The well-publicized scandal of data leak from AOL in 2006 about click-through rate (CTR) is quite remembered. This information was employed in formulas of a few SEO tools and was in debate. From that time onwards, many researches were done on the CTR distribution in SERPs.
From 2006 till date, many qualitative changes came on the scene with an increase in the universal search and the latest one is ‘Search Plus Your World’.
There are a number of views about these changes for webmasters, but all agree to the point that Google is providing the webmasters with novel ways for featuring their brand.
An AdviceSome of the tips might be an effort towards implementation and might require some care. But if you are one of SEOs or a website owner to makeyour domain popular, most of the tips will be easy to follow. Situation where more than one site is involved, the implementation becomes complex and it requires faster co-ordination and communication.
Text Snippets in SERPs & CTRThis is one of the typical means to enhance CTR position. Tom Anthony from Distilled talked about it on his blog, “Introducing SERP Turkey: A Free Tool to Split-Test and Gather CTR Analytics of SERP Entries“.
Here, Tom explained his testing via developing dummy pages and creating a number of instances on them of a specific keyword for SERPs, prior to using Mechanical Turk for driving traffic to these pages. After which data was analyzed by Analytics.
One test was about “bad” Meta description impact vs. good Meta
description. Tom says: “…this experiment did not go how I expected at all…”. The result showed that bad meta description outperformed the good meta description and the reason was given in the conclusion:
“The workers for this came from worldwide, and may not be aware of
the Sonicare brand. I can only imagine that when I entered my ‘improved’ description it became clear that this wasn’t an informational page but a commercial/brand one, but that workers had interpreted the search as an informational one.”
This means that regardless of the hunch that good Meta description
can enhance CTR, the fact isn’t the same. The reasons may be related to type of queries such as navigational, informational or transactional along with the type of user, who is clicking.
Another point is that in some circumstances Google might change the
method your page titles show in SERPs according to their own formulas, which mean excluding parts of the message you want to show in SERPs to users.
Your Immediate ActionCheckout your huge phrases that are at No.1 on Google SERPs and answer these questions:
- Performance of your Meta descriptions and title tags in comparison to your competitors?
- Did Google change the formula for text snippets appeared on SERPs?
- Did you implement “purple cow” for your critical pages?
Don’t forget to check Google Webmaster Tools in order to see any alert for duplication in title tags and Meta descriptions.
Discover the Potential of Rich Snippets as Mean of Being Search Engine FriendlyThis matter is under discussion. Generally, rich snippets help a lot which depends on the type of your site and the assumption that you implement them prior to your competitors. Google backs rich snippets for different kinds of content which comprise of: businesses and organizations, reviews, people, products, and events.
Adopt Google and Rel=Author Prior to Your CompetitorsValue of Google cannot be denied. Previous year, a lot has been
written about 1 button and its impact. Similarly, the power of credible
author appearing next to SERPs in Google has also been discussed. For instance, check “Our Verified Author Links Result in a 484% Higher Click-Through Rate” by Douglas Karr.
When it comes down to CTR, adding Google business page
and an author for your site provides a very limited opportunity as it
is only valuable if your competitors do not have an author already set.
Your Immediate ActionIf you didn’t make a Google account, build a business page and rel=”author”
for your website and take benefit of the Google’s efforts to fit search
and social aspects together. Then indulge in building your network and your author via Google. Google is now more brand oriented, so now is the time to develop your site a brand, to some extent.
Use Self-Hosted Video in SERPs to Your BenefitWhen large scale market for videos is thought of, YouTube is the
answer. It surely puts the video on global platform but it isn’t devoid
of some limitations.
When a user clicks on any video, he isn’t directed to your site, he
lands on Google property, which means you’re not getting much out of your video optimization.
Initially, for getting your video ranked, you must submit a video sitemap in Google Webmaster Tools.
This means, you can use Google products for increasing CTR. But you
have to be patient and put in lot of hard work, optimize rightly and
develop trust with Google.
Your Immediate ActionSelf-hosting videos are a great chance for having extra clicks from
Google. But some devotion is necessary in start and it also requires
hard work and time to get your videos ranked.
Summing UpGoogle has given a number of options about new dimensions of the
search coming up. First off, we must acknowledge the presence of
semantic web which is considered an opportunity by search engines for clear identification, either good or bad.
For SEO specifically, integration of traffic sources in internet
marketing strategy is essential. Google is bringing drastic changes for
ranking websites, so you might diversify your traffic sources so that
you can have some control over overall traffic, regardless of the
organic traffic being sent your way.
Lastly, it is very essential to expand your technique surrounded by
organic search to take benefit from these alterations. Develop Google
business page, use rich snippets and create author before your
competitors.
Source:
seoclerks