Want to improve your CTR on google search? Want to generate more clicks out of your Campaigns? Who doesn’t? Whether you are a PPC marketer or a website owner, you are always worried about your CTR rate. And the question remains the same- how to improve CTR or how to improve ctr in AdWords? Consequently, this is the common question of every marketer. So, today I have some tips for you to conclude the question of improving CTR. Let’s first understand what is CTR.
What Is Click Through Rate(CTR)?
In online marketing, CTR is a ratio, based on the number of clicks you receive out of the total number of impressions. Let’s take an example and understand- I have a website and I’m running ads. Say my website’s ad shown for 1000 times for a search query and out of that only 30 people clicked on my ad and went to my website. In that case, my CTR rate will be 3%.
So, the calculation is based on-
Total No. of Clicks ÷ Total No. of Impressions × 100 = Click Through rate.
Is it only for the paid Search? No, by the same calculation you can calculate your organic CTR rate also. You can check your CTR in Google Search console’s performance tab.
What is a Good CTR?
When it comes to successful marketing, the primary thing is how much clicks you are generating from your search engine result page. So, what is considered a good click-through rate on Google search- for both advertisement and organic? Well, it depends on the particular industry you are dealing with. That varies with what type of business you are running. But at a report of CTR Benchmark by Wordstream revealed that -the average click-through rate in AdWords across all industries is 3.17% for search and 0.46% for display.
Remember- The more relevant your keywords are the more potential clicks you will get for your business.
Related Read- Check Out The Ultimate Digital Marketing Trends
Now, let’s discuss how we can improve a low Click through rates to its highest.
How To Improve CTR(Click Through Rate)
CTR is a prime factor that determines your website or ad rank position on Search Engine Result Page. Along with that it also outlines the quality of your website. How people are interacting with your website. How much time people spending on your site. Before jumping into any specific tactics make sure you analyze your Google Analytics data to understand your audience behavior on your site.
With the unconcluded question, what are the ways to improve Adwords CTR anyway, we decided to simply break it into two factors, one is Improvement in your ad copy and another one is Improvement in external Ad Factors.
Improvement In AdCopy
In Ad copy improvement, we will be discussing those prime factors which were tried and tested to bring good CTR rate.
Use your primary Keyword in Headline
Using your focused keyword in your title gives your ad a lot more exposure. The first thing people notice is your extra-sized Headline, and that is where 70% of your ad impression lies.
My search term was “Co-working Office space in Kolkata”, the keyword detects advertisement running on it and it has shown up. The first copy is much more appealing than the second and third one because it contains the exact search term I was looking for. Similarly, the first copy is quite complete if we look it from the searcher’s point of view. So, the point here is, you’ve to think like a searcher not as a marketer or advertiser.
Keyword in Display URL
Another prime factor of CTR improvisation is using focused keyword in your display URL. Mentioning the exact keyword in the display URL shows the surety of landing on the desirable page. Now you may ask, what is wrong with a normal page URL or a homepage URL? well, there is nothing wrong in it but think like a searcher. The searcher may not be intended to click on your ad, unless and until they know about your business or what service you offer. And you are advertising because you want to generate new leads.
In that case, I searched for “Social Media Marketing Course” and the ad copy display URL is showing the URL with that particular keyword in it. I can be assured that if I click on that ad, I will be landed to the exact social media course page. But if I used the home page or any other URL, I might not get that ad click because people don’t know about me or my business. Whether I’m offering social media course or not that is surely unconquerable.
Related Read- 5 Biggest Content Marketing Challenges You Should Overcome
Make a Clean & Simple Copy of Ad
Making your ad copy eye-grabbing is as important as to improve your click-through rate. But wait! I am not talking about a fancy ad copy that contains more number of shitty things rather than proper text. A clean and clear concise copy of ad will bring the right click. But how?
See the above ad copy, here one is in the proper format and another one also contains proper text but not grabbing that attention. It is somewhere lacking. so title capitalization can give a proper ad format to your ad copy. Don’t use too many stops. Too many stops will break the flow of reading.
Use Symbol & Numbers To Grab Attention
While improvising your ad copy and making it eye-catchy, don’t forget to use a symbol like a pipe, at the rate, copyright, trademarks, etc.
To use those symbols simply hold the alt key and type the below numbers-
- Trademark symbol ™ – Alt + 0153
- Copyright symbol © Alt + 0169
- Registered trademark symbol ® Alt + 0174
Numbers are always a drastic changer at grabbing attention. Use numbers to make your ad copy more authoritative and persuasive.
Use Ad Extensions
Ad extensions expand your ad with extra pieces of information. Usually, there are 25 characters( including space) in the headline and 35 characters( including space) in the description is allowed in an ad copy. So this is obvious that you need more space to write about your business. And that is why Google suggest you to use extensions to give your audience some extra information and that too free of cost.
