{"id":2068,"date":"2016-05-12T10:51:38","date_gmt":"2016-05-12T10:51:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.searchenginewatch.com\/2016\/05\/12\/why-you-need-to-raise-organic-ctr-and-4-ways-to-do-it\/"},"modified":"2019-10-11T17:55:43","modified_gmt":"2019-10-11T17:55:43","slug":"why-you-need-to-raise-organic-ctr-and-4-ways-to-do-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/2016\/05\/12\/why-you-need-to-raise-organic-ctr-and-4-ways-to-do-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Why you NEED to raise organic CTR (and 4 ways to do it)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Does organic click-through rate (CTR<\/a>) data impact page rankings on Google? This has been a huge topic of speculation<\/a> for years within the search industry.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Why is there such a debate? Well, often people get hung up on details and semantics (are we talking about a direct or indirect ranking factor?), Google patents (which may or may not even be in use), and competing theories (everyone’s got an opinion based off something they heard or read). To make matters more confusing, Google is less than forthcoming about the secrets of their algorithm.<\/p>\n

But if CTR truly does impact Google’s organic search rankings, shouldn’t we be able to measure it?\u00a0Yes!<\/strong><\/p>\n

In this post, I\u2019ll share some intriguing data on the relationship between Google CTR and rankings. I\u2019ll also share four tips for making sure your Google click-through rates on the organic SERPs are where they need to be.<\/p>\n

\"four-organic-ctr-hacks\"<\/p>\n

To be clear: my goal with this post is to provide just a brief background<\/strong> and some actionable insights about the topic of organic click-through rates on Google. We won’t dissect every tweet or quote ever made by anyone at Google, dive deep into patents, or refute all the SEO theories about whether CTR is or isn’t a ranking factor. I\u2019m sharing my own theory based on what I\u2019ve seen, and my recommendations on how to act on it.<\/p>\n

Google CTR & rankings: Yes! No! Who bloody knows!<\/h2>\n

Eric Enge of Stone Temple Consulting recently published a post with a headline stating that CTR isn’t a ranking factor<\/a>. He clarifies within that post that Google doesn’t use CTR as a direct<\/em> ranking factor.<\/p>\n

What’s the difference between a direct and indirect ranking factor?<\/strong> Well, I suggest you watch Rand Fishkin’s awesome video<\/a> on this very topic.<\/p>\n

Basically, we know certain things directly impact rankings (I got a link from a reputable website, hooray!), but there are many other things that don’t have a direct impact, but nevertheless do impact ranking (some big-time influencer tweeted about my company and now tons of people are searching for us and checking out our site, awesome!).<\/p>\n

It’s essentially the same issue as last touch attribution, which assigns all the credit to the last interaction. But in reality, multiple channels (PPC, organic, social, email, affiliates, etc.) can play important roles in the path to conversion.<\/p>\n

The same is true with ranking. Many factors influence ranking.<\/p>\n

So here’s my response: Direct, indirect, who cares? CTR might not be a \u201cdirect core ranking signal,\u201d but if it impacts rank (and I believe it does), then it matters.<\/strong> Further, even if it doesn\u2019t<\/em> impact rank, you should still care!<\/p>\n

But don’t take my word for it that Google has the technology. Check out these slides from Google engineer Paul Haahr<\/a>, who spoke at SMX:<\/p>\n

\"how-does-google-use-click-data\"<\/p>\n

\"google-ctr-live-experiments\"<\/p>\n

Also, AJ Kohn<\/a> put together a good post about Google click-through rate as a ranking signal last year. He included a couple eye-opening quotes that I’ll share here because they are important. The first from Edmond Lau, a former Google engineer:<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s pretty clear that any reasonable search engine <\/a>would use click data on their own results to feed back into ranking to improve the quality of search results. Infrequently clicked results should drop toward the bottom because they\u2019re less relevant, and frequently clicked results bubble toward the top. Building a feedback loop<\/a> is a fairly obvious step forward in quality for both search and recommendations systems, and a smart search engine would incorporate the data.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The second from Marissa Mayer in 2007<\/em> talking about how Google used CTR as a way to determine when to display a OneBox:<\/p>\n

“We hold them to a very high click-through rate expectation and if they don\u2019t meet that click-through rate, the OneBox gets turned off on that particular query. We have an automated system that looks at click-through rates per OneBox presentation per query. So it might be that news is performing really well on Bush today but it\u2019s not performing very well on another term, it ultimately gets turned off due to lack of click-through rates. We are authorizing it in a way that\u2019s scalable and does a pretty good job enforcing relevance.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Also, check out this amazing excerpt from an FTC document that was obtained by the WSJ<\/a>:<\/p>\n

“In addition, click data (the website links on which a user actually clicks) is important for evaluating the quality of the search results page. As Google’s former chief of search quality Udi Manber testified:<\/p>\n

‘The ranking itself is affected by the click data. If we discover that, for a particular query, hypothetically, 80 percent of people click on Result No. 2 and only 10 percent click on Result No. 1, after a while we figure out, well, probably Result 2 is the one people want. So we’ll switch it.’<\/p>\n

Testimony from Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt confirms that click data is important for many purposes, including, most importantly, providing ‘feedback’ on whether Google’s search algorithms are offering its users high quality results.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Why organic Google CTR matters<\/h2>\n

If you have great positions in the SERPs, that’s awesome. But even high rankings don’t guarantee visits to your site.<\/p>\n

What really matters is how many people are clicking<\/em> on your listing (and not bouncing back immediately). You want to attract more visitors who are likely to stick around and then convert.<\/p>\n

In 2009, the head of Google’s webspam team at the time, Matt Cutts, was asked about the importance of maximizing your organic CTR. Here’s a key quote that says it all:<\/p>\n

“It doesn’t really matter how often you show up. It matters how often you get clicked on and then how often you \u2026 convert those to whatever you really want (sales, purchases, subscriptions)\u2026 Do spend some time looking at your title, your URL, and your snippet that Google generates, and see if you can find ways to improve that and make it better for users<\/a> because then they’re more likely to click. You’ll get more visitors, you’ll get better return on your investment.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n