One of the important results of SEO is to increase the click rate of the website. The reason we say the result is that increasing the click rate or CTR is not the goal of SEO, but it is an achievement that will be obtained by doing the SEO steps correctly. But to know exactly “what is CTR?” It will help a lot to understand the content and better understand its implementation points.
Therefore, in this article, we have provided a brief but useful explanation of this issue. We have stated some practical points. Reading this article will take 4 minutes of your time, but we assure you that these 4 minutes will be a good investment on your part to learn. Stay with us in the future.
What is CTR? why is it important?
First, it is necessary to introduce CTR completely and clearly. CTR stands for Click Through Rate.we must say that it means the evaluation by clicking. But since the word rate means the ratio of two or more things to each other, then the word rate is used in the optimal translation.
From this, we understand that CTR is a relative concept, that is, it is a ratio, and it speaks to us of a ratio that is meaningful to us. Because this rate or ratio is related to user clicking (Click Through Rate), we call it to click rate.
You can see CTR or click rate in Search Console. The search console chart, in the Performance section, displays two very important issues:
- Total Clicks
- Total Impressions
For a better explanation, first, we will learn more about the meanings of these 2 topics:
- Total Clicks: It means the total number of times that users have clicked on the link of our site. Usually, each click is equivalent to a visit to the site. That is, every time someone has searched for the desired keyword in Google and our site link has been shown in the results, the user has clicked on our site link and entered the site for any reason (which we will discuss later in this article).
- Total Impressions: It means the total number of times our site link has been displayed on the Search Engine Result Page. It should be noted that Impression has nothing to do with whether or not the link is seen by the user. As soon as our link is displayed on the results page, which we call SERP for short, it will be considered an Impression for us.
The click rate is the result of dividing Total Clicks by Total Impressions. It is the ratio of received clicks to the total number of appearances in search results.
| The total number of likes received on the search page | Total Clicks |
| The total number of times displayed on the top page | Total Impressions |
| ( ImpressionsTotal )/(Total Clicks ) | CTR |
The click rate means the ratio of the number of clicks to the number of times it appears in the search results
What is the use of CTR? Why is click rate important in SEO?
It was the first time in 1994 that the concept of CTR was noticed. When AT&T’s banner ad had more than 40% of clicks. The company had a banner ad on the site of the first online magazine, HotWired.com, in 1994. To measure the effectiveness of that banner, the concept of click rate or CTR was created.
As mentioned, the click rate expresses a ratio and this ratio has a message for us. The number of this ratio, which is expressed as a percentage, is meaningful for us. In other words, the ratio of the number of clicks received, to the number of times of presence in Serp, means the attractiveness of our link in SERP for the audience. Google realizes this through its algorithms. Read more about Google’s most important algorithms.
The click rate tells us how attractive our link is to users.
That is, it tells us how many people, out of all the times we have appeared in the results, have chosen to read our article and asked to see our content. In other words, how attractive are we to the audience?
The click rate or CTR is indeed a quantitative item, but for us, it has a qualitative meaning and directly affects the qualitative cases. Now, by saying this, you can find out better what is the answer to the CTR question.
Why CTR is important in SEO is because it shows the catchiness of the titles and descriptions provided around the content on the results page (Meta Description) in organic input.
The use of click rate in evaluating the effectiveness of advertising on Google
On the other hand, the click rate can also measure the effectiveness of click ads. This means that when we advertise on Google using Google Ads, we can estimate its effectiveness based on the CTR number. However, in this context, the issue of checking the quality of Meta Description remains valid.
Increased click-through rate is the result of more visibility for your business.
Introducing ways to increase click rates
In this section, we will briefly explain the solutions to increase the click rate. These solutions can be implemented for any project according to its topic. After reading, you can act on these things considering the conditions of your project and business to see the result in increasing the click rate of the site in the search console.
- First, record the click rate of your site.
- This is very important to measure the success rate of your actions.
Focus on improving and promoting page titles. For this, consider the following:
- Try different headlines.
The first step to creating great headlines is to give yourself options to choose from. Don’t immediately write the first thing that comes to your mind, but try to find several alternatives.
- Focus on the feelings.
Most decisions are motivated by emotions, including clicks.
Use lists. List posts have been proven to increase click-through rates. (Top 10 programming languages, top 10 phones of the year, 7 methods to improve and increase click rate,…)
- Use proper formatting.
Appearance is very important, including for blog post titles.
Test different headlines for the page to choose the most effective ones.
Use free tools to check site titles. Like Headline Analyzer (ahrefs)
Test headlines on social media. In social media marketing, it is common to post the same content multiple times with different titles. This way you can check the feedback.
- Use PPC ads to experiment.
If you can afford it, you can also test headlines with online ads. Improve URL structure to make it descriptive.
That is, use words in the URL so that the user can understand the topic of the content. You can improve your URLs by using categories and subcategories.
This puts search results in a wider context and lets visitors know that there is more than one article or product in their area of interest on your website.
- Pay attention to your meta descriptions
Check out the meta description. The first rule of thumb for improving organic CTR through meta descriptions is to make sure you set a custom description for each post. One way to make your meta description more effective is to use powerful keywords. These are phrases and words that appeal to the emotional part of the brain.
- Use structured data.
It means to use code schema. Google is increasingly using structured data to display the right information on the results page.
- Prioritize page loading speed.
The final element to increasing your organic click-through rate is to make sure your site loads as quickly as possible. After all, a click only counts when the visitor lands on your page.
Frequently asked questions
After answering the question of what is CTR, it is not bad to check the things that always create questions for the audience. In the following, we will raise some common questions and answer them.
Is CTR a Google Ranking Signal?
Googlers have repeatedly said that the data is sometimes vague and easily manipulated, so it doesn’t make sense for Google to use it. So that shows it’s not a ranking factor. But it is effective in improving the quality conditions to get a better rank.
Does increasing CTR improve SEO?
The answer is negative. Rarely do we have such absolute answers in SEO. But we can clearly say that repeatedly clicking on your site does not increase the ranking. As far as we know, there are no ranking factors based on click behavior at all.
What is CTR good for SEO?
According to our data, we found that titles between 15 and 40 characters have the highest organic CTR. This means that when the title of your article is explanatory and descriptive, it is easier to convince the audience to click on the link to your site. The results obtained from increasing the click rate help us to find the right solutions for ourselves.
In this article, we tried to fully answer the question of what is CTR, and it is expected that after reading this article, you will learn ways to increase the click rate and implement them on your site. According to the above, please write us your personal experiences about the effects of click rate on-site visits in the comments section.
