Ranking number one on Google searches is the best thing that can happen to your blog, and while it’s not impossible, it’s certainly not easy.
When your website ranks high on the first page of a Google search, but your website is not in the top three positions on the search engine, how can you use that ranking to improve your website ranking?
This is an important question to review some tips that you can implement to get higher click-through rates from Google searches . I have tried and tested these factors and they work for me, so they should work for you too.
How to track existing Google search clickthroughs?
The first thing you should do is check the click-through rate you’re getting from Google SERPs. To do this, log into your Google Analytics account and go to Acquisition > Search Console > Queries. Here you can see which queries are bringing visitors to your site.
Similarly, you can select Acquisition > Search Console > Landing Pages instead of Queries to see the pages that are driving the most traffic and click-throughs from Google SERPs.
Let’s take a look!
6 ways to increase your Google search click-through rate:
1. Star ratings in Google Search:
Showing star ratings in Google searches is an effective way to increase your click-through rate. Not only does it make your search results stand out in search engine results, it also helps you get clicks.
Note: This technique only works on review articles.
It provides more information in search engines, which helps in bringing more traffic to your web page.
For example, if you write a review article, such as a website hosting or web app review, you can use Google Rich Snippet star ratings to make your review stand out. These star ratings can rank the product you are reviewing and are very eye-catching.
With star ratings, your review posts can easily stand out even in the competitive keyword search results. WP Review Pro is the best plugin to display search star ratings, and it also allows you to add a review box to your blog posts.
However, this is a paid plugin that’s perfect for review or affiliate sites.
However, if you are looking for a free solution, then you should use RankMathSEO WordPress plugin . It is a free plugin ( best alternative to Yoast SEO ) that allows you to add different schema types, including product schema. In product schema, you can rate your products (review posts) and it will show star ratings in Google searches.
In addition to star ratings, you can also add a useful call to action button at the top or end of your article to help you increase click-through rates for the products you recommend. If you are a blogger and review services, products, apps, phones, etc., you will find that your blog’s click-through rate in Google searches will increase significantly by using this plugin.
Get the WP Product Review plugin
2. Manage publish/update dates in Google SERPs:
Dates are useful for letting readers know when a blog post was written, giving them an idea of how up-to-date the information they are reading is.
If you have an older blog, despite writing and publishing evergreen content on that blog, you may notice a lower click-through rate from Google searches due to the date in the Google SERPs.
In this case, you can display an update date instead of a publish date to ensure that search engines show the most recent date. Make sure to display both the publish date and the update date to clearly present the content to your readers.
Also, don’t play with this feature, as Google has started penalizing pages that don’t update any content but simply update posts to show a recent date.
3. Intent-based meta descriptions and meta titles:
This should probably be the first tip I offer in this post, but since it’s one of the oldest, I’ll save it for last. Google and most other search engines use your meta title and meta description to display information in a Google search.
Writing a call-to-action meta title will help you get better click-through rates, while writing detailed meta descriptions with your keywords will help you rank better.
Additionally, your meta title and description should be based on user intent. This tip alone can significantly increase your click-through rate on Google searches.
To get the most out of it, you need to do the following:
- Sign in to Google Search Console
- Click Performance > Search Results
- Use the “URL Contains” filter and add the URL of the page/post you are optimizing to get more clicks from the SERPs (see screenshot below)
Click Apply, which will display the search results as shown below:
You should be able to see all the queries that drove traffic to your page, along with impressions, CTR, and ranking. Now you can optimize your page meta title and description based on this data to increase impressions, CTR, and ranking.
This is a very effective technique to get more clicks from Google searches.
You can use a plugin like RankMath or WordPress SEO by Yoast , and you can use it to write meta post titles and descriptions that will help you increase your Google search CTR.
4. Use FAQ mode:
This scheme is easy to implement for those using WordPress. It is the latest scheme supported by Schema.org and is perfect for FAQ or content-rich pages.
Before I show you how to do this, let’s take a look at what it looks like in the Google SERPs:
Isn't this eye-catching?
You can easily achieve this using the Yoast SEO plugin, which now supports FAQ mode.
If you’re using WordPress + Yoast SEO plugin, simply add a FAQ block inside your content area and add your FAQ:
You can use the following tips to find relevant FAQs;
- Use the Google Search Console trick I shared above
- Search Google for your target query and select related queries from "People also ask"
- Use a tool like Answerthepublic or a forum like Quora
5. Implement breadcrumb navigation
This is another permalink technique that has been proven to increase click-through rate in Google SERPs. In addition to improving click-through rate, it can also help improve rankings, which makes it an even more compelling reason to enable breadcrumbs for all types of websites.
Most SEO plugins (like Yoast SEO , Rank Math ) have this built-in feature and you can enable it with just one click.
6. Implementing better icons
In 2020, Google started showing favicons in search results. If you’re still using the default favicon that comes with your theme or CMS, you should switch to a custom favicon and take this opportunity to increase click-through rates and build your brand.
Adding a favicon to your website is very simple, here are some guidelines from Google on how to add a favicon. Here is a list of some websites that can create a favicon for your website.
There are other factors like AMP, video thumbnails, and instant previews that also help maximize click-through rates on Google searches.
Currently, if you implement the above SEO techniques, you will improve the way your blog post listings stand out in Google searches.
If you use any other techniques that help increase your CTR on Google searches, let me know using the comments section below.
If you found this article useful, don’t forget to share it with your friends and colleagues on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
Here are some handpicked guides for you to read:
- How Outbound Links Boost Your SEO – External Link SEO Advantages
- What is Anchor Text in SEO: Best Practices for Beginners
- 43 Simple SEO Tips to Help You Rank Higher
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