Search engine optimization (SEO) is a sequence of improvements to a website's visibility in the results of Internet search engines (primarily Google). Generally speaking, the higher your website appears on the search engine results page, the more people are likely to see it.
The high position of your website depends on many factors: the rules and algorithms of the search engine, the keywords entered in Google, the structure of internal and external links, SSL certificates, etc. As you can see, it is a complex mechanism.
Even if your website appears on the first page of search results thanks to SEO, your click-through rate may still be low – a CTR below 4% means that you are getting really little traffic, which is probably reflected in your company statistics and… revenue.
HOW TO CHANGE IT?
Forget about the SEO you know so far.
Yes, you read that right. Forget about the cliché golden rules of SEO that you have seen all over the internet and focus on optimization techniques that will bring more targeted visitors to your website while maintaining a high position in the SERPs (Search Engine Result Page, otherwise search results page).
If you want to know how to make your website visible and clicked on frequently, you've come to the right place.
STAND OUT IN SEARCH RESULTS
When you need something – information, a product, a review – what’s the first thing you usually do? You probably type your query into a search engine, right? Well, 93% online experiences start that way. Once you get the results, the next step is to click on one (or more) of them.
Let’s stay here a bit longer. What elements or circumstances determine the choice of a particular link?
In the rest of this article, we will identify the factors that we believe influence the click decision process. Our goal is to point out specific techniques that ensure high SERP rankings and, at the same time, high CTR.
WHAT ABOUT PAID SEARCH ADS?
They will help your site appear at the top of search results, if you pay for them. However, in the long run, organic search is more cost-effective and offers better value. Organic traffic brings more relevant and engaged users to your site, giving you greater credibility and a competitive advantage.
SEO has ~20x greater traffic generation capabilities than PPC ads on mobile and desktop – this has been proven by Moz, a subscription-based inbound marketing and marketing analytics software company.
Actions to improve your search engine rankings can be divided into two categories:
- Optimizations that directly affect your position in SERPs,
- Changes that affect the behavior of people who see the search results list.
Only the combination of one with the other brings valuable and long-term effects without spending money. What's more, changes such as modifying title tags give immediate effects.
TITLE TAGS – FIRST IMPRESSION
By title tags we mean all the words that appear in the title (and only the title) of a search result. This is the first contact between a brand and searchers. The title is a major part of the decision-making process and often determines whether users click on your result or not, so it is worth optimizing it well. This is the beginning of every relationship – first impressions count!
Title tags give a strong signal of what the page is about and provide a better understanding of the site’s content to both humans and search engine robots. Making the tags catchy and distinctive leads to high rankings in the SERPs and increases the chances that people will click on them.
Think of titles as direct messages to your ideal customers. To increase clicks, here are a few rules to follow when creating them:
- Title tags are the heart of your pages. They should provide detailed information about what people will find on your site when they click through.
- The sum of all characters including spaces should not exceed 90 characters. If your title is too long, search engines may cut it off.
- Title tags need to contain keywords – the more front-page they are, the better. However, overdoing it is unnecessary and counterproductive.
Why do I use the plural form everywhere – “titles”? There is a reason for that.
Every page on your site is unique, and your titles should reflect that. Make sure you customize the title tags on each page of your site so that they accurately describe the content of that page. Ryan Stewart of Webris recommends a slightly different approach to creating title tags for your home and landing pages:
Home: Brand Name + Primary Keyword + Secondary Keyword
Landing page: primary keyword + secondary keyword + brand name
An interesting idea to increase your visibility among the rest of the search results is to use special characters; # / – &:% – which drastically help to break the visual monotony of SERPs. From a technical point of view, this will not affect your position in the search engine, but it will provide you with distinction among your competitors.
To effectively execute these tactics, you first need to identify keywords related to your brand and keywords that people are typically searching for. The key is to understand the needs of searchers, the language they speak, and the type of content they are looking for. Talk to your customers, check out forums or social media groups.
You can customize your search engine campaigns by starting your own keyword research using a tool called Google Keyword Planner. It’s great for both paid and organic search, and it’s completely free. Then you can try another one, like Keyword Explorer, created by the SEO experts at Moz.
Tip: If you want to attract clicks from well-targeted users who know what they’re looking for, focus on long-tail keywords. They’re more specific and will increase the number of customers who are deeper in the sales funnel.
HOW TO FIND THE RIGHT KEYWORDS IN A FEW EASY STEPS?
Entrepreneurs often ask themselves which keywords will help them with SEO optimization. The answer is closer than they think; they just need to take a look at the competition. And here, Google Keyword Planner takes first place. With this tool, you can see what keywords your competitors are using in their SEO strategy on the web. The goal is to borrow their ideas, even if only for a moment.
