Organic Click Through Rate Optimisation Tactics - MKGO - June 2018

How to Drive More Organic Traffic
(Without Increasing a Ranking)
Stacey MacNaught
@staceycav #mkgo

After 9 years in SEO, I’ve heard this a fair
few times…
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In my head, what it really means is…
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But sometimes…
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Getting organic traffic isn’t easy.
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And for all the changes over the years, it’s
still very much the case that…
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…you don’t drive traffic if you don’t rank
for the right phrases.
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So a focus on rankings is, in my view,
still essential
(following solid keyword research)
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But being visible for something isn’t the
only thing you need to consider if you’re
going to drive the traffic.
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Click Through Rate.
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And then we’re back to…
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So, why does it happen?
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1. The Query Has No Volume.

https://kwfinder.com/features/search-volume/

2. You’re not really ranking where you
think you are consistently
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3. Your click through rate is poor.
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3. Your click through rate is poor.
We can fix this! J
@staceycav #mkgo

So, what’s a good click through rate?

https://www.advancedwebranking.com/cloud/ctrstudy/

Treat datasets like
this as a starting
point only.

29,899 websites.
22 categories.
1,359 sites per category if an (unlikely) even split.

It’s an excellent study. But then…
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Another study suggests that 35% of
users on desktop don’t click at all.
https://moz.com/blog/state-of-searcher-behavior-revealed
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And that 57% of users on mobile don’t
click at all.
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These studies often
contradict one another.
But here’s what we do
know for sure…

@staceycav@staceycav #mkgo
Sometimes, users simply
don’t need to click.

@staceycav@staceycav #mkgo
And SERP layouts affect
CTRs hugely.

CTR is (of course)
influenced heavily by
your position
@staceycav

Device affects click
through rate
@staceycav

CTR is different in
different sectors. And
can even fluctuate
seasonally.
@staceycav

So, while studies are a good starting point,
don’t take them as gospel.

If you want to improve your CTR, you
need to know what it is right now.

Search Console is your best friend.
https://search.google.com/search-console
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Find the keyword(s) you’re most
interested in from your query list
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Click through for further detail about
each one.
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You’ll get an export
that looks a bit
like this.
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Delete all but CTR
and position columns
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Remove decimals
From position column
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Order by position and
then get an average for
each position.
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Then create a shorter
sheet just with the
average CTR for each
Position you have data
for.
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A full how-to on getting position based
CTR data for your own websites:
https://www.staceymacnaught.co.uk/measuring
-organic-click-through-rate/
@staceycav #mkgo

Now you have at least some data about
your own query level CTR by position.
This will be a key reference point in assessing
the impact of any CTR optimization work you
do.
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A little housekeeping before we talk
techniques.

My test environment
19 websites in varied sectors ranging from
3,000 to 150,000 monthly organic visits.
Some live commercial websites, others
specifically set up for testing.
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My test environment
I don’t have as much data as the studies.
And my test environment almost certainly
wouldn’t qualify as “scientific.”
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My test environment
While I’m testing things, other things are
happening in SERPS, Google as a whole and
with competitors.
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My test environment
But I often find “tried and tested hands on by
me” to be more useful to me than third party
studies in developing techniques and
experiments.
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Techniques I’ve tried and tested to
improve click through rate from organic
search

This is about identifying the adjectives that
your potential customers associate as
particularly positive in the context of your
products and services
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Then using them in your page title and meta
description to compel a user to click.
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Start by visiting the Feefo or Trustpilot page
for the market leader in your sector.
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Copy and paste the reviews into a Word doc
or similar and filter out common phrases like
“review,” “thanks,” “2018,” “insurance” etc
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Pop the rest into any word cloud generator
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It’s worth adding that this could help you to
uncover new keyword opportunities too:
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For speed, test in Adwords.
I tested ad headlines including both “quick,”
and “easy,” and “quick” had almost twice
the CTR in paid search.
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CPCs too High for Testing?
Where possible/relevant, run the ads in other
English speaking countries (Canada,
Australia, New Zealand) where CPCs can be
lower.
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Budget still an issue?
https://start.usabilityhub.com
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Budget still an issue?
https://www.google.com/analytics/surveys/
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Impact of adding “quick,” to life insurance
landing page title and meta description
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Like for like position 5 - CTR increase
of 50%.
CTR for the landing page optimised rather than one specific query as it’s a reasonably medium to long
tail page.
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54% increase in organic traffic and a 62%
increase in organic leads through that
landing page comparing the 14 days prior to
the change with the 14 days after.
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In December 2017,
Google increased length
of meta descriptions
shown in results pages to
about 300 characters.
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So, off I went and updated 300 meta
descriptions on an ecommerce website from
around 150 characters to around 300.
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CTR increase on 87% of the pages worked
on.
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41% CTR increase (though a small positional
increase too)
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20% CTR increase despite a position drop
over this time.
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22% CTR increase – slight position increase
could pay a part
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All in all, the changes were credited with
delivering a 20% increase in organic traffic.
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Google reverted to the shorter descriptions
showing in results:
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Following, CTR dropped, but not quite to the
levels previously.
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This is likely to be partly down to the fact that
their result is no longer the biggest on the
page.
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But I also wondered if the ellipses at the end
of the visible description were causing a
problem.
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There are lots of examples of bad placement
of these ellipses…

So far, 120 shortened.
CTRs improved around 15%.
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An improvement to the opening sentence,
for example, might have had CTR impact
regardless of the length.
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But, it makes sense to have control over
what is visible to users in results page.
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So, the best advice I can give on meta
descriptions…
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Do write original ones.
Do use the 150-155 characters.
Don’t have them tail off if you can help it.
And do test on your own sites!
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https://moz.com/blog/how-to-write-meta-descriptions-in-a-changing-world
And do read this:
@staceycav #mkgo

A study by Conductor found that you could
improve CTRs by 36% by including numbers in
a headline/page title.
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Never one to take 3rd party studies as gospel,
I tested it myself.
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This is really easy to do for non commercial
content like blog posts, buying guides or
other informational content.
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With the bottom title, the page CTR
increased from 4.21% to 5.81%, an
improvement of 38%
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With the bottom title, the page CTR
increased from 3.89% to 5.02%, an
improvement of 29%
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Made changes like this on 40 pages. CTR
improved on 33.
82.5% success rate
positive correlation rate.
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But what about commercial landing pages?
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Not as easy to test on BIG sites because it’s
not always feasible to put specific numbers
in.
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What I want to do….
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So that’s ongoing for me. If any of you test it,
do let me know how it goes (please?)
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This one had mixed results.
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With the bottom title, page CTR went from
2.12% to 3.13%. That’s +42%
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With the bottom title, page CTR went from
1.21% to 1.43%. That’s +18%
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But beware competitors with better offers
undercutting you and slashing your CTR.
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CTR dropped by 51% on a site on which we
were specifying ”From £319,” when a
competitor added “from £299,” to their title.
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https://ahrefs.com/blog/featured-snippets-study/
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The specifics of achieving featured snippets
are a talk unto themselves. But here are
some great resources:
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https://getstat.com/blog/featured-snippets/
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https://moz.com/blog/optimize-featured-snippets
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https://yoast.com/featured-snippets/
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