Are you ranking on search engines?
Yes – great! You’ve quite mastered the essence of SEO.
Are users clicking through to your site?
No.
Do you struggle with low CTR (Click Through Rate)?
I.e. Are users not clicking to your posts even though you’re already ranking on Google?
Setting up a blog has become quite easy due to the introduction of easy-to-use platforms such as WordPress or Wix or SquareSpace.
Yet, if you’re serious about blogging, then you’ll know that blogging isn’t just about setting up a blog. It’s constantly working to bring continuous traffic to it. Is that the same thing as marketing? Yes, to an extent. However, this doesn’t mean that you need a marketing degree to promote your blog, nor pay lots of money to run ads online.
There are many factors which affect whether a user decides to click through to your site, some of which include having keyword-optimized articles, answering users’ search intents and providing good user experience on your site.
According to a 2020 study which analyzed over 80 million keywords and billions of search results, the #1 result in Google’s organic search results has an average of 28.5% CTR.
This fell sharply after position 1, with the second and third positions having a 15% and 11% CTR respectively.
Evidently, it goes without saying that you want to aim to have your articles rank as high up in search rankings as possible.
Even then, the anatomy of your title also plays a part in whether a user decides to click through to read your article or not.
Essentially, it all boils down to 1 question (okay maybe 2):
Does your article answer the user’s question? If so, does your title convey that?
Below, we’ll cover some of the best SEO practices that will help you rank higher on Google and increase clicks to your site, thus bringing in more site traffic.
At A Glance
11 Ways to make your post irresistibly clickable
1. Be mindful of search intent
Google wants to provide its users with the most relevant results based on their queries. This relevance relies on ranking your content according to what searchers are looking for i.e. search intent.
In order for your articles to be ranking for the right keywords and shown to the right people who are looking for the exact answers that your articles are answering, you must focus on search intent.
This means that you need to create content that is hyper relevant to the user’s search intent.
There are 4 general types of search intent:
Informative
Informative search intent is when a user wants to read more information about a certain topic. Examples of such keywords include: “Name of a product/service”, “who is Elon Musk,” etc.
Navigational search intent is when a user knows which site to navigate to but instead of typing in the Url, they type in the brand name. Such keywords are also used when a user is unsure about the exact website URL.
Some examples of navigational search intent include: “Instagram Login”, “Facebook Business”, etc.
Transactional
Transactional keywords are used when a user is looking to purchase something, but they are looking for the options/places to buy it from.
Examples of such keywords: “Buy Samsung 8+”, “Uber promo coupon”, etc.
Commercial
This is when a searcher is looking to buy something but is still finalizing the exact product/service to buy. The searcher is looking for testimonials and reviews to make up their mind.
Examples of such keywords: “Best fitness plan”, “Top hotels in London”, “Teachable vs Podia”, etc.
I cover more in depth about how to write according to search intent to attract the right target audience in my post on how to create content that drive sales.
2. Write evergreen content
Evergreen content is another way for increasing your blog’s search traffic. Evergreen content is when the content you write about is relevant 365 days of the year, as compared to seasonal content, which is only relevant for specific time periods.
Imagine if you wrote a post about “best hiking tips.” Compare that to a post on “best summer hiking trips.” The former post will be searched all year round and enjoy consistent traffic even years after the original publication date. The latter will only be searched in spring or summer, thus potentially reducing your search traffic by half.
Of course, there are exceptions to this rule, but we’ll cover that in another time.
To produce evergreen content, write detailed articles on the foundational topics in your niche. These articles are also called “pillar articles.” Choose the most prominent keywords in your niche and put in as much information as you can in your detailed article.
Create as many of such articles as you can to cover all the important topics and keywords surrounding your niche.
It’s important to establish expertise, a strong ranking factor of Google.
3. Write in depth
Content is king. Even Google prioritises long-form, heavily researched, informative articles over short-form ones.
According to a study, the average content length for Page 1 results is around 1,900 words.
