A website that is structured with relevant and SEO-optimized blog posts and is backed by effective marketing strategies can generate a high organic search click-through rate. This surely is one definite way to survive, as helpful and accurate content that encourages discussions and knowledge-sharing instills the trust of the audience from the niche.
And so, content marketing is essential for spreading the word about a company's products and services and promoting its brand. Undoubtedly, every business sector needs to adapt to numerous changes and fixes to be on top of trends and adjust to the ever-changing environment.
GoodFirms surveyed 85+ Content Marketing Experts worldwide to find out the blog posts with high CTR, the type of blog post professionals prefer, and their tactics to get a high ranking.
What Is A Click Through Rate(CTR)?
Click-through rate (CTR) is the percentage of users who click on a particular link with respect to the number of total users who view that same link(impressions). And the clicks that the content receives when it gets displayed on Google SERPS is called Organic CTR.
The SEO companies keep prospective clients interested with high-quality blog posts, in turn increasing click through rate and the traffic to a website.
How To Calculate Click-Through Rate?
According to the formula, if 100 people view your link on Google SERPs (100 impressions) and 55 of those click on the link, your organic CTR is 55%. Though, it isn’t easy to achieve a CTR as high as this.
34.48% of the surveyed experts have an average click-through rate between 1-1.9% for their blog posts.
Why Is Click-Through Rate Important?
Logically, higher CTR helps bring in more traffic to your website. Google itself has suggested that they consider click-through-rates as a key search engine ranking signal and use it in their algorithm. CTRs help Googlebot figure out what type of results users want to see.
A CTR is essential to measure the success of the optimization efforts for both - organic search and online advertising(pay-per-click marketing account).
Calculating organic CTRs helps one gauge how valuable each rank position is to their site. One can examine the changes in click-throughs by tweaking titles and meta descriptions. This also lets analysts understand their target market better - what audiences are interested in and how they operate.
Organic search faces intense competition from paid ads, featured snippets, knowledge graph placements, and more. As a result, there is a decline in the organic click-through rate in recent years. By analyzing data with standard Google analytics metrics, one can pinpoint trouble areas needing improvement, optimize the website, improve rankings, and increase click-through rates.
25 Pro Tips To Improve Organic Search CTR (With Blog Examples)
You’ve attached shareable images, broken the content into digestible paragraphs, and done your best for the outreach marketing process. Still, you do not receive the traffic, shares, and leads you were expecting. Maybe, because your audience is not looking for the type of post that you are publishing. There are various blog posts, such as list posts, how-to guides, infographics, case studies, research, round-up posts, success stories, etc.
Now that we understand the importance of organic CTR in content marketing, it’s time to find out what experts say about the types of blog posts they prefer to achieve high CTR. And also, the tactics they resort to for optimizing blog posts.
31.03% of the surveyed experts favor ‘lists’ to generate a high click-through rate, while 24.14% of the content marketers believe ‘how-to guides’ work best to garner interest among their prospective customers.
Given below are 25 pieces of advice provided by the experts, along with the examples of blog posts with high organic CTR. By going through them, you can get inspiration for delivering valuable and engaging content to your ideal reader or customer.
1. Write About Niche and Difficult Subjects
- Example: 24 Google Doc Hacks and Add-ons to Make Your Life Easier
- CTR: 29.4%
Reuben Yonatan, founder and CEO at GetVoIP, considers Listicles and Infographics to have the highest organic CTR for them.
He says, “We deal with Voice over IP solutions. Although most people have a rough idea of what VoIP is, when one digs a bit deeper, it becomes difficult to differentiate between the various technologies. That is why these kinds of blog posts work best for our company because we can make a topic many consider a bit complex digestible.”
2. Understand Buyer’s Persona
- Example: How to Write Unbiased Poll Questions
- CTR: 21.2%
According to Willliam Chin, Web Consultant at Pickfu, a B2B SaaS company, properly written How-to guides can quickly achieve 20 - 30% CTR.
“Understanding our buyer personas and catering to them has always helped us. We create how-to guides for specific buyers. For example, the unbiased poll article is meant to target two of our buyer personas; authors and general poll users (business owners).”, says Willliam.
He suggests, “It also helps to interview a living example of your persona. Afterward, do your appropriate keyword research and prioritize content with the least competition but the highest payoff.”
3. Close The Keyword Gaps
- Example: Reduce PDF File Size below 100 KB Online(How to Compress PDF)
- CTR: 20%
Another expert favoring how-to guides is Hung Nguyen, Marketing Manager at Smallpdf.
