CTR (Click through rate) is not entirely dominated by a high page ranking within search results; far from it. A whole host of other elements come into play that may persuade or dissuade a person from clicking onto your site. The following are seven different ways that can help maximize your CTR in search engine results and seriously boost your traffic.
1 – Eye-catching Titles
Don’t fall into the trap of over optimizing your page titles to achieve a better rank; they tend to make a site look spammy and unprofessional. Keep your titles short (around 60-70 characters), and they need to contain a reasonable number of keywords while simultaneously remaining engaging to the reader.
2 – META-Description needs Optimization
Your META-description needs to contain site relevant keywords while engaging the reader’s attention and briefly explaining what exactly the content of your site is. Make sure these descriptions contain enough information to catch hold of a person’s attention, but not so much that all their questions are answered. Incorporating a call to action into the META-description can also significantly drive up CTR.
3 – Breadcrumb Navigation
Breadcrumb navigation is a method by which users can easily keep track of where they are within your website’s infrastructure via a full navigation display that can be followed to land on a particular webpage. Search engines (the clever little things that they are) can read these and present them within your search results.
4- Social Layers
Google + is effectively turning the Internet into one huge voting system. If a user is logged into a Google + account, they’ll be able to see pages that have received +1’s or been retweeted or shared by friends. Sometimes you’ll be able to see the total number of +1’s a site has received. This instantly gives incentive to bookmark or store away certain sites. Making sure you’re one of these sites will not only boost your traffic but also you’re CTR.
5 – Google Instant Preview
This presents you with the opportunity to give users a quick snapshot of your website via the search results page, a peak under the packaging at the present inside as it were. Obviously this is invaluable and can seriously drive up your CTR. However, it’s unwise to utilize flash on your site (or if you do, don’t use instant preview) as it has trouble displaying flash-based sites, showing them as ugly or broken.
Bottom Line
Organically increasing your CTR is extremely important in helping spike your site’s traffic without actually having to tamper with your SEO techniques. Remember, it’s all about understanding how your users are thinking and evaluating the search results they’re getting.
