Having your advert in the digital world of business is not the way it use to be. Especially now, that there is more competition and more traffic, on top of that Google’s changes. Gone are the days when things are easy-peasy.

But now the world has gone digital and an SEO agency, like Profit Commerce is a good way to start to point you in the right direction for your business and even gives the latest news in the industry. So, contact us to learn more.

What is CTR?

In online advertising, the click-through rate (CTR) is the percentage of individuals viewing a web page who view and then click on a specific advertisement that appears on that page. Click-through rates measure how successful an ad has been in capturing users’ attention by gauging how well your keywords and ads, and free listings, are performing.

The click-through rate is the ratio between the number of users who click on a link and the number of users viewing the page the link is on. To put it in another way, Ad Clicks ÷ Ad Impressions = Click-Through Rate. As one of the classic performance marketing metrics, you’re going to be bumping into CTR a lot. 

Why is CTR a Key Metric?

CTR is an important metric that measures the number of clicks advertisers receive on their ads per number of impressions. Achieving a high click-through rate is essential to your PPC success because it directly affects both your Quality Score and how much you pay every time someone clicks your search ad.

High impressions paired with high CTR and a high conversion rate is the digital marketing magic we advertisers dream about. Generally speaking, a high or increased click-through rate has been shown to correlate with higher conversion rates.

Your ranking on search engines is partly based on how popular your website is, and popularity is measured by page views. The more clicks your page gets – or, in other words, the higher your CTR – then the more valuable the searching engine deems it to be. It impacts your rankings and the amount of traffic that comes to your website. 

CTR can be used to measure the success of pay-per-click (PPC) search results, for example with Google Ads formerly known as Google AdWords or other searching engines), CTAs on a landing page, or hyperlinks in blog posts and email campaigns.

 Dive deep into the industry averages and see how you compare to the different industries that advertise through Google Ads.

The best way to check your current CTR is by using MonsterInsights. It’s the best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress and displays search console reports right inside your dashboard. 

What’s a “good” CTR?

A good CTR depends on several factors specific to your business and ad campaigns. The average CTR for search and display ads, however, is 1.9%. For search ads, the average CTR is 3.17% and for display ads, the CTR is 0.46%. A higher CTR for sure has its advantages.

A low CTR means your ad isn’t compelling enough to get people to your landing page to complete the desired action, whether it’s a product sale, newsletter sign-up, or other outcomes. In addition, a low CTR negatively impacts your Quality Score, which makes your campaign less cost-effective. 

Try to beat your own record, and focus on achieving a higher CTR in your next campaign than your last.

The click-through rate (CTR) is the percentage of how many people clicked on an ad after seeing it. It’s one of the most critical and most optimized metrics in digital pay per click (PPC) advertising because it can be a good indicator of whether an online campaign is successful or not.

Does CTR affect your SEO?

Well, in theory, meta descriptions do not affect SEO. This is an official statement from Google, released in 2009. However, since meta descriptions show in the search engine results, they can affect CTRs (click-through rates), which are linked to SEO & rankings. So, in practice, meta descriptions might have an impact on SEO.

One way of localizing your content is to add your location in your content, meta description, and title tag.

Ways to Improve Your Organic CTR

How to Improve CTR with the Google Ads. Use these tactics to turn things up a notch once you’ve nailed down PPC ads that are getting traction and a landing page that delivers a stellar experience. So make your website the ‘party that everyone wants to attend, and improve CTR to boost your SEO.

Here are some Google Ads CTR improvement techniques for you to use.

1) Utilized keyword & ad relationship

Having synonyms and acronyms and abbreviations for what you sell in the same ad group won’t do you any good. Having 20-50 keywords that you think have a “sort of” relevant theme going on, then you’re wrong. Because the actual keyword is in the advertisement.

According to Google; ” Keyword insertion can help improve your ads’ relevance to potential customers by automatically updating your ads with the keywords in your ad group that caused your ads to show.”

All the options in the Google Ads interface are designed to encourage you to add multiple keywords into your account and into your Ad Groups. 

So start putting individual keywords in their own ad groups with their own unique and relevant ads. This will increase CTR and improve your quality scores.

When people search for a keyword in your ad group containing more than 20 keywords, the advert that appears is not very likely to contain the keyword the user is searching for.

2) Use long-tail keywords in your display URL

Time and again, we’ve seen search results with keywords in display URLs have a better click-through rate. Organic click-through rate refers to the percentage of users who click on a search engine result. In this case, that result would be your URL.

The display URL is technically part of your ad text, but we often see advertisers either leave it blank, or type in the name of their business. Instead, try adding the keyword you’re writing the ad for (hopefully you’ve taken advantage of the SKAGs structure to make this easier) into the URL.

Long-tail keywords are highly descriptive and, as a result, they match your content to search intent. To optimize your videos for featured snippets, you can add long-tail keywords in the descriptions so they have a better chance of being picked by search engines. Then see which keywords have a featured snippet in the search results.

3) Use countdown timers

The timer is added to the actual ad by adding the snippet “{=”. You’ll see a pop-up that populates where you can choose your start and end date for the timer.