Talking about the success of their post, Hung says, “This post has over 50,000 monthly views, and the CTR for the targeted keyword is over 45%, where it occupies the number 1 spot on most SERPs. How-to guides allow us to close the “keyword gaps” that our primary pages miss out on. We run a freemium PDF software, and many of our tutorials break down how an average user can solve their search queries using our product. Since we can keep visitors from exiting our platform straight after visiting these posts, bounce rates are low. In such cases, these posts allow plenty of flexibility for business owners to work on their retention strategies.”
4. Keep The Title Simple And To The Point
- Example: NetGear vs Asus Wi-Fi Routers Comparison Guide For 2020
- CTR: 20%
Hazel Lewis, Operating Manager at Freeholidaywifi, says, “Within 1 month of publishing this comparison post, it gained around 500 unique visitors. That’s Good for a single page with no back-links at all. We kept the title simple and to the point and that's the reason it worked quite well for our company. While crafting this type of post you have to do some keyword research. Most of the time, comparison posts have less keyword difficulty as everybody is focusing on keywords like - Best Wireless Router, Best Wireless Router under 100, etc.”
5. Include Search Query and Actionable Value in the Title
- Example: 10 Marketing Interview Questions To Ask An Employer
- CTR: 19.6%
Declaring list articles as the most effective post titles in their content strategy, Lachlan Kirkwood, Digital Marketing Specialist at ClickThrough says, “These posts include the user's initial search query in the title and also lists what actionable value the article will deliver to help achieve their goal. List posts need to be structured in a format where the titles can be skimmed. This allows the user to find the most relevant information they need easily.”
6. Use a Number, Focus Keyword & Current Year in the Title
- Example: Free VPN for Linux in 2020
- CTR: 29.3%
Osama Tahir, the Staff Writer/Content Marketer at VPNRanks, makes heavy use of analytics from Google Search Console. He is of the opinion that it takes a lot of experimentation before one finds the combination of words that work best for them. The trick is to keep trying different titles and monitor performance.
Inclined to write huge listings with many categories, Osama says, “In our case, we often use titles with numbers, and the year is clearly mentioned, too. For instance, consider - 5 Best VPNs for Linux in 2020. There are 3 key elements here: a number representing the size of the list, focus keyword(high volume), and the current year(for conveying recency).”
- Example: 7 Best Radios for Seniors
- CTR: 12%
Megan Marrs, Founder of Safer Senior Care, is fond of list posts. She says, “Using a numbered, listed post - and hinting at the number of list items in the headline - inspires curiosity. As we like to say, curiosity gets clicks!”
Megan further advises,
“You can capture a lot of attention in Google's SERPs by starting your title with a large number, such as “23 Delicious Bread Recipes.” Numbers (especially big numbers) stand out and get clicks!”
7. Showcase Your Expertise In The Field
- Example: How to Create the Ultimate ROI-Boosting SaaS Content Strategy
- CTR: 18.7%
Adriana Tica, the Founder and Owner of Copywritech, also considers How-to guides essential for providing actionable tips and tricks. She says, “We craft long-form (3000+ words) articles after thoroughly researching our buyer persona to learn their pain points. A how-to guide is ideal for our target audience, SaaS companies. For them, it works because it really teaches them how to create a strategy step by step. For us, it works because we get to showcase our expertise in the field. Consequently, a lot of its readers turn into leads and then customers.”
8. Divide Into Different Sub Topics With Related Keywords
- Example: 30 Best Udemy Courses in 2020
- CTR: 15.4%
For Bhumit Gadhavi, CMO at EasyCowork, the listicle works best as the numbers generally tell the user about the depth of the content, and it looks more compelling. He says, “Here's my suggestion for crafting such post:
- Always start with a number.
- Keep your title short and crisp with an adjective.
- Apply AIDA formula(Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action) to create engaging content, and create content structure divided into many different sub-topics based on related keywords to rank for more keywords.
- Optimize the content for search engine snippets like FAQs, Features snippets to get more real estate on the search page.”
9. Add the ‘Sloth’ Words in the Title
‘Sloth’ words give the readers assurance that the article will provide easy solutions to their queries. Let us consider the example of a blog post given below to understand how it works.
- Example: 11 easy ways how to plant Trees for Free: No costs, no effort, no excuses
- CTR: 12.3%
Describing the importance of a blog title, Chris Kaiser, Founder & CEO of Click A Tree says, “The old title of this post was: How to plant trees for free: No costs, no effort, no excuses. After changing the title, depending on the search term, the current CTR is up to 12.3%. Average CTR is 7.7% for this article, up from 4.9% - that's an increase of 57%.
