Improving Your Website

How to Improve Your Click-Through Rate

If you have an amazing product or service to offer, but no one clicks on your ads, chances are you won’t be getting many conversions. This is where your click-through rate (CTR) comes in and why it’s important. A low CTR means that your potential customers aren’t able to convert. Continue reading to learn how you can improve your CTR for more conversions and a better return on ad spend.

What is a Click Through Rate?

A CTR is the percentage of how many users actually click on your ads based on how many people see the ads. So, the formula for CTR is (number of click-throughs / impressions) x 100.

Knowing and understanding your CTR is essential feedback, so you can get an understanding of how your ads are perceived by your potential customers. A low CTR can suggest that maybe your ads aren’t going to your targeted audience, or that the wording in the headlines and descriptions don’t make sense to them. A high CTR can suggest that your ads are pretty much exactly what users are expecting to see when they type in their search query.

A good or low CTR is very relative and changes depending on your business and industry. If you already have a few PPC campaigns running, you can see which CTR rates stand out – whether they are drastically higher or lower – based on your own average CTR. If you want to have a good baseline of expected CTR, try researching your industry and see what typical CTR for those businesses are. This will give you a better understanding of what other businesses similar to yours are experiencing and what you can expect to have for your own ads.

Why Your Click-Through Rate Matters

Your CTR determines how many potential users are actually clicking on your ads and viewing what you have to offer. If you have a low click-through rate, your users never enter your sales funnel, and you may have lost them as a customer. A click to your ads is the first step of your sales funnel, so without it, the rest of your hard work goes unnoticed.

A high CTR allows you to reel potential users into your sales funnel. Now that you have many users on your page thanks to your great ad copy efforts, the rest of the funnel can be used. 

Tips to Improve Your Click-Through Rate

Similar to conversion rate optimization (CRO), you want to optimize your CTR. Here are some tips for improving CTR:

1) Take advantage of ad extensions

Ad extensions give your ad more space on the search engine results page (SERP). With ads that take up more space, users are more likely to notice and engage with those ads. Here are a few extensions worth testing out on your ads:

• Sitelink extensions: These are additional lines of text in addition to the description.
• Call extensions: Most useful on mobile devices, this allows users to click directly on your business’ number and call them right from their phone just by tapping their screens.
• Image extensions for search campaigns: This extension gives users a preview of the product or service being described in the ads. These can be eye catching to get users to notice and want to click on the ads.
• Location extensions: These types of extensions are perfect for businesses with a physical address for customers to go to. With local searches becoming more and more popular, this feature helps users better understand how close your business actually is to them and may entice them to take a visit.

2) Have a Compelling Headline and Description

Your headlines and descriptions should be short, simple and eye-catching. 

• Short: Headlines have a limit of 30 characters and descriptions have a limit of 90 characters. This isn’t much to get your point across, so be creative to get your message across with these limitations. Ensure the headlines and descriptions make sense within these character constraints. If part of the sentence or title gets cut off, it may confuse users and turn them away.
• Simple: Ensure there are no misspellings and that your headlines and descriptions make sense to users. Any misspellings can appear spammy and turn users away instantly. Convey your message simply by understanding your target audience and using language they expect to see in ads.
• Eye-catching: It’s a good idea to include an eye-catching call to action in your ad text. Make your users want to click on your ads with a call to action of a sale only happening now, or a product that will go out of stock, or anything that implies a sense of urgency for your users so they are compelled to click and understand more.

3) Use Keyword Insertion

Keyword insertion is an advanced technique that ensures your text ad includes one of your keywords that also matches the user’s search terms. You can use these in headlines or descriptions. By using keyword insertion, your ads seem more relevant and personal to the user looking for them just by a simple rewording of a keyword.

Conclusion

By now, you should understand what exactly a click-through rate is and why it matters for your ads. By using these tips, your CTR will benefit by having more relevant and optimized ads to better compel your users to click on your ads. Once you have the users on your landing page, the chance of conversion is much greater, but without users clicking your ads, the chance of conversion is slim to none.

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