How to improve your CTR in Google SERPs

In India we have a saying "Jo Dikhta Hai Woh Bikta Hai" – which means "What is visible, sells" in other words, "that which is seen is sold".

Clickthrough rate (CTR) is a way of measuring the success of an online advertising campaign for a particular website. CTR is the percentage of users that clicked on your ad or search listing. By improving your CTR, you will get more traffic to your website and can lower the Cost Per Click (CPC). So what should you do to improve your CTR in Google SERPs.

Informative Title Tags

Title Tags are often used directly in Search Results and are weighed heavily by Search Engines when they determine a page's Topic Authority. Always write informative and descriptive Title Tags, human beings react instinctually and emotionally. Have an engaging ad copy that appeals to your users and make them click.

Recommend that every page have a single, unique Title Tag consisting of 6-12 words (65 characters) as if it's over 65 characters, it will get cut off in Google SERP.

Descriptive Meta Description

Even Meta Descriptions are considered by Search Engines to determine a page topic authority. Keep your page Meta Description very descriptive and unique and describing the page. Google limits Meta Descriptions to 160 characters or less and every page on the website should have different Meta Description from other pages.

Recommend that every page have a single, unique Meta Description Tag consisting of 12-24 words (160 characters). Use the respective industry lingos in them.

Clean URL Structure

Always use descriptive and Keywords in URL. It is also important to use proper punctuations in the URLs to avoid long strings of characters which are difficult for humans to read. It is also important to note that hyphens ("-") are preferred to underscores as Google sees words separated by hyphens as individual words which are very useful for capturing multiple search terms.

Keep your URL short and avoid capitalizations, also check for spelling mistakes and avoid them.

Rich Snippets

Rich Snippets help people make more informed clicks and find what they need even faster. Google supports rich snippets for a variety of content types including, businesses and organizations, reviews, people, products, and events.

Use Rich Snippets where it's important and necessary in your website, such as for Breadcrumbs, Products Review and Ratings.

Verify Authorship (rel="author")

Authors are given a very prominent treatment on Google search results. A human touch and having a verified author appear in Google SERPs increases the trust factor as your competitors do not have it. Click here to know more about How to Verify Authorship (rel="author") in Google SERP.

Social Sharing Google+

Last year Google announced that Google is using OpenGraph and schema.org Rich Snippet mark-up to build rich annotations for your pages. The new inline annotations help increase engagement after users see a friend's recommendation right on your page. You can use +Snippets to customize the Title, Thumbnail Image and Description that appear when your content is shared.

Social Media Buttons helps you to share your content with the social Web. These buttons allows your visitors to share your content quickly and easily if they feel the content is worth sharing. It can also help you to generate significant amount of traffic to your site, without spending any extra penny.

Use these tips and easily improve and convert your impressions into clicks.