- Start Keyword Planner.
- Click "Find New Keywords" and then enter the address of a competing website.
- To give you an example, let's check how popular Apple-related search results are. So we enter the following URL into the search toolbar: www.apple.com
- Then we click "Get Started" and we get a whole list of keyword suggestions along with a graphical representation of the current search trend and search volume, which gives us an overview of the popularity of the phrases.
The list of phrases obtained in this way can be downloaded by clicking the "Download keyword ideas" button. The downloaded .csv file can be imported into Excel, where you can manage the list of keywords, e.g. sort them by search volume.
With this quick and easy method, you can have a great starting point for building a high-quality keyword list for your business.
The main advantage of changing title tags is their immediate impact on the site's rankings - both drops and increases. Therefore, all modifications require strict control and measurement of how they affect our position in SERPs and CTR.
DO META DESCRIPTIONS ALSO AFFECT SEO AND SERP POSITIONING?
Meta descriptions are not included in Google's ranking algorithms, but they do affect a page's CTR, which can help it rank better. Like title tags, meta descriptions also help people and search engines better understand the content of a page. This short summary of a web page acts as advertising copy, and its purpose is to encourage people to click.
Tip: Google and other search engine keywords are bolded in the meta description when they match search terms, which can attract attention. Match your descriptions to search terms as closely as possible to maximize click-through rates on search results pages.
As with title tags, it is important that the meta descriptions on each page are unique and relevant to the page's content.
BACKLINKS - CLEAN THEM
If multiple sites link to your site, it sends a clear signal to search engines: "Hey Google, look how many sites link to this site, this is something valuable! Let's rank it higher."
Backlinks from other sites have a huge impact on historical page rankings. When relevant sites link to your pages, your brand receives “special points” from Google. As a result, your domain ranks higher during the search process.
WHAT DOES “RELEVANT WEBSITES” MEAN?
Let's say you run a sports shop and you have a lot of incoming links from car sites. This is the part where Google says:
"Something's wrong. I don't trust you yet!”
And then it removes your site from the Google index or devalues your rankings.
When the algorithm determines that your site has a lot of backlinks from off-topic places, your site’s potential will be reduced. Backlinks that lead to your site from spammy or low-quality sites are called bad links and harm your domain. Links should always come from sites with a similar theme. For example, in the case of a sports shop, a good backlink would come from a football website. In order to gain the trust of the search engine and therefore appear higher in the SERPs, it is necessary to find and remove bad backlinks leading to your site. You can do this with Google Search Console. This tool is a free service that helps you monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot your site’s presence in Google search results. When you connect it to Google Analytics, you will receive very important data about the search activity on the site, phrases, keywords, positions, etc.
IS IT POSSIBLE TO RANK VERY HIGH IN GOOGLE WITHOUT BACKLINKS?
Yes, although it is still related to links. Building a strong internal link structure increases your chances of appearing higher in search engines. This involves organizing pages with strong content into structures that go from specific to general. Take a look at this table:
The idea is that each Type 1 subpage collects value from many smaller, more detailed subpages (Types 2 and 3). When a Type 1 subpage leads to the homepage, Google receives a signal that many interesting and detailed subpages are not providing value to your homepage.
This type of site structure builds trust between the search engine and your pages, which makes them more worthy of attention. There’s one more thing that can deepen this.
BRAND AWARENESS
Imagine you're looking for a product. One result is a brand you know or have heard of, and another is a brand you have no connection with. Which would you click?
It doesn’t matter how well you know the first brand – you’ll click on it because there’s a little piece of information about that brand in the back of your mind. Your role as an entrepreneur is to make sure that people remember your company.
When you create great content and keep your brand interesting on social media, the internet starts talking about you. Every positive opinion about your brand has a big impact on your search engine ranking.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
The better your reviews, the more people search for you and the higher Google ranks your site. Building brand recognition through social media like Instagram or Facebook (depending on your target audience) works in a similar way. People see an interesting post in their newsfeed and then search for your business in a search engine to learn more about it. As a result, Google gets a strong signal that people are searching for your brand, so it can be important and valuable.
- DOUBLE TRUST
Some time ago, to stay in business, companies had to build trust only with people. Today, they have to build it with Google as well.
Optimizing your title tags and meta descriptions, maintaining quality backlinks, and building the right website structure are ways to solve the latter problem. You can achieve stunning and long-lasting results by improving both of them. There is one magical force that no algorithm update can change – having brand fans on your side.
Want more? Read our other articles: