only two things we\u2019re able to influence when it comes to our results – the meta title (purple on the image)<\/em>\u00a0and the meta description\u00a0(the paragraph below it).<\/em><\/p>\n1. Assess Your Relevance to the Search Results<\/h2>\n
2. Change Your Title to Stand Out From the Crowd<\/h2>\n
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\nActiveCampaign Review – Why I Switched Over From Mailchimp<\/em><\/p>\n
\nActiveCampaign Review – How We Grew Our Store 157%
\nActiveCampaign Review – Is It Really Worth $XXX\/mo?
\nActiveCampaign Review – Best Email Solution for eCom?<\/em><\/p>\n\n
3. Look at Similar Niches for Ideas<\/h2>\n
4. How to Write a Well-Optimized Title Tag<\/h2>\n
Be Specific<\/h3>\n
\nTitle:<\/strong>\u00a0Good Posture in 30 Days: Exercises, Calendar Plan, and More<\/p>\n
\nTitle:<\/strong>\u00a075 Resources for Writing Incredible Copy that Converts<\/p>\n
\nTitle:<\/strong>\u00a0How to Create an SEO Strategy for 2020 [Template Included]\n
\nTitle:<\/strong>\u00a0How To Learn Guitar: An 11-Step Programme For Beginners<\/p>\nAvoid Neutral Titles<\/h3>\n
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Headline and Subtitle<\/h3>\n
\nUsing FAQ Schema – Double Your Search Visibility in 5 Minutes<\/a><\/em><\/p>\nInclude Numbers<\/h3>\n
Keep It Short<\/h3>\n
Try Stealing the Featured Snippet<\/h2>\n
![\"what](\"http:\/\/smashdigital.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/what-is-a-featured-snippet.png\")
<\/p>\nIncrease Your SERP Real Estate Using FAQ Schema<\/h2>\n
![\"example](\"http:\/\/smashdigital.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/example-of-FAQ-schema.png\")
People can also click on the \u201cShow more button\u201d<\/em>\u00a0to see even more questions.<\/p>\nAdd Other Relevant Schema<\/h3>\n
![\"example](\"http:\/\/smashdigital.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/example-of-recipe-schema-in-google.png\")
\nOr the fancy star-ratings under product reviews, along with the reviewers name:
\n![\"product](\"http:\/\/smashdigital.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/product-review-schema-example.png\")
\nOf course, there\u2019s a lot more out there – ranging from event details to product stock levels.<\/p>\n