What is CTR?
CTR, or click-through rate, is a term that is familiar to most SEO experts and is one of the most important factors in assessing the status of the site; But what is CTR?
Before the concept of click-through rate was formed, most SEOs were trying to reach the top of Google. They sometimes focused so much on keyword optimization that the user was completely forgotten and did not realize that they were involved in keyword stuffing, not content production for the user! In fact, they had forgotten one thing; If users are not interested in our content, will being on the first page of Google help us? As a rule, no.
This procedure did not take long; Updates to Google’s algorithms and the formation of a concept called CTR prompted SEOs to try to improve the user search experience instead of absolute optimization. If you are curious to know more about CTR, we suggest you join us in this article. Because then, in addition to understanding CTR and its importance in SEO, you will learn strategies that will help you grow your natural click-through rate rapidly.
What is CTR?
What is the clickthrough rate or CTR? In its simplest definition, CTR stands for Click Trought Rate. CTR represents the percentage of users who click on our site after viewing the results page.
The click-through rate shows how effective our efforts have been in persuading the audience to click on our URL. The click-through rate, which is estimated based on the natural traffic of the site, is called the natural or organic click-through rate. There is another type of click-through rate, which is calculated for ads on Google, and we will not discuss it in this article.
How to calculate clickthrough rate
The concepts of Impertion and Click are used to calculate the click-through rate. Impertion is the number of times our content is displayed on the Serp page for users. The click-through rate is the product of the number of hits divided by the number of user clicks. Of course, there is no need to calculate the CTR manually, because in the Performance section of the Google Console search, this rate is fully updated and calculated and displayed based on specific time intervals.
One of the questions that arises for most SEOs after getting to know the click-through rate is a good, Google-approved CTR. We turned to Google to answer this question.
What is the best click-through rate or CTR for Google?
In response to the “good click-through rate” question, Google said:
“The click-through rate may be high in one industry and low in another. This is why it is difficult for all businesses to determine the average CTR. “If you are concerned about your site click-through rate, we recommend that you use our optimization tips and suggestions to increase traffic and site traffic.”
Why should we care about the natural click-through rate of the site?
Given Google’s answer to good click-through rates, if we want to answer this question very simply, we have to go back to the definition of CTR; That is, the same percentage of users who click on our site URL. The more people who see our content, the better our chances of getting clicks.
According to research, Google first page results account for 92% of all keyword traffic. Statistics also show that about 33% of organic traffic clicks are divided between the top 5 rankings of a Google page. This is why understanding CTR and trying to improve it is important. In the next section, we want to see how click-through rates affect a site’s SEO.
The Importance of CTR in Google Ranking and SEO
As we mentioned in previous articles, the quality of content and creating a good user experience for the audience are factors that Google has paid special attention to in recent years. Of course, there are hundreds of other signals that are effective in ranking sites, but these two factors are different!
CTR may not be directly related to content quality or user experience. But if we look a little closer, we find that sites that optimize these two factors well have higher CTR rates and consequently better rankings than competitors. but why?
The answer is obvious! Google loves sites that optimize their content for users, not search engines; That is, sites that are attractive to users and have high natural traffic. So it is obvious that Google’s algorithms for ranking pay attention to user interaction signals.
Given the important role of clickthrough rate, in the next section we will introduce solutions that naturally help our site’s CTR grow. But before that, we recommend that you read the article ” Internal SEO ” to read more about the importance of content quality and user experience for search engines .
Learn about 10 great techniques to increase your site’s natural CTR
Now that we understand the importance of CTR in improving SEO and site ranking, it’s time to move on to techniques that can directly and indirectly help increase our site’s natural clickthrough rate. These solutions include:
1. Write the title SEO simply and attractively
SEO title is an important part of the content information that is displayed in SERP results. Let’s try to write the most relevant, simplest and most attractive SEO title. Users are looking for the most relevant result in search results; If our title is simple, understandable and attractive, we will get more clicks.
2. Write an attractive meta description
The next strategic solution is to write compelling and effective meta descriptions. Meta description is that part of the text, which is displayed in the SERP like the subtitle of our article and is so powerful that it can convince the user to click. A good meta description has several features:
- Provides basic but complete information about the content to the audience.
- The average number of characters is 135 characters.
- It has a convincing and powerful language.
3. Use Long-Tail keywords
Another way we can naturally boost a site’s CTR is to use long tail keywords. These words are highly descriptive, more relevant to the user’s search goal, and motivate users to click on our URL. To find long tail words, we need to use keyword research tools, such as Ubersuggest.
4. Use structured data or content schema
Using the structured data of the schema code, our content is converted into code that can be easily processed by search engines. These types of results attract more clicks because they are displayed at the top of the SERP results page, are more attractive than simple URLs, and convey a lot of information to the user at a glance. For more information, we suggest you read the article What is Eskima .
5. Do not underestimate the use of attractive images in content
We usually use images in most content, but did you know that these images can improve the natural CTR of the site? Using attractive images increases the chances of clicking on our URL when users search in the Google Image section.
6. Use descriptive URLs
One of the ways we can introduce the main part of our content to the user is the URL. We should use the main keyword in the URL structure and summarize it in 4 to 5 words, so that the user can read it more easily. This will make more people click on it.
The use of detailed numbers and attributes are also effective tricks. Of course, we must also pay attention to the length of the title. The SEO title should be displayed in full on the SERP page. We can use tools like Youst SEO to ensure the title is displayed.
7. Use list formats for content
We all prefer list contents to dense, multi-line content, because the mind is tired and prefers the most convenient methods, and list contents are known and understood with minimal effort; So what’s better than this, to attract maximum audience clicks!
Google SERP knows exactly what kind of content is most relevant to its audience, so using indexes will increase our site’s organic CTR.
8. Optimize site speed
Site speed does not directly affect CTR improvement, but it is still an important metric for the end user experience. If our site loads slowly, users will return to the SERP and these clicks may never be reported.
9. Analyze your current click-through rate continuously
Another way to improve your organic click-through rate is to analyze your current CTR and find your site’s average click-through rate. By calculating the average click-through rate of the entire site, we can compare the click-through rate of each page with that and find pages that need improvement. On poor pages, we can help improve them by implementing CTR optimization techniques.
10. Do not forget to check the status of competitors
If by doing these techniques we still feel that our site is performing poorly in terms of CTR compared to competitors, we should examine their content. Competitors may have used more interesting titles, meta descriptions, and content, or may be better off on some factors. We need to look at all the factors influencing the click-through rate in competitors and revisit our site according to the results of this review.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the CTR or good organic click rate?
It is not possible to comment definitively on this. Some sites have averaged between 3 and 5 normal CTRs. However, good organic CTR rates vary from industry to industry and cannot be compared. In some industries, a good click-through rate is a figure that does not even reach one percent!
Why is a normal CTR important?
Natural CTR is an important metric for tracking our site ranking and traffic.
What are the common reasons for low CTR ?
There are several reasons, but the most common reason for low click-through rates is the lack of use of rich snippets and metadata that are not compelling enough.
Is high click-through rate good or bad?
Having a high CTR is good for our business. Because it means high brand awareness, more traffic and improving our site ranking.
Concluding remarks
In this article, we tried to acquaint you with the click-through rate and its importance for search engines and SEO. We have also introduced solutions that can help you increase your site’s CTR as quickly as possible. Finally, we suggest that you review your SEO strategies and improve your site traffic from time to time, as well as strengthen your content SEO skills professionally. This will make you unattainable for your competitors.