4) Use Ad extensions

Everyone should use site link ad extensions, and now you can even beef them up with new features. Sitelink ad extensions further help in getting a potential customer to take a specific action. Google ads allow up to 4 site link extensions to be shown in your ad, though you can create more and the algorithm chooses up to 4 to show.

 If you only deal locally, add a location extension with your address so people know where you are before they click your ad. And if you accept phone calls, include call extensions with your ads. Adding call extensions to your adverts makes it easier for people to get in touch.

If you set up a Google phone number when creating your call extension you can record calls as a conversion in AdWords if they last longer than the call duration that you specify. 

Use these to your advantage and your CTR will increase.

5) Use of symbols

Anytime you can use symbols that are different from the regular ol’ ABCs, you should do it.

These are ®registered trademarks, ©opyright, (parentheses), exclamation marks! dollar $ign$, or anything you can use without having your ad disapproved. Try and test different combinations.

For this to work, you must implement image SEO best practices like naming your images properly and adding alt text. 

6) Use negative keywords

Negative keywords are words you add to a specified list to keep searchers who aren’t looking for what you sell from seeing your ad. While adding relevant keywords is important to increase your AdWords CTR, adding a list of negative keywords is equally significant.

Since negative keywords exclude search terms not relevant to your business, you are showcasing relevant ads to a relevant audience. 

Including price extensions improve your Quality Score, and also will improve your click-through rate by making the information users require quickly and easily accessible.

An example would be if someone types in “free couches craigslist”. You or your PPC agency would then add ‘free’ and ‘craigslist’ as negative keywords since you don’t sell them on Craigslist.

Another example for B2B might be adding terms such as “career” or “job.”

7) Minimize impressions

What good are your ads if they’re getting a ton of impressions, but hardly any clicks? Google Ads hates that just as much as we do. 

You should regularly check your search term report which reveals what actual people are typing in when finding your ads. The report even provides metrics such as impressions and CTR. Click-through rate is a great help on this.

Add the keywords with the lowest CTR to your negative keyword list. You may be worried that adding all these seemingly related keywords to a negative list might cause your impressions to drop.

That’s a good thing.

8) Use rhythm

Test out having the first description line related directly to the second description line and make it flow. And then test it out with stops and pauses.

Your ad should have rhythm. And if it can, it should be jammin’.

9) Provide value

Turn the tables by letting ad viewers win. Give them a good reason to click. Don’t make the ad solely about you and your services. Make it about your target audience, their problems, and the value you can provide.

Whenever you can provide something of value, do it. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a B2B or B2C, there are options. Being more relevant to your target audience and therefore better the chances of increasing clicks.

10) Raising bids

Raising your bid could be the fastest and costliest way to increase CTR.

11) Test ad copy

There are many factors that influence your Quality Score, from the relevance of your PPC landing pages to the topicality of your ad copy by displaying the keyword in your ad headline, your ad copy, and the ad URL

Keep around 3-4 ads per ad group and have them compete against each other to increase CTR.

From here you’ll find insights within the ad platform and even in Google Analytics to get ideas to continue to create winning ads. Pause the lower performing ones and create variations of the winning ads.

The golden rule with paid traffic is to keep testing. The same goes for improving the click-through rate of your campaigns. With a bit of sweat and lots of perseverance, you can optimize your campaigns and send your CTR soaring.

12) Go off the deep end

Try something that’s “non-marketing” and “unadvertised” – Make your ad so stupid that you think no one will click on it, and then look at the results.

You’ll be surprised how your ad can become the elephant in the room very quickly if everyone else is following “the rulebook”.

13) Look at the competition

Get some inspiration from your competitors. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel, but damn, don’t be too proud to borrow a good idea here and there.

Open your eyes! Explore the world!

14) Use calls to action (CTAs)

In order to have a highly effective ad (one that actually accomplished the action you want a visitor to take), then you should mention that within the ad. The human mind actually expects a call to action from your PPC ad.

Calls to action like “Buy Now!” – “Learn More” – “Get Free Info” will direct the visitor to click (because an action is desired) and ultimately aid in the conversion rate as well.

15) Test out your unique offer

Test out your USP (unique selling proposition) in different ways. You want to make crystal clear what you have to offer and what sets you apart from competitors.

You should have looked at your competitors’ ads already so you know exactly what not to say. You don’t want to blend in, you want to stand out. Give more than your competitors. 

16) Low-to-medium ain’t so bad

Let the big brands waste their money there. Sometimes the low-to-medium search volume keywords are the best low-hanging fruit. They might not get as many impressions, but they can mean a high-quality audience. 

Sacrifice the impressions and you might find yourself getting even more clicks than the high impression gold you thought you had.

 Implementing structured data or rich snippets is a great way to “speak” to search engine algorithms. It will boost your organic CTR rates as people love interactive content. 

Utilize smart strategies

With the rise of automation, Google Ads really has stepped up its game with smart bidding strategies. The beauty of smart bidding is that Google will automate when your ads appear, with a view to only entering your ad in auctions where you are more likely to get a click

By entering more precise, more targeted auctions, you will get a higher click-through rate. Gone are the days of automated bidding meaning manual with enhanced CPC. 

Bottom Line

One thing is for sure, focusing on the quality of your brand first will automatically set those click-through rates soaring, without being bothered by how much it cost for the advert you put on to it.