Google makes it clear: the Click Through Rate is the percentage of clicks that an ad or link receives compared to the number of times it is displayed or printed. The division, therefore, is simple: clicks / impressions = CTR (%). A high percentage will demonstrate the effectiveness of the sponsored snippet, ad, or link and, as they are often paid, it will depend on whether the figure is high or low, to continue betting on your display or to remove it permanently. However, what does all this have to do with SEO ( Search Engine Optimization ) or organic positioning?
Digital marketing uses different metrics to achieve conversions that, after all, are what all companies are looking for, whether in the form of registrations, user subscriptions, or sales. In this sense, it is essential to hit 100% at the moment of the display, to reap the results that are expected.
CTR, instead of keywords for SEO
Google is transforming the way we understand online marketing by leaps and bounds. In each algorithm, modifications are introduced that could disorient webmasters and community managers when it comes to carrying out their best strategy to optimize the indexing of their page.
In this sense, organic positioning has always been identified with a single important factor: work on keywords. However, it seems that lately, the paths are also pointing towards other metrics, such as the bounce rate, the number of impressions, or external links and domains (number of referrals).
As Google has developed its interface, those responsible for web pages have observed how the CTR is directly related to how not only ads through banners are displayed, but also the description of a web page in the organic search. This is called a snippet. Therefore, getting a clear, attractive, and striking form on Google is vitally important to capture the interest of users and get them to click and increase the metric per CTR.
Getting an adequate copy, applying social psychology, and knowing the idiosyncrasies of the target audience, is of vital importance. Managing the way we appear on Google is the first step to establishing a relationship between a web page and Internet users since the sample that Google makes of the search results is the first contact that users have with the web.
The operation of Google robots is very simple: the more clicks you manage to get the impression of a search engine snippet, the better the evaluation will be and the higher your ranking will be. A snippet that, after being shown 2,000 times, has obtained zero clicks, would not seem too attractive to Google.
Shield keywords
To keep a web page at a good level, it is necessary to work the keywords carefully. The only way not to lose the positioning in the Internet search engines is to develop texts optimized for SEO on a regular and constant basis. Google likes to receive updates, new content, new pages, and, above all, comments and user participation.
Search results are the first contact between users and a company’s website. Therefore, it is necessary to optimize the organic positioning of keywords and protect their existence. There will always be competitors lurking and, in this sense, in order not to spoil the work of months and even years, you should never stop including the keywords that identify a company in the new texts that update a web page. Not even when the page is already positioned in the first place in Google’s organic search.
The fact of having reached the top does not mean, far from it, that the position will be permanent. As soon as the search engines (Google is the most famous, but there are other possibilities, such as Bing or Yahoo!) find another page that identifies with the same keywords and obtains better participation rates or shows more activity as a whole, the rank will be in danger.
However, even though the shielding of keywords is a fundamental activity in any positioning strategy, it is not the only strategy that must be carried out. As seen in the first paragraph, on improving snippets, it will be very necessary to optimize the way it appears in Google. To do this, you have to get the Internet giant to create improved snippets automatically through microformats or the schema.org convention.
From this point of view, it is about getting the CTR percentage to increase, which is why snippets are treated as real advertisements or sponsored links. In this sense, always, from the Google Webmaster Tools, you have to observe their operation.
The CTR, from the advertiser’s point of view
The first step to placing a promotional banner on different websites is to find out what keywords it uses to position itself globally. If, like advertisers, it is observed that the public that accesses said website meets the sufficient quality criteria to click on the banner, it is time to start thinking about the usefulness and effectiveness that the advertisement can achieve on the third party website persons.
The benefits obtained are directly proportional to the quality audience that clicks on the banner or link. Therefore, it is essential to spend all efforts to recruit quality clicks on specialized websites that are related to the content of the ad. Unless the page where you want to place a banner receives a huge number of visits that cover a very diverse audience, the most sensible thing is to carry out a study or round of contacts with the websites whose keywords for SEO are closely linked to the content of the ad. That is, to the product or service itself. Or when it is known that, due to the profile they show, the users who visit that website are more likely to be interested in the ad than the rest of the users on different websites in cyberspace.
Attaining on the display is of vital importance, especially considering that most companies are small or medium-sized and not all have enough budget to allocate large sums of money to the web advertising space of online newspapers. Although they receive a huge number of visits daily and a good number of users click on the link, they offer exorbitant prices and out of reach of the great bulk of terrestrial users.
CTR, from an announcer’s point of view
SEO acquires absolute importance in the Click Through Rate (CTR). The strategy of assigning webspace of companies that want to attract advertisers may not depend so much on the CTR shown by the owners of the site, which offers the space in different examples, but on the number of daily visits, it reaps. In this sense, when advertising space is sold on a certain website, it is essential to gain more and more user traffic with which to justify a sales and persuasion speech. Unless the advertising company is looking for a page whose target is perfectly-identified (niche type), most companies will bet, in the first instance, on a page in which the ad is visible to reinforce its image and web notoriety. At least, this is the simplest strategy. A landing page that supports the banner and continues with the purchase funnel is essential to reap the success of an advertising campaign, but that is already the responsibility of the advertiser.
From the point of view of a website that sells its space for advertising, being able to exemplify with practical cases the CTR of the companies that have been announced is a fundamental asset to attract more advertisers and obtain the maximum performance and benefit on a website. Therefore, positioning certain keywords at the top of Google and being able to capture optimized bounce rates or maximum conversions, there is no doubt that it will delight companies interested in placing an ad between certain online pages.
Display campaigns are always a great way to get noticed by Internet users.
Keys and summary
From an online marketing point of view
In this article, it has been observed, therefore, that keywords are not the only elements to keep search engine rankings at bay. In addition to shielding keywords, it is necessary to optimize and improve snippets through microformats such as schema.org. Using the metrics offered by Google’s Webmaster Tools, it is possible to observe their performance.
From an advertising point of view
Also, the importance of CTR has been observed for both advertisers and entrepreneurs, who give up their web space to embed banners or sponsored links. That each one knows, in this case, the Click Through Rate will be of vital importance to carry out your web presence strategy.
