You won’t believe Google’s new #1 ranking factor mrwhackahost

You won’t believe it… or will you??

So what do you think the biggest ranking factor in Google is???

• BACK LINKS!?!
• Social Media??
• Great CONTENT!!

Could it be… Click Through Rate? “CTR”

Well I just saw a post that said exactly that… “a recent study found that click through rate is the number 1 ranking factor in Google…”

So is it? Few things….

• First they are or nobody else is Google except Google so nobody really knows what is the #1 factor!
• Second there was no link or access to this supposed “recent study“
• Third, well there is no third, but below is my take on this information I read and why it did make me think about CTR a bit more although I have always said this.

What Is Click Through Rate?

• You can read the Wikipedia definition here
• Basically it is the rate at which your site is clicked in the search results. If you have your site in Google Webmaster Tools then you can go to Search Traffic > Search Queries and there you will see keywords you rank for with the amount of impressions “how many times your site show up when someone searched in google for that keyword”, the amount of clicks “how many times someone clicked your result”, the CTR % “percentage of people who clicked on your result”, and the average position of your site “where you site is showing up for that term”. YES!! Google gives you all this information you just need to add your site to WMT.

OK Now You Know What CTR Is Does It Really Matter?

• Like I said above nobody knows what the #1 factors for ranking is, but I personally would say that CTR is definitely a top one!
• How do I know this? First off I have tons of data on all my own sites and client sites…The sites that rank well and get traffic have a very solid click through rate. One of my top sites has about 12 keywords that all have a 21-23% CTR. Pretty nice on about 6,000 impressions…

With All That Said, How Do We Get A Good CTR?

• This is where I think this “so called study” falls short.
• In order to get a good CTR there are a number of factors.
• The biggest being… your site ACTUALLY RANKING!

So how do we get the site ranking?

• This is where all the ranking factors come into play….. building links, great content, social media, user interaction, time on site, bounce rate, etc….
• When we have the planets aligned and we are getting traffic this is where I believe the CTR comes into play.
• Let’s just say you start to do the things that make a site get better ranking, but and this is a BIG BUT, your site stinks! Your onsite SEO is really bad and the content is just some repeated info that is of no value to anyone! Now of course having your onsite SEO and content tweaked is a ranking factor, but it is still possible to rank a site with it being bad.
• So What Happens? – Your site shows up in the SERP’s a user either clicks on it or he doesn’t… your meta info titles & description are going to help with that. So they do click on the site and go to your page and scan it for about 10 seconds, realize it is garbage and click back!
  • Now Google is like WTH we just sent you to this guys site why are you back here? Ah… bad user experience!! Lets not rank this guy here any more…
  • On the other hand somebody visits your sites, stays on it for awhile reading, clicks around, maybe signs up to your newsletter or uses the contact form. That is a good user experience and Google likes that! I think that is when your site will really start to shine as Google will start to give you more leverage because they know your site is giving the user what they want. Make sense???

Creating A Good CTR Experience

• This is pretty simple. We want to have our Title Tags & Meta Description info spot on! We don’t want to fill it with spammy keywords, but a keyword here or there. We want it to be like a sales pitch almost… we want it to answer the question the web surfer is looking for. Is your post about a product, then you should be talking about how you “really used” it and have pictures or I liked this about it, but not that! People will see this as real and be more inclined to click on it. If you page is solving some solution about a “computer error” then be sure add that you have a “fix” or “solution” to it in those meta fields. That will get people clicking to your page!
• Now that they are on your page you actually have to give them the info! Make sure your page is not just one huge paragraph, try to break it up into sections and start each section as a H2 or H3 heading with the questions people are using. Use bullet points to break up sections like I am doing in this post. Put some images on the site and if you have “real” pictures you took with your own camera. Invite them to leave a comment or share the info on their social media accounts.

I hope this makes some sense! You really need to have all your ducks in a row to get the most out of your website and traffic! Sure it is trial and error, but once you figure out what works just keep doing it over and over again!

HEY!! How Do I Get The Traffic Started?

• That is a great question! I don’t really go into how I do the behind the scenes work here! I will give info on specific issues I run into, but not how I am building links and other SEO tricks! I belong to a lot of private groups with other SEO’s. A few Mastermind type groups as well.

I hope to create a blue print of some sorts eventually… so stay tuned!

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November 08, 2017 at 01:48AM