Declining CTR on SERP page: How it impacts your Organic Growth

Senthil Kumar Hariram, Vice President - Marketing, Neil Patel Digital India, on how CTR or click-through rate can decide on a brand’s success when it comes to traffic.

CTR or click-through rate is a key metric that decides your brand’s success when it comes to traffic, be it organic or paid results. A click-through rate can be defined as the proportion of visitors who visit your page or click on your link when it shows up on a search engine. It’s the fundamental unit of tracking conversions of your efforts. If users don’t click on your link, they won’t visit your website, read your blog, watch your video or buy your product.

Off late, if you’ve been wondering why your website traffic is diminishing, the answer lies in the recent trend in Google algorithms which has been pushing marketers towards paid ads to maintain the same level of visibility. As a result Ranking #1 organically has become an increasingly uphill task.

Google SERP is undergoing a major transition, in the future we are going to see fewer organic results on page one and many more paid ads amongst the top 10 searches. This means that Organic CTRs will take a hit across the board on mobile and desktops.

Another major disruption that’s happening is that Google is increasingly trying to cater to changes in search trends where users are looking for immediate answers. Google snippet is an innovation that’s giving users instant answers to their queries. This means users don’t have to click on a link to get answers to their queries, the results they are looking for are sourced from across the web and contextually displayed.

Search snippets can be present as much as 75% in the top spots of the SERP page for high volume keywords, amongst those featured snippets accounts for 20% off all the results. That said, we can implement a few key strategies and tactics to retain rankings in the face of these changes.

Focus on long-tail keywords: Implementation of long-tail keywords is one most effective SEO strategies, these keywords are specific to the niche which we are promoting/ selling. If implemented properly integrating them into the website, they can generate a lot of organic traffic. Long-tail keywords are one of the major factors for your sales strategy. Analyse keywords which are most likely to get you traffic, opt for long tail keywords which have lesser SEO difficulty score of 40, these are easier to rank for.

Write effective meta descriptions: Description meta tags, tells the visitors what to expect from when they click the link, writing effective meta tags can help increase the CTR greatly. Make use of the 160 characters to write an effective meta description, use keywords in meta tags, title tags, and H1 tags. There is a strong correlation between ranking and meta tag descriptions, you are likely to rank higher on the SERP page if you utilise keywords effectively in your meta descriptions.

Implementation of structured data (Schema Markup): Schema markup is one of the latest developments in SEO. It is a code which helps crawlers to organise and display your content. Schema Markup helps websites rank better for all kinds of content type on the SERP page, it gets you a ton of traffic if utilised effectively. Studies have shown that companies which Schema Markup have ranked better on the SERP page than companies who have not. Google’s rich snippets incorporate Schema Markup and play a vital role in SEO success today.

Create posts with images: Pictures are worth a thousand words. Visual content attracts the readers, increases engagement across all social media pages. Over the years there is a rise in this trend, marketers have started leveraging visuals in their content to get more search traffic. Ensure that your images use Alt Text Tags for the Keyword that you’re trying to rank for to leverage image searches.

Focus on local SEO: One of the unique ways to drive more traffic to your website is making your content focus on ‘local’ audiences. Ranking in local search is one of the easiest ways for you to grow your business, as they are targeted to a specific region or location and creates connections with your audience. If you manage to attract them you can see leaps in terms of conversions. There are two key strategies you can use to rank locally, the first one buying local search ads which occupies the top slots which Google Maps shows for a local search, this attracts a potential customer creating immediate connection and converting it into something tangible. The second way is through localised organic ranking, a traditional approach with a focus on using localised keywords and backlinks to reach local customers.

Optimise site speed: Site speed is a crucial part of overall user experience. If you can’t deliver low loading times on your website, it’s more likely that your website is going to have high bounce rates which will send Google signals which imply there is something wrong with the page. Enable browser cache and optimise your images to speed up the website load speed.

The increase in zero-click organic searches across the globe is alarming. This is mainly due to the structural changes in the way Google serves the search results. Answer boxes, Frequently asked question snippets, local search results via Google maps, knowledge graph and ads increasingly looking like organic search results etc., have significantly contributed to this trend.

It’s high time that companies pay special attention to improving the CTR on SERPS through advanced optimisation tactics. At Neil Patel Digital India, we have set up an advanced CTR optimisation specialist team to help businesses get back the lost traffic in spite of ranking high on Google.