Adding multiple extensions won’t guarantee that it will show all the time with your ad or you get the ad click. Google’s algorithm determines whether to show extensions or not. Besides that, which extensions to show and when. Ad extensions definitely help in improving your CTR and your AdRank.
There are 10 types of Ad extensions in Google ads-
Sitelink Extension
To add more links to your ad site link extension is used. You can drive your audience to any specific page like about us, contact page, services offering page.
Callout Extension
To highlight some extra features like “Free Shipping or 24*7 Service” or any unique offers you can use callout site link.
Structured Snippet Extension
This extension allows you to add some extra text. You can highlight your distinctive business aspects and offer an extensive reason to people click on it.
Call Extension
Offers call facility direct from the ad
Message Extension
People can send you a text message if this extension is enabled in your ad.
Location Extension
This extension is used to highlight your business location.
Affiliate Location Extension
To show your affiliate business locations.
App Extension
You can encourage your people to install your app.
Price Extension
Price extension is used to tag your product with price.
Promotion Extension
If you are offering any specific or limited time offer you can use promotion extension.
These are the extensions you can use to get more clicks ads.
Put a Special Offering In Headline
There is no definite answer to the question of how to improve CTR. So do the best of your try and test what is working. Sometimes, a special offering can bring clicky intent. People usually pay attention to your Headline first and your offering can discriminate your existence.
Leverage Dynamic Ad Features With Countdown Timer
Another important approach to make your ad striking is to add Countdown Timer. Countdown timers create an urgency in the mind of people. It appears to have a great effect in increasing Click thorough rate.
To include a countdown timer all you need to do just add this syntax ” {= ” in your headline or description area and choose the timer.
Influence People To Take Action
Sometimes you have to motivate people to take action. And this is nothing wrong with that. Use some of the urgent wording like, Hurry up, Limited time offer, Apply now, Call now to make people influenced.
According to research from PsychologyToday, people respond to the emotional part of the ads a lot more than the text itself. Try to connect with your audience by delivering them a sense of empathy.
Avoid Using Broad match Keywords
If you’re using broad match type keyword than you are doing a big mistake with your ad. At the end of the day, you will burn your whole budget having with least conversion. Use Broad Match Modifier rather using broad keywords.
Whats is Broad Match Modifier. Let’s take an example and understand. Say you are dealing with “Red Shoes Only For Women”. You used the keyword “Red Shoes” for your Ad so that your ad can trigger when someone searching for red shoes. In that case, you will be wasting your budget because a men red shoes searcher can also see your ad. To redress this silly mistake you can use a modifier. How? You can use that keyword in such way that if someone is searching for red shoes with a condition of “women” included there only then google give an impression to your ad. To do this use (+) sign before keyword you want to use as modifiers. Like “Red shoes +women”.
Drop Down Negative Keywords
To make sure you are showing your ad to the right set of people drop all the unnecessary keywords that are causing to get an impression. Improvising in your keywords will drop unwanted impressions and clicks and can improve your CTR.
Other Factors That affects Your CTR
Well, not only the ad copy improvisation guarantees success. There are some external factors that raise your CTR and improves your ad position. You must follow those to improve ctr in google search. Let’s explore those stands.
Testing Multiple AdCopies
You don’t know which of your ad will appear on the search page and whether your audience will like it or not. So test with multiple ad copies so that you never miss a chance to be highlighted.
Bid A Bit Higher
If you are a new bidder you should bid a bit higher to beat the competition. Bidding higher will increase your ad position thus helps in improving CTR.
Segment Your Audience
Segmenting audience is also other external factors for increasing CTR. Segmenting your audience will benefit you showing your ad to more relevant searchers.
Device and Location Modifiers
Once you started your ad campaigning, Google will start showing your ad performance report. You can check how is your ad performing there. You can optimize your bid on specific devices and for a specific location. This will help you to show your ad more specifically. It will affect your overall ad performance and average CTR.
Page Loading Speed
Page loading speed is a crucial factor of your ad as well as for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Many of the marketers say page loading speed it doesn’t help increase your CTR. Yes, I know this factor is not directly proportional to the click-through rate. But It does affect your overall CTR. The more you can better your landing page experience the more ad opportunities you will get. Researches on page speed have shown that users are more likely to interact with those websites which load within 3 seconds. Moreover, Your ad rank depends on those crucial factors like- user experience, landing page speed, bounce rate, exit rate, average time spending on a page, etc.
Conclusion
Better ad copy can go a long way to boosting your CTR, and this is the success mantra of improving CTR. If you want to improve your CTR, start by understanding your audience. You’ve to understand your audience flow, how is your ad doing. You have to test and run multiple ad copies to identify what is working for you. Not the same thing can be applied to every industry. Above mentioned tactics are just to aware you how your ad should be. Analyze what your competitors are doing. In order to have a highly effective ad that actually brings clicks, you must track your ad performance. I hope now the question- How to improve CTR is concluded.
