Improving Search Click through Rate

[pdangermond]

We are having a problem on our website with click through rates. We are getting between 100-150k impressions through search but we are only getting between 500-1000 clicks to the site. What strategies have you used in the past to help improve your click through rates? Thanks!

[BenjaminMorel]

The number of suggestions from EGOL and a look through a headline-writing post like this or this or this will quickly show that there are a whole vast array of different ways to write headlines. And after all, what is a <title>element but a headline on a search listing? So the big question is how do you find out which of these different ways of approaching things will work the best to increase CTRs?</p> <p>Answer: you will never know unless you test.</p> <p>Unfortunately you can't test <title> element and META description content directly. But you can test it indirectly using PPC. Here's how:</p> <ol> <li>Set up a number of low-budget PPC campaigns for the keywords you are targeting organically</li> <li>Test a few ad variations that push different buttons for your audience</li> <li>Adapt the one with the best CTR to fit your <title> tag and META description.</li> </ol> <p>Do this a few times and you should start seeing some commonality in your best performers, at which point you will know what works best for your audience. But keep testing, because you never know when something will surprise you (and because PPC is a perfectly viable medium for any online marketing effort).</p> <p>At the same time:</p> <ul> <li>Make sure all your authorship tagging is in place</li> <li>Use microdata as outlined on schema.org to get any rich snippets that you can</li> <li>Use Moz Analytics or a combination of Screaming Frog and Excel to make sure your <title> tags and META descriptions are unique.</li> </ul> <p>Between <title> elements optimised for CTR, META descriptions working hard, and rich snippets you should have all your bases covered.</p></title>

[DougRoberts]

There's a lot of factors that can affect click-through rates from the search results. The first and most obvious is your visibility or rank.

The impression numbers alone don't tell the whole story. If you're being included in the search results, but are ranking on page 2 (or worse) then you're only going to get crumbs instead of a nice big slice of search traffic pie. So, the first thing to do is to work on getting your snippet high-enough in the search results to be seen!

It can be very tempting to look at your Webmaster Tools data (or data in a third party tools) and respond by tinkering with your title and meta-description without ever look at the search result pages (SERPS)  you're appearing on.

Just looking at the SERPS can often explain why you're not getting the clicks you think you deserve. Reasons include:

• Well known brand(s) dominating the search results
• Competition from Adwords on the page. (remember to turn off your ad-blocker if you use one!)
• As Ken said, are competitors using Rich Snippets to draw those visitors eye-balls.
• Is Google displaying the Title and Description you want/expect it to show?

When you look at the SERPS you should also look at the type of pages that are appearing there. What does Google think are the best pages for the searchers query. Does this help you understand the searchers intent? What is it they were looking for? What is it that the other pages in the SERPS are providing?

Look at the words/language that other pages are using. Is your snippet the most compelling compared to them? How can you differentiate yourself from these other results. It sounds like management/marketing BS, but what's your unique value proposition? Can you get that across in a few words?

Ignore the fact that your page is obviously the best one for a minute, and try to put yourself in the head of the searcher. Think, "Am I going to find what I'm looking for?", "What's in it for me if I click on this result?" Is it obvious that the searcher will find what they are looking for if they click on your snippet?

Is the right page on your site ranking, with a less compelling snippet? I've seen blog posts out-rank the service landing page that the site would really like to appear in the search results, completely undermining the lovingly crafted title and meta-description created on the service page.

Lots of nice Title tips from EGOL there - try some!

[CandymanKen]

EGOL has some great title suggestions.

I would add authorship and rich snippets as well. We have seen increased CTR with those. The rich snippets have been really good because they show the product ratings from our reviews.That really makes the listing stand out in the results.

Ken

[EGOL]

<title><strong>Secrets</strong> xxx xxxxxx xxxxx xxx xxx</title>   Everybody wants to be in on the secret.  Mystery, controversy gets lots of clicks.

<title>xxxx xxxx xxxxxx xxx <strong>Only $XX.XX</strong></title>    If you can't outrank the manufacturer who charges MSRP, then offer a fantastic discount.  You can rank and #2 and take ALL of their sales.

<title>xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxx <strong>Ships Immediately</strong></title>  Everybody wants their stuff yesterday.  Lots of people are in a hurry.

<title><strong>Free Beer</strong> xxxx xxxxx xxxxxx xxx</title>  Everybody clicks just to see if its true.

<title>xxxx xxxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx<strong>?</strong></title>  (questions elicit more clicks than statements)

<title><strong>OMG!</strong> xxx xxxxxx xxxxx  xxxxxxx</title>  Every dumbass will click this.

<title><strong>Who says that</strong> xxx  xxxxxx xxxxxxxx<strong>?</strong></title>   Dumbasses are suckers for this too.

<title>xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxx <strong>Free Shipping</strong></title> People hate shipping charges more than sales tax.

<title><strong>My Sorryass Brand:</strong> xxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxx</title>  Unless you are so famous that your brand name alone will elicit clicks, don't put your sorryass brand on the front of the title tag.  Nobody cares.  Instead tell them you go what they are looking for.

<title>xxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxx - <strong>My Sorryass Brand</strong></title>  This is a waste of title tag real estate too.

<title><strong>Grass Skirts</strong></title>   Sometimes your keyword is all that you need.  Don't stink it up with your ego or a bunch of SEO crap.  These short title tags can rank really well and pull in the clicks.

Before you  write your title tag, ask yourself what the searcher is really looking for.  Then if you offer that get it in the title tag.  If you don't offer that you better get it.

Go out and look at your competitors title tags.    If they are offering <title>Haircuts - Only $5.00</title>  then maybe you want to say  <title>We fix bad haircuts $25.00</title>

Learn more here http://moz.com/learn/seo/title-tag