Making your organic search results a success should be a top priority for all business owners. If you're not getting the clicks through organic search that you think you should be, there are many things about your listings that could be letting you down. In order for them to be successful, listings have to be attractive and compel users to click them which isn’t an easy feat. As a digital agency with experience in crafting successful organic listings with high click through rates, we’ve learned a thing or two about what works and what doesn’t. Here are 4 steps you can take to make your click through rates soar like never before.
1. Identify Which Pages Have a Low Click-Through Rate
Our first step on the path to optimising our organic listings is to identify those webpages which have a low CTR (click-through rate). This will give us insight into which pages are not attracting clicks when they are returned as results within search engines. You can find this data within Google analytics and Google Search Console. With this data you can then cross-reference pages which have a high number of impressions and a low CTR.
2. Try to Expand Title Tags
Title tags have a huge effect on the CTR of any listing. In 2016, Google expanded the Title Tag width to 600px: a 17% increase that had SEO practitioners rejoicing everywhere because it gives us increased space to work with. This means there's more room to include more high-priority keywords and add more depth to the listings.
The challenging part is that a pixel-based limit is harder to visualise than a character count as particular letters take up more line space than other letters. A solution to this is to use a SERP Preview Tool which will enable you to visualise exactly how your listing will be shown to consumers on Google. Using a tool like this will help you create the most attractive and effective listings.
3. Make Your Meta Tags as Attractive as Possible
The best Meta tags should inspire enough intrigue that consumers feel compelled to click the listing. They have to be attractively descriptive and encourage consumers in subtle ways to find out more. Meta tags should also make it clear what consumers are going to find when they click the link and give them a motive to actually click. Keywords must be targeted in the Title tag but not at the expense of creating something that's engaging to read. We would suggest optimising for user intent first and SEO keywords second.
Additionally, your Meta Description must be equally engaging to read. The Meta Description should complement and expand on the Title Tag, persuasively encouraging people to find out more. Meta Descriptions have no impact on SEO so there’s no need to force keywords in.
4. Make the Most of Rich Snippets
When done correctly, rich snippets can have a huge positive impact on your CTR and are an effective way of setting your listing apart from your competitions. Structured markups can really make certain listings stand out among others as they can include lots of information that’s extremely useful to the user, boosting the appeal of the listing. Good and effective rich snippets give the user important information such as reviews, star ratings, price etc which will encourage users to click this listing over the less useful listings of their competition. Google have lots of free resources to help you make your snippets as effective as possible like a ‘Guide to Structured Markup, a Testing Tool and even a Data Highlighter.
Following these tips will improve the effectiveness of your organic listings but to really make sure your listings have optimum success, using the help of a professional agency like ourselves is advisable. We’ll make sure that all your organic listings are created with maximum appeal; get in touch with us to learn more.