7 Simple Steps to Improve Organic CTR Using Google Search Console
When running an online business it’s easy to focus on rankings. But it’s important to remember that great SEO rankings are worth nothing with out a high click through rate (CTR).
Organic CTR is an important measure for your site’s search engine rankings. Google offers rewards for those sites with higher click throughs.
A higher CTR is also great for increase brand awareness. The higher your site ranks the more exposure it will get.
In this article we will take a look at 7 simple and effective ways to improve your site’s organic click through rate using Google Search Console.
What You Will Learn
- How to improve your site pages
- How to Find Your Average CTR
- How to Find Your Site’s Weakest Performing Pages
- How to Analyse Your Best Performing Pages
- How to Make Sure Schema Are Working
- How to Measure Progress
- How to Analyse Your Competition
How to Improve Your Site Pages
Imagine that your site’s search result is a free classified ad that appears in the SERPs.
Your CTR will depend on the appearance of your search result.
For that reason everything in it should be written to grab the attention of the user and make your site’s listing stand out above all of the other listings in the search results.
Here is a list of items that can be optimised right now to make your site stands out:
- URLs: A url that doesn’t correspond to the meta description is a big red flag in the eyes of the user, whereas one that is not descriptive or fails to make sense will make your site lo0ok unprofessional.
- Title Tags: Emotional and powerful words along with numbers get higher click through rates. A boring title, or one that is too long or too short simply won;t grab the user’s interest. If in doubt stick with the content marketing headline formula: [Number] + [Emotional Adjective] + [Content] + [That Does What Exactly?]
- Meta Descriptions: Like Title Tags this should include keywords related to the users search queries to inspire confidence in them that they have come to the right place. Again these should be exciting to spark curiosity.
- Org Markup: In a recent study by Search Engine Land adding rich snippets can increase CTR by 30%. This si because they can expand the size of your search result and give it more colour.
#1. Find Your Site’s Average CTR.
To begin improving your CTR it’s important to know where to start from.
In Google Search Console browse to Search Analytics.
Check the box marked CTR and the average CTR for your keywords will appear:
CTR depends on a wide range of factors.
The CTR for branded search queries will usually be high (as in the image above), but CTR for more generic keywords will be lower especially if you are in a competitive marketplace.
#2. Make The Weakest Performing Pages a Priority
The next step is to rescue those pages that are at high risk of falling out of the SERPs.
These pages have been places by Google with a good search position, but because of the lowe click through run the risk of falling out of the listings.
These need to be optimised for higher CTR immediately.
In Google Search Console search for Queries to Pages, then check Impressions, CTR and Position and then scroll down to the bottom and download the report.
Then, using Excel or Google Sheets filter out those pages that have a low number of impressions before charting these against your CTR position.
Any that fall below the average are the ones that need improving.
#3. Analyse Your Site’s Best Performing Pages.
By comparing your best performing pages against your lowest performs you will see what it is that is getting the high CTR .
To ensure a fair test compare pages of the same kind — blogs vs blogs, product pages vs product pages, etc.
Larry Kim of Wordstream in a great article for Moz.com explains how he managed to increase click throughs by up to 5 times simply by optimising the weaker performing pages.
4. Compare Mobile and Desktop
The majority of all web browsing takes place on mobile these days, so don’t overlook Mobile CTR.
In Google Search Console browse to Devices to see a rundown of CTR on all mobile devices. By clicking on the dropdown it’s possible to compare CTR on different devices and to run separate queries to test why certain pages perform worse than others.
Make sure, in addition, that you check how these appear in the SERPs because if the title tags or meta description is too long it may not show clearly.
#5. Check That All Your Schema Are Working
Google Search Console provides a super quick way to check that all your schema are working.
In Search Analytics, click on the drop-down beneath Search Appearance and select Rich results.
Here you will find a list of the schema for all of your site’s pages. Make a note of these and make sure that nothing has changed whenever updates are made to the site
#6. Check Out the Competition
Researching what other site’s in your niche will give you plenty of ideas as to why your pages may be under performing.
The image below shows two SERPs for Page 1 and Page 4 of the query “How to Write Good Title Tags.”
Notice how the results on Page 1 are keyword specific, from the URLs to the Title Tags and Meta Descriptions and within each description there is a snippet of text that describers an actionable solution to the problem.
#7. Measure Your Progress
Finally, measure the results.
At least once a month check and compare how the newly optimised pages are performing in comparison to the previous month and make sure that the CTR is always improving.
Following the 7 steps in this article will certainly get things moving upwards in terms of improving CTR using Google Search Console.
If so then it’s worth replicating the process across the rest of your site’s pages.
If the opposite happens then the chances are there is another issue causing a low CTR.
All good SEO professionals incorporate regular use of Google Search Console in their routine and by following these insights you should be able to increase site traffic and enjoy greater exposure in the SERPs.
Originally published at www.affexpro.com on December 8, 2017.
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