2 small changes made all the difference:
- Adding a number. People are looking for listicles these days since they're easy to scan and hence quick to consume.
- Adding the sloth word - ‘easy’. Despite already being mentioned in the old title that there'd be no effort required, adding ‘easy’ into the title convinced people that everyone could do it.”
10. Provide All Possible Answers to a Core Question
- Example: SEO strategy — The hierarchy of SEO techniques and needs for better SEO ROI
- CTR: 56.8%
Kelly Wade, the Marketing Specialist at K. M. Wade, believes that ultimate-guide and how-to blog posts tend to work best for their website with clients. It provides a comprehensive solution to a critical problem the target audience faces. People might also like that they do not have to hunt around on different sites for the information they need.
She says, “You need to consider some points while crafting such posts,
- Your posts should help the target audience easily find the answers related to the core question. You can do this by including those questions as subheadings.
- The audience doesn’t want to perform multiple searches to find the information they’re looking for. So it would help if you aim to answer all their most likely questions in the one blog post. That might mean the blog post is quite long, and you have to dedicate sufficient time to research.
- The SEO particulars for each blog post (SEO title, meta description, and slug) must clearly communicate that the blog post is comprehensive and the benefits the target audience will receive if they read the blog post.”
11. Include Special Characters and Power Words in the Title
- Example: Google BERT Algorithm (3 Things You Need To Know)
- CTR: 11.39%
Rob Powell, CEO and founder of Rob Powell Biz Blog, gives the credit of the success of his blog to the well thought-of-title, he says, “A combination of certain factors in the blog title has contributed to achieving the desired outcome, such as,
- numbers
- special characters (brackets)
- the word ‘you’ or ‘your’
- emotional word (‘need’)
After analyzing my most successful 4 blog posts, I’ve derived that including ‘emotional words(power words), numbers, special characters in the title, and addressing the reader works!”
12. Content That is Quick and Easy To Skim
- Example: 38 Apartment Marketing Ideas for Lease-Ups
- CTR: 5.4%
Eden Chai, the co-founder at Generation Marketing, believes list posts work for their company because it allows readers to quickly scan the post to see if there's an idea that they haven't implemented. He says,
“Once they find a new idea, they can read the text under that section to understand how they can implement it and if it would be effective for them. This easy layout helps us attract and retain users.”
- Example: Top 5 ways to make money on Facebook Live
- CTR: 10.2%
Nirmal Kumar, a blogger and SEO Expert at BlogHeist says, “Make sure to use these tips while crafting a list-post for better results.
- Value: Your article should offer some value to the reader. Only then they will be satisfied and will be interested in clicking your search result in the future.
- Headlines: The Headlines play a big role. It has to create curiosity among the audience. But it should not turn out to be a clickbait. Your blog will lose its credibility. So use genuine details.
- Formatting: Your content should be easy to skim. You need to structure out your article properly.”
13. Take Advantage Of A Timely Event
- Example: Customer communication in the COVID era
- CTR: 10%
Norman Guadagno, Chief Marketing Officer at Acoustic, informs How-to guides and COVID-19 related communications have brought the highest CTR for their domain, including the Email Marketing/COVID guide. He says,
“How-to-guides and blog posts take advantage of a timely event (such as COVID-19) and provide relevant guidance around it. They also offer further information and opportunities to dig deeper. It’s a good tactic to include opportunities for the reader to dig deeper if they are interested in the topic.”
14. Update the Content Whenever Possible
- Example: 6 Popular Shopping Malls To Shop Till You Drop in Batam
- CTR: 9%
Cyrus Yung, Director at Ascelade Pte Ltd, unveils the strategies behind the success of their list posts and shares, “Once our content reaches the top 3 positions, our next move is to update the content whenever possible. As shopping malls do not pop up every month, we will do a quick research every 6 months of any new or close for upgrading shopping malls updates, and do an update on the current post.
Secondly, we will place an ‘Updated on Day, Month and Year)’ on the title of the post. This way, searchers will click on the latest post rather than older ones.”
15. Build Content Strategy Around Existing Shortcomings
- Example: Best Cars For 17-Year-Olds
- CTR: 8.33%
Believer of ‘best of’ blog posts, Will Craig, Managing Director at LeaseFetcher, finds that the automotive industry is notoriously challenging to navigate for any first-time buyers. They create content that simplifies the complicated process, provides the end-user with results tailored to their specific needs, and allows users to make an educated decision. He says,
“Fundamentally, this value-driven approach to content starts with identifying content gaps within the market; for instance, search terms with a high number of queries, but a relatively low number of relevant results attached to them. If you build your content strategy around existing shortcomings in content, you will place yourself in a favorable position and easily build yourself as an industry expert within your field of expertise.”
