With so much noise online and so little target market attention span capacity, what are marketers to do?
It’s simple, really. Just do this one thing.
Master your headlines and heed your CTRs. (OK Fine two things)
Today is not the first time I’ve discussed CTR (click through rates) and it certainly won’t be the last. It’s just too important for our marketing campaigns to be effective in this day and age. Conscious attention to CTRs and eye-grabbing titles is one of the most important skills you can master as a marketer.
Below I’ll show you a few real-life scenarios on why you should care big time about dedicating time and resources to improving your CTRs.
CTRs, Headlines, and Mobile: Oh My!
Why is a catchy headline more important than ever for mobile? Oh, I don’t know, maybe because Google just implemented one crazy change: they’ve started testing an introduction to infinite scrolling for mobile search results pages (SERPs): see the screenshot below
Source: SEJ
With the known tendency of users to scan and scroll before making a selection, it’s imperative you catch their eye.
CTRs and SEO: How Do They Work Together?
Ever heard of a little thing called user experience (UX)? You may know that Google places a significant amount of ranking weight on what they deem to be an excellent website user experience. Ranking is half the battle: to really win the SEO battle, you must prove your content and website is worthy of a high ranking by winning clicks and time on site. Signals that point to a high quality experience could result in the coveted “Position 0,” which immediately will catapult your CTRs.
This, in turn, is what will help you outrank big brands and top industry websites again and again. (Peace out, Amazon!) Screenshot below:
CTR and PPC: Tips Too Easy To Be True
PPC is one of those channels that is designed to double your investment. As Google says, you should put $1 in and get $2 out. With that easy math out of the way, are you getting the most bang for your buck? If not, test out your headlines. They are the #1 most important part of your text ads. The ad-writing part of your PPC campaign should never be an afterthought, but all too often I come across that in my audits. Besides that, make sure you use the words that will catch your target market’s eyes:
CTR and Headline Tips and Resources:
Buzzsumo is a great site for getting intel on popular articles. What does that mean for you? No need to reinvent the wheel. Don’t copy, but use data-driven tools like this to make actionable decisions and test which headlines might resonate with your audience too. Here is the link to plug in your topics and keywords and discover the most shared content: https://app.buzzsumo.com/research/most-shared
Would you like more guidance? See these very helpful articles here:
- Hacks for CTR Improvement: https://moz.com/blog/higher-organic-click-through-conversion-rates-rankings
- Still writing your title tags like it was 2014? Then you need this in your life: https://moz.com/blog/title-tag-hacks-whiteboard-friday
- I know, I know. I shared this article a lot. It’s that good: https://searchengineland.com/5-brilliant-headline-hacks-crazy-high-organic-click-rates-249320
- Writing headlines that serve SEO, social media, and website visitors. Thank you, Rand! https://moz.com/blog/writing-headlines-seo-social-media
- And finally, back to Buzzsumo, who analyzed over 100 million headlines to let us know what works and what doesn’t: http://buzzsumo.com/blog/most-shared-headlines-study/#gs.czHkjbI
Jenny Munn
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