7 Ways to Help Your Clients Improve Organic Click-Through Rate - Duct Tape Marketing Consultant

• Updated on: 2019-04-19
• Read original article here

It takes a lot of hard SEO work to get your client’s name ranking favorably in search results. But that work means nothing if you can’t then get prospects to click through to your client’s website.

Increasing organic click-through rate (CTR) is key to generating a steady stream of qualified leads for a business. Here, we’ll look at what you can do to get your client’s CTR to a good place.

The first step to improving CTR is knowing where your client stands right now. Google Search Console can give you detailed information about the performance of each of their website’s pages. From there, you can begin to analyze what’s working, what isn’t, and take steps to improve the overall approach.

In order to boost CTR, you often have to revisit keyword research. If your client didn’t undertake keyword research when they set up their site, or they haven’t checked back in on how their keywords are performing recently, they’re missing out on valuable data that can drive up CTR.

Long-tail keywords are particularly valuable in increasing CTR. Because these terms are longer and more specific, they’re not only more likely to help you reach qualified prospects, there’s also less competition for attention associated with these search terms.

Titles and meta descriptions are how searchers decide whether the link in front of them is going to provide them with the information they need.

If your client has a clear, descriptive title that provides explicit information about who they are, what they do, and what the searcher can expect to find if they click the link, that’s going to generate a higher CTR.

Lots of small businesses have titles or descriptions that are vague. If the title is just their business name, that doesn’t help prospects who might not already be familiar with the business.

Let’s say your client owns a bakery, named after their grandmother, Lucille. If their title simply says, “Lucille’s” that tells prospects nothing about the business. However, if you change the title to read, “Lucille’s – Maplewood’s neighborhood bakery since 1986,” suddenly, a prospect knows lots of information. They know what they do, where they’re located, and that they’ve been around for three decades.

The same principle applies for URLs. These are displayed right under titles on SERPs, and they provide you with yet another opportunity to give prospects detailed information on the business and the web page’s content.

URLs that are filled with a jumble of numbers, symbols, and letters that mean something to your client, but are jibberish to everyone else, are a missed opportunity! Creating a legible, descriptive URL provides the reader with additional information.

Going back to the bakery example, a URL that is www.lucillesbakery.com/custom-cake-designs tells visitors that they can expect to find information about custom cakes on that page, making them more likely to click through if that’s what they’re looking for!

Structured data helps search engines to understand the content of your client’s website. Because search engines like structured data and want to encourage people to use it, they reward websites that contain structured data by displaying more information about them in SERPs.

For example, a site with structured data might also include product reviews, availability, and price range below the blue link in SERPs. The site is also more likely to be featured in rich snippets or carousels on search engines.

Displaying this additional information gives prospects another reason to click the link. It makes them all the more certain of the content waiting for them on the website. Additionally, showing up in other places on the SERP, beyond just the blue links, gives your client another opportunity to be noticed.

With mobile search on the rise, we’re seeing more and more local searches each year. People who are looking for a quick solution to their problem on the go are likely to type “xyz business near me” into their search engine.

You want your client to be a featured local result! When prospects can easily identify a business as nearby and convenient, it’s a great way to generate a higher CTR. The first step to establishing a local presence is claiming the Google My Business listing and making sure that all information is accurate.

The GMB listing will ensure that your client appears in Maps results, and gives them a better shot at being featured on the traditional SERP. You also want to be sure your client builds out their GMB profile. Adding photos, generating a healthy stream of reviews, and utilizing the Q&A feature will not only help them rank higher in search, it will give prospects more confidence in the business, increasing the likelihood that they’ll click on the listing.

People are more likely to click on a link when there is a name recognition of the brand. That’s where social media marketing can come in to improve CTR.

When you’re getting your client’s name out there through other channels—i.e. paid and organic social—you’re developing a familiarity with the brand. Most prospects need to encounter a brand several times before they even think about doing business with them.

If you can get noticed on social media—even if prospects just scroll past your client’s name time after time, without ever clicking the link— it pays dividends. When your client’s name later appears in a search result, the prospect will be more likely to click through on their name, simply because they’ve seen it before.

People do not like to wait for a website to load. If they click on a link and it takes more than a few seconds for the page to appear, it’s likely that they’ll bounce right back to the SERP. You could be doing everything else in your power to increase CTR but still be losing customers who are frustrated by the load time.

This is an easy fix. First check how your client’s site loads on both desktop and mobile; Google’s PageSpeed Insights can provide you with that information. If the load time is slow for either search method, chat with a web developer to get the load times down.

Increasing organic CTR is how you get prospects to engage more deeply with your client’s brand. When you boost CTR, your client can capture leads and strengthen their sales pipeline.

Looking for broader information on boosting SEO? Check out our Small Business Guide to SEO.