Tips For Improving Search Engine Click Through Rates
A great deal of time and money goes into search engine marketing and search engine optimization. We all know that when building your web pages it is critical that you write your content with keywords that will rank your site well within organic search engines searches. We also know that we can enroll within pay per click campaigns to elevate our website to the top of the search engine list. If your site ranks well within pay per click campaigns and organic searches and you are not achieving clickthroughs it is time to change your copy.
Page Titles
Each web page needs a page titles that is descriptive and relative to the content of your web page and engages your potential visitor. Page titles need to be 64 characters or less in length, if the page title is too long, search engines may cut off the display of the text.
- Home Page Title: Your home page title needs to be crafted rather selectively because search engine place significant weight on the home page title. If the site is ranking well in organic searches do not modify the home page title.
- Secondary Page Titles: While secondary page titles also need to be descriptive and relative to the content they should be crafted differently. Use your secondary web page titles to draw in clickthrough results. Use page titles that solicit an emotional response, ask a question, or state a fact to a specific audience.
Meta Descriptions
It used to be that search engines would pull information from both your title tag and your meta description. While now meta description tags are not a major factor for search engine optimization, they are a major factor in influencing people who are browsing the internet through search engine results to actually visit your site. It is absolutely necessary to have unique meta descriptions on each searchable page of your website.
- Meta tag length: Search engines display meta descriptions 200 characters in length, if the meta tag is too long search engines will cut off the text. One method is to create an engaging tag that fits within the 200 character limit, the other method is to create a meta description that is over the 200 character limit and baits the web viewer through a teaser to read more.
- Call to action: Create an effective call to action that complements your page title and page content. This is the most important facet of converting web browsers to clickthough your link.
Monitor Your Results
Google has introduced a new “clickthrough” feature that provides statistics of how many people have clicked on your site as a result of a search query. Monitor the clickthrough results of your web pages, and modify page titles and meta descriptions on web pages that are receiving poor results.
If you are unsure how optimize your page titles and meta descriptions, and would like our help, please contact us and we will help you get started.
New Clickthrough Feature in Google Webmaster Tools
Google Webmaster Tools offers great deal of information for website owners. Google has just introduced a new feature in Webmaster Tools that will give a greater understanding on how your site appears and performs in organic search results. If you have Google Webmaster Tools set up, take a look at the new clickthrough feature.
Google Top Search Query Tool
Previously, Google Webmaster Tools would display a report of the top 100 average position at which your website’s pages appeared in the search results for a particular query. This tool allowed website owners to understand where their site was appearing in search engine results. While this tool offered great information, it only provided results based on the number of impressions, the number of times your website appeared, but not the number of times your site was clicked.
New Clickthrough Feature
Google has introduced a new “clickthrough” feature that provides statistics of how many people have clicked on your site as a result of a search query. In addition to impressions and clickthrough numbers, you’ll also see a list of your site’s pages that were linked to from the search results for that search query. An auto generated graph is available to display the number of impressions and clickthroughs, as well as providing detailed search result positions of each key term.
It’s All About Conversion
Search engine optimization is always about getting your website to be found at the top of the search engine list, right in front of the right audience. If your website is achieving a high volume of impressions and low volume of clickthroughs you are not reaching your intended audience! Modifications can be made to the page title or meta description of your site to create a more appealing description of your site in the search results page. Results of these changes can be measured through Googles new clickthrough feature.
If you are unsure how this feature works, and would like our help, please contact us and we will help you get started!