Research on what improves CTR on meta data?

[nicole.healthline]

Does anyone know of any research done to show what improves CTR for title tags & descriptions in search results? I know general best practices, but am looking for any available studies

[Sebes]

My best guess would be to read the great article on copywriting by cyrus shepard: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/10-super-easy-seo-copywriting-tips-for-link-building . The following principles could be used for writing a good description:

2. Why Headline Formulas Work
3. Get 20% More with Numbers
4. Free and Easy Power Words
10. Be Honest

The page targeted keywords should be in the title.

[EGOL]

I don't know of any studies but a great way to learn is to make a LOT of adwords ads for the same product that will be displayed for a specific keyword.

You can do this to determine the CTR of various ad wordings but more important you can measure the impact of the ad on the conversion rate of your visitors.

CTR might not be a good metric because my title tag can be powerful hype that elicits clicks but does not convert.  Certain types of people are sucked in by hype and the buyer population might detect the odor.