Communicate how comprehensive your article is clearly in your title by using words such as “ultimate guide,” “all in one,” “step by step,” etc. You can even emphasize the comprehensiveness with a number if you’re writing a listicle-type article, e.g. “253 Inspirational Travel Quotes To Fuel Your Wanderlust.”
4. Timely content
Would you click on a result that was written in 2015? Likely not. Communicate your article’s timeliness by including the year it was updated e.g. “Best paleo recipes in 2020.”
5. Include keywords in title
This might seem like a given, but sometimes it can be easily overlooked. On top of using your keywords in the body text, one of the best on-page SEO practices is including your keywords in titles. That’s key to ranking your article for the right keyword when people are searching on search engines.
While you’re at it, try to place them as close to the beginning as possible – another SEO trick to help you rank higher on Google search.
6. Include keywords in URL
Keyword-optimized URLs is another important factor when it comes to ranking higher on search engines. URLs which have keywords in them receive 45% more CTR than URLs which don’t have your focus keywords.
7. Don’t neglect meta descriptions
Writing unique meta descriptions is another sure way of increasing your CTR as it further converys what an article is about before users decide whether or not to click on it.
What is a meta description?
The meta description is the 160 character snippet used to summarize a web page’s content. They provide additional information in the form of a longer text that your titles may fail to communicate. Think of it as a byline of your post.
Pages without meta descriptions receive 5.8% less clicks than those with a meta description. Make sure that all the pages in your site have a unique and properly optimized meta description.
8. Focus on your title
The first thing a searcher sees when he/she finds your article is the article headlines. An attractive blog post title always stands out and gets a high number of clicks.
On the contrary, a plain headline or title is easily glossed over. That’s why you must put your focus on writing better titles and headlines for your blog post if you want to increase clicks to your site.
What makes an attractive title headline?
Emotional headlines
A catchy headline triggers an emotional response, such as surprise, fear, curiosity, excitement, awe, laughter, or amusement. Emotional titles and questions have the ability to increase your CTR. They also make content more shareable on social media, especially Facebook.
Positive/ Negative Sentiment
Including positive or negative emotions in your titles increase CTR by 7%.
Some studies even show that negative sentiments drive CTR up by up to 63% compared to the use of positive sentiment. This is in line with human behaviour tendencies to perceive loss greater than gain. Some examples of negative sentiments include words such as “worry” and “loss”.
Pique curiosity with a question
According to Backlinko, titles that contain a question have a 14.1% higher CTR as compared to pages that don’t have a question in their title.
Pique your reader’s curiosity by asking not rhetorical questions, but questions that stimulate their thinking. That way, they will click through to your article to look for an answer.
There are also free tools available such as this headline analyzer tool that can help you come up with attention-grabbing headlines.
9. DON’T USE ALL CAPS IN TITLE
Not only does it make your title harder to read, they are also less likely to rank on Google
10. Be mindful of title length
Blog posts with an optimized title length enjoy higher CTR than pages that are over the character count.
What then is an optimal title length?
Most search engines now display up to 70 characters in SERPs. For the highest CTR, the optimal title length is a character count of between 50 to 60, or 6 to 7 words. Users tend to scan the first 3 and last 3 words of your title, so make every word count.
You can check if any of your existing posts exceed the recommended title length with Ubersuggest’s Site Audit Tool.
11. Sharing never stops
Social sharing is also necessary if you want to get more eyes on your posts.
Most people will share your post in the first few days of publishing. With how quickly social media goes, the number of shares drop at least 96% for the next four days after you first share your content on all social networks.
If you want to grow your network, audience and brand presence, you have to constantly feed content to your social networks.
If you don’t have them already, create official pages on popular social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest and Reddit. Maintain these channels regularly by posting fresh content. You can use social media scheduling tools to help organize your content better.
If you’d like, you can also try out a few ad campaigns to give your social pages a push at the beginning, since organic reach has gone down in the last few years.
If you’re not ready for paid campaigns, there are some community groups that allow for self-promotion; that’s where you can try sharing your posts in these groups. If done consistently, you’ll soon see a regular stream of user traffic to your blog.
