You have worked hard to ensure that your website is at the top of Google’s search results. Your goal is to expose as many users as possible to your site. Even more, you want users to convert into customers.
But for users to end up as customers, they first have to click through to your website. The more users you can get to click, the greater the chance that at least one of them will become a customer. That’s why you need to increase your Click Through Rate (CTR).
What is CTR – and why is it important?
Before we get to the tips and tricks, we need to have a clear understanding of what CTR is and why it is important.
In short, CTR is the number of clicks on your website divided by the number of times it has been seen by users on Google. This means that if your website has 100 impressions and 10 clicks, your CTR will be 10%.
If we bring the conversion rate into the picture and do the math, it suddenly becomes clear why it’s a number to keep an eye on:
Let’s say that 2,000 users are exposed to your website for the keyword ‘coffee cup’, you have a CTR of 20% (400 users clicking through to your website) and a conversion rate of 2%.
That means that 8 out of the 400 become customers.
If you increase your CTR by just 5 percentage points and your conversion rate remains the same, you suddenly have 12.5 customers. That can ultimately be a nice extra bang for your buck.
Fortunately, it’s relatively easy to try to increase your CTR. You just need to crack the code for good metadata.
Refresh your metadata
In short, metadata is the information that is displayed to users in search results. It’s the information that search engines need to understand your content – and that also, among other things, should entice users to your website. Of course, we have a few more tips on how to do it.
Don’t promise anything you can’t keep
“Do you need to spice up your metadata? We have a strong selection of effective tips that can increase your CTR tenfold.”
Hold on – that may be a bit too much to guarantee. Your metadata should undoubtedly be catchy, but it can be easy to get carried away by ‘too-good-to-be-true’ phrases and a little too many exciting adjectives. Don’t get us wrong: adjectives and colorful descriptions are welcome, as long as you don’t promise anything you can’t keep.
There must be action behind the words. Otherwise, you risk users leaving your website just as quickly as your metadata made them click there – and you definitely don’t want that.
Use characters and eye-catchers
In addition to language, special characters can create eye-catchers – and preferably, they should lay eyes on you. Characters such as |, », ✓ and ➤ help direct the user’s attention to exactly what you want them to notice.
When you type a search term into Google today, you will discover that the use of characters is quite popular. This is for a simple reason: it works.
Bring emotions into play
This tip is probably not new to you. It is something that applies to almost all parts of your marketing: bringing the emotions into play. However, it is a bit of an art to do in the limited space that your metadata allows. Therefore, it is not the big story that you need to tell.
Instead, it is about which words you use. Leave the generic ones in the drawer and instead find the words that can initiate curiosity and a desire to read more.
Understand the user
In addition, you must be able to understand the user’s needs. What are they looking for when they search for a keyword related to your website? What problem are they looking for a solution to? And how can you give a solution to this problem? You need to boil that down to your metadata.
Speak into the need or problem and then tell them that you have the solution or the thing they have been missing. That way, the user sees that you understand their needs.
Get a handle on title tags and meta descriptions
That brings us to the actual structure of your metadata. Here are a few tips that can help you create the best title tags and meta descriptions.
Title tags
To put it simply, your title tags must be 45-55 characters long if all text is to be visible in Google’s search results. That’s a very limited number of characters, so it’s important that you use them wisely. One structure you can use is:
[Primary keyword] – [USP/CTA] – [Brand/company]
Whether you use CTA or USP depends on your company. Webshops often use CTAs, while companies that fall outside this category benefit more from using USPs.
Consider carefully what is most important to you. Mention your brand if it makes sense, but if your brand is relatively new, the characters will be better used.
Meta descriptions
Your meta description should be a little more extensive than your title tags. Here you may use 125-155 characters. Since there is more characters to work with, you also have more freedom to express yourself and include the things you think are important. Just as there is a suggested structure for title tags, there is also a suggested structure for meta descriptions:
[Primary keyword] – [Addressing need/content on the page] – [CTA/USP]
If you stick to it, you are off to a great start.
If you spend a little extra time refining your metadata, you give yourself the best conditions to increase your CTR – and that was exactly the point of it all. An increased CTR means more visitors, and that can potentially lead to more customers.