What is Organic Click-Through Rate and Why it Matters

For most people, reading about click-through rate seems very ambiguous. That is why I have decide to write about it because Google regards the click-through rate as an important website metric.

Definition of a click-through rate.

Google defines it as the number of clicks that your website link or ad receives. A click-through rate (or popularly known as CTR) is the ratio of how many times users click a particular search result.

When you see the word “organic,” it simply means that the click a website receives is a natural one. In other words, no one influenced the user to do so. He utilized a search engine to find something he wants. Hence, if he decides to click on a specific result, that is considered an organic CTR.

Why CTR matters?

The click-through rate is how Google measures the keywords and web page links if they are performing well in the search results.  A high CTR is a positive implication that users find a particular website (and its contents) useful and valuable.

This is not surprising because Google is after the welfare of its users. They will continue to improve its search engine capabilities in order to provide for the wants (and needs.) Measuring the click-through rate can be a means for Google to know which search results are helpful. At the end of the day, Google only wants its users to gain the most applicable, relevant, and favorable information.

As a website owner, you can use the click-through rate to measure which keywords rank well. I discussed 5 CTR tips on this blog post so be sure to check that out.

Knowing the right words.

In order for your CTR to increase, the first step is to find the right words to use. More than anything else, your keywords play an important part. It should be significant to what your website is providing or selling. The more the keywords are relevant to your business, the more chances the users will click on it.

At this point, it is utterly important to do a keyword research. To help you knowing the important words and phrases, look into the various keyword research tools such as Google Trends, Ubbersuggest, and many more.

Provide helpful snippets.

Once a website link or ad appears on the search results, of course, you would want it to grab the attention of the users so that they will immediately click on it.

Here are a few guidelines:

• Restaurants: The users would want to know your customers’ review, know the star rating, the type of cuisine you service, and the price range of the food.
• Music: If your website is about music, people would like to know the album details such as the artist, the song title, the genre, the year it was released, and the preview of the song.
• Business establishments: For actual businesses, people would like to know the location of the business. As much possible, provide a map to guide the potential customers where to go.
• Recipes: Assuming that your website provides food recipes, people would like to know how to make it. Providing a video tutorial would be extremely helpful. Plus, a detailed ingredients list would be helpful. You would also need to indicate a step-by-step process on how to cook the dish.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Thus, it is important to research and look into other similar websites. Study other brands and how their website links and ads show up on the Google search results page.