It is obvious that the higher your website ranks on search engines, the more chances you have to be clicked on by users. However, it’s not because you are ranked high that you will attract most of the clicks. Before getting any deeper into this I would like to explain what CTR is. The CTR (Click-Through Rate) is a way of measuring the success of an SEM/SEO campaign and it is calculated by dividing the number of clicks an ad/website gets by number of times it appeared.

If my ad/website appeared 100x and only got clicked on 5x, my CTR will be of 5%. There are many factors that can increase/decrease your CTR. Users tend to look for certain criteria before clicking on a result and we will help you meet them to the fullest.

Title Tag

This is a very important factor when you optimize your website, however webmasters tend to forget that they are mainly writing for the users. Therefore, this creates low quality titles that look irrelevant and sometimes spammy. Links with these kinds of titles tend to be ignored by users. In order to increase your CTR, use short titles that have a maximum of 70 characters. Be very descriptive and use a reasonable amount of keywords that will encourage a user to click on you. I recommend adding the company’s name at the end of the title because it makes the title look more professional.

Meta Description Tag

This is probably the most important factor to increase your CTR. Having a solid and relevant meta description is very important because it is the first description a user will get of your website. Look at it as a first impression of your website, you want that impression to be very positive on your users. You should explain what your webpage contains in a few brief but precise words and include your main keywords in the tag. The keywords will be “bolded” to match the user’s query. Write an attractive text that is appealing and that partially answers the user’s questions but not fully. This will create curiosity in the user who will most likely click on your link.

Sitelinks

Site links are links that help users navigate your website easier and they usually appear right below the SERPs results. Sitelinks don’t always appear in SERPs, they usually appear when the query is highly relevant to a result and when the result is a trusted website or brand. Having your sitelinks in your snippet can significantly increase your CTR because they tend to attract the attention of users and make it easier for them to navigate your website. Webmasters usually have very little control over their sitelinks because they are calculated using a complex algorithm, however, there are 2 techniques you could use to affect the sitelinks that are being displayed. Firstly, you should start by blocking all irrelevant sitelinks in your “Site Configuration Panel” in your Google Webmaster Tools. Secondly, make sure you have a good link architecture in your website so that the search engine bots will have an easy understand of the major headlines (sections) of your website.

Google Instant Preview

This gives users the opportunity to see a screenshot of the page to which the result is linking to. Regrettably, Google Instant Preview has trouble sometimes displaying flash content and as a result, sometimes the screenshot looks confusing and unprofessional. Make sure that your website has a nice design and looks professional because you will attract much more users that way. By taking a look at your instant preview, a user will see that your website looks professional and is organized, therefore it might encourage him to click on you, which will increase your CTR.

Social Layers

As we all know, Google created their own social layer called the “Google +1″ button, which is very similar to the Facebook “like” button. By having a lot of “+1″s, a user will be more encouraged to click on you because he will see that many people went on that particular website and took the time to give it a “+1″. Therefore meaning that it is most probably highly relevant to the user’s query and answers the user’s questions and needs.

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