16. Keep An Eye On Your Competitors and Beat The Competition
- Example: The 7 Best Screencasting Software in 2020 (Includes Free Options)
- CTR: 8.2%
Baidhurya Mani, Founder of Sell Courses Online, informs that the CTR for their article about screencasting software goes to 38.7% for the primary keyword.
He says, “When creating a list-type article, research is the most important factor in determining success. So, see what your competitors are doing and decide what to include in your article.”
- Example: The Best YouTube Name Generator
- CTR: 6.2%
Axel DeAngelis, Founder of NameBounce - Business Name Generator says, “A name generator like mine would take months for someone else to replicate. As a result, I can take advantage of lower competition.”
17. Follow Copywriting Formulas
- Example: Buyer Utility Map: Find Opportunities in Your Industry to Make Your Competition Irrelevant
- CTR: 8.2%
Calling this type of post a definition post, Ariel Lim, Digital Marketing Consultant at Ariel Lim Consulting, explains, it lets one answer the question “what is --?” Then they can expand on it by showing examples. He says, “Rather than reinventing the wheel, I follow a few sets of copywriting formulas.
- For example, my title is the “Keyword + benefit” formula
- The content is the answer + examples
- I focus on writing/explaining it non-academically. Most business subjects are written by academics. So their writing style is very rigid and formal. No one (except in the academe) enjoys reading those kinds.”
18. Offer Unique User Value
- Example: Breath vs. breathe?
- CTR: 6%
Kevin Miller, Founder and CEO of The Word Counter says,
“I believe Google really likes articles that are written in the form of a question. It illustrates that the article will be detailed, thorough, and tell a story. The tactics to keep in mind are simply to offer unique user value and answer the question to the best of your ability.”
19. Write BOFU Type Of Content
BOFU - ‘Bottom of the funnel content’ is the decision stage in a buyer's journey.
- Example: Why Channels is The Best Google Voice Alternative [In 2020]
- CTR: 6%
Jakub Kliszczak, the Marketing Specialist at Channels, says, “The comparison post between our software and Google Voice is a BOFU type of content, meaning that people who're looking for such a blog post are ready or almost ready to buy or at least try out your service. Here, people are actively looking for a google voice alternative and they want a better solution right here, right now. Thus, if you do a good job explaining why your solution is a better one, you get a new user.”
20. Select The Subject That Is In Demand
- Example: 18 Ways the Renderforest Free Online Video Maker Will Make You a Better Content Creator
- CTR: 4.2%
Janice Wald, coach to content marketers at Mostly Blogging, gives credit to listicles for bringing success to their blogs. Providing the reasons for this particular blog’s performance, she says, “The content is well-timed as video marketing is a must in 2020. With 18 tips, people feel there must be something they can bring away with them. Most importantly, not many people are writing about Renderforest, and there's a great need.”
21. Employ The Art Of Storytelling
- Example: Emoji Style Guide
- CTR: 4.1%
Flynn Zaiger, CEO at Online Optimism, believes long-form guides work for marketing agencies such as theirs. He says, “They work because a guide promises a user a comprehensive, all-encompassing answer to their questions. When actually crafting a great post with a high-click through rate, it's important to keep the same properties of storytelling. Your post should have a beginning, middle, and end. It should be easily readable, with headings, subheadings, and bullet points. It should teach lessons and provide takeaways.”
22. Keep The Google Schema Up To Date
- Example: How to make Bubble Tea? (Bubble Tea Recipe)
- CTR: 4%
The highest organic CTR rates for Jessica Randhawa, Owner of The Forked Spoon, come from quality posts that answer users’ questions with proper implementation of Google’s recipe schema markup. She informs that Bubble Tea Recipe has CTRs as high as 75% on decent-sized long-tail keywords.
She says, “We have found that keeping Google schema up-to-date is key to driving a good CTR for high-quality content, answering your target audiences’ questions. How-To schema is another great markup for mobile users, which we have implemented on a few posts. It’s important to have star ratings to accompany it for desktop queries, as How-To rich snippets only serve on mobile queries.”
23. Have Proper Content Distribution Strategy
- Example: Australia is Burning and Cybercriminals are Profiting
- CTR: 4