How to Increase Website Click Through Rate

Is search engine optimization enough to get people to click through to your website?

Just because your blog post ends up on page one of search results, that’s no guarantee that a person will click to read your article.

That leads to a low click through rate and reduced traffic to your website.

So … what can you do to peak someone’s interest enough to click your link?

In today’s post, I am going to show you three powerful ways to get more people to click your website link.

What is Click through Rate and Why is it Important?

In search results, click through rate (CTR) is the number of times a link was clicked divided by the number of time the link was viewed. For example, if your link was viewed 100 times and received 5 clicks, your click through rate is 5%.

The higher your click through rate, the more people are visiting your website from search results or social media sites.

CTR works hand in hand with SEO. Your blog posts may start ranking in Google search but how much relevant traffic actually gets to your website can take your search ranking up or down.

How to Improve Your Meta Descriptions for Higher Click throughs

Each blog post has its own meta description which is the most important way to improve your click-through rates.

When your meta description appears in search results, it looks like this:

There are three distinct parts:

• Headline
• URL
• Description

These three work together to help a person decide whether or not to click your link.

This indirectly affects search engine optimization. A higher click through rate is an indicator to search engines that your page is a good match for a given search query.

Let’s dig into 3 simple tweaks that can multiply the number of people that click through to your site.

1. Create Irresistible Headlines that People Want to Click

Do your blog headlines compel a person to click or keep scrolling?

That’s the question you have to ask yourself. You may have written the best piece of content ever but if your headline is boring, your click through rate will be too low.

So what can you do?

There are many ways you can create engaging headlines that will have a dramatic impact on your click through rate.

Here’s what I mean. In this example from CoSchedule, you can see how these two headlines differ.

The new headline was a significant improvement over the original one. Just a small tweak can make all the difference.

Make sure your titles are not only engaging, but give a person an idea of exactly what your article is about. For example, if someone enters a question as a search query, does your headline help a person know if you post answers their question?

Let’s review two tools that will change the way you create blog post headlines.

Title Generator

If you are having trouble coming up with a headline, take a look at Tweak Your Biz Title Generator.

1. Enter your main keyword terms.
2. Click Noun or Verb and how you want the result to appear.
3. Click Submit.

You’ll get results in several categories like:

• Lists
• Best
• How to
• Questions
• And more.

It’s a great way to get your creative juices flowing. It will help you come up with some great ideas for your blog post title that you hadn’t thought of before.

Headline Analyzer

After you write down some great titles, head over to the CoSchedule Headline Analyzer. Attractive and interesting headlines can make all the difference in the number of clicks that your blog post receives.

The CoSchedule headline analyzer scores your headline and breaks it down for you with:

• Word balance
• Headline Type
• Length analysis
• First and last
• Keywords

There are many links you can follow to learn more about some key areas of creating great headlines too.

I use it for every title I create and many subtitles.

2. Create SEO Friendly URLs

This tip is overlooked most of the time and can make a huge difference for your click through rates!

Most people, use the automatic URL that WordPress creates based on your title. Some of these can be quite unattractive in the search results display.

Take a look at this one:

There are ellipse between the domain name and rest of the URL. Also, the end of the URL is cut off completely.

On the other hand, this URL display is more attractive:

It’s short and to the point. It also uses the main keywords and still gives you a good idea as to what the article is about.

3. Write Better Meta Descriptions to Increase Click Through (CTR)

Many people ignore this step when publishing blog posts. Here’s my advice:

Don’t ignore your meta descriptions.

They can make or break the number of people who click your links.

Meta descriptions help people understand what your content is about in organic search results. They can then make an educated decision as to whether to click your link or not.

Writing a great meta description is your chance to get the right information in front of users who see it.

There are two ways to create your blog post meta descriptions:

• SEO tools like Yoast provide a meta description area, also below the Edit Post area.
• Your WordPress theme include these settings and usually appear just below the Edit Post area.

Here are some best practices get more click throughs via better meta descriptions:

• Include your target keyword in the meta description. When you see these descriptions in search results, notice that the keywords are bold.
  
• Limit your meta description to 160 characters. The meta description fields include a character count. Anything over that number is truncated.
• Write engaging copy that gives a person an idea of what to expect from your article and entices them to want more.

If after a few weeks, you are not getting the click throughs you expected, you can always go back and change your meta description to see if you get a better results.

Final Thoughts

You’ve read about three important ways to increase the click through rate for your website in search results.

Now it’s time to implement.

Meta descriptions, headlines and URLs are an important part of your SEO efforts. They can make the difference between users clicking your link or another link.

You don’t want users to keep scrolling do you?

For more great tips on getting more traffic to your site, Grab your Blog Savvy newsletter below!