What Is Click Through Rate? How Do I Maintain A High CTR?
Click through rate, or CTR, is a performance metric that helps you understand your audience and what content resonates.
However, a good CTR doesn’t always mean higher conversions or better engagement with your site. If you have a high CTR but you’re not seeing purchases from those users, you are likely targeting the wrong audience.
How to get a good CTR?
There are several ways you can increase your CTR. Below are a few ways you can begin.
- Write unique and informative copy. For SEO, this is your meta description, in PPC it’s your ad copy. It’s the text that entices users to click on your link. Without giving away too much, or an exact answer to Q&A content, leverage your copy to draw attention to your content for users to learn more.
- Leverage structured data. Help your content stand out and grab the attention of users with structured data. Rich snippets have been known to receive more organic clicks. Optimize your pages using structured data to better your chances of receiving clicks.
- Optimize for local SEO. Localizing your content is especially relevant today as Google continues to move to mobile-first indexing. Local SEO can help your brand stand out in local searches and drive more organic leads to your site. 50% of users visit a store within a day of searching locally.
How to maintain a good CTR?
In order to get a good CTR, create quality content. You’ll want to start by choosing keywords, especially long-tail keywords, that have a high search volume and resonate with your audience. You can use Instant to pinpoint keywords that are both trending and work for your content.
Optimize your title, meta description, and/or ad copy with the keyword you want to appear for. For PPC, remember to use negative keywords as well. Leveraging negative keywords allows you to filter out queries that are less relevant. Some of the more common negative keywords would be “free” or “cheap” to avoid customers that aren’t looking to spend on quality products or services.
If you’re looking to increase CTR of an ad, consider adding a review extension to the copy. When potential customers are able to see that your brand is positively reviewed, you can increase your clicks by up to 66%.
When will I see an increased CTR?
Typically, you will see higher CTRs at the beginning of the customer journey while users are doing informational searches. You will typically see lower CTRs toward the end of the journey when users are making buying decisions.
You will also likely see a higher CTR from video content. An email with a video, rather than an email with just content, receives a 96% increase in CTR. Video content averages the highest click through rate of all digital channels. It is smart to consider adding a video or a link to a video in your content to increase your CTR.
While digital marketers regularly test out different ways to increase CTR and organic traffic and have discovered that some simply don’t work, there are tried and true ways to increase CTR. By getting creative with your meta descriptions and using an SEO-driven titles, you have a better chance of increasing your CTR and, in turn, your ROI as well.
