Many SEO services acknowledge that links and content are two of the most essential things in SEO. In fact, this is no longer a secret as your competitor may pursue the same things. They also know that they have to build an amazing link profile and create the greatest content that they can make.
So, what makes your SEO effort stands out from the rest? The answer is your organic click-through rate (CTR). Below are 5 reasons that will explain why improving your organic CTR can make your SEO result gets better. Check this out!
- CTR Impacts Ranking
According to Paul Haahr at SMX West, Google is constantly conducting A/B experiments on search results, looking for changes in click patterns. This is because Google wants to provide the best answer to users. One of the most important element that Google uses as its measurement as its success is clicks.
For example, both of you and your competitor answer the query and neither page has an advantage in links. But your competitor’s page ranks #1 and your page ranks #2. What makes the difference? And what’s the easiest way to beat your competitor page ranks.
Can longer content win? Or building more links help? The answer is by getting more people click on your result. This is how Google will consider your page as the best result for searchers, because more people are clicking on it and engaging with it.
- Beat the Competition with Engagement Metrics
To assess whether your page has a good quality, Google will see your page through three key elements: expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. This means Google is looking at the content of your entire website, not just individual pages. To obtain higher engagement metrics, you need to work hard to have higher than expected engagement metrics.
Moreover, Google will also asses the users’ behavior on your site. For example, if your visitors’ bounce back is high, that’s a huge signal that your page doesn’t provide what searchers are looking for. So, having high task completion rates is also one of the biggest considerations that determine your success. As a result, Google will reward your higher task completion rates with expertise, authority, and trust.
- Users Click on Awesome Headlines
What makes an awesome headline? According to BuzzSumo, there are five common elements present in all viral headlines: format, emotion, content type, promise and topic.
What would a super clickable headline look like? Well, BuzzFeed is a master of these. One of their most shared posts in the past was “27 Amazing Charts That Will Turn You Into A Baking Whiz”. Let’s break it down:
- Pages with Low CTR are Website Cancer
Your content cannot be considered as great if nobody clicks on it. Actually, this is what Panda is aimed for. The update is made to assess your website’s content as creating content for the sake of search engine can be dangerous. Moreover, in the long run, it will lead to a death spiral of lost rankings and traffic if there are so many people are bouncing off your site.
- You can Influence Search Volume and CTR
Targeting people who have never known about your brand will be more difficult than targeting the same keywords to people who have never heard of you. Therefore, to increase your organic CTRs, you can use social media, such as Facebook and Twitter ads to promote your brand. Besides that it is efficient, the ads are also inexpensive.
Remember that people who know your business will have bigger tendency to click on an organic result from you when they see your brand name in the organic search results. The importance thing is that people know who you are and that you do, only by this you can drive more traffic and see higher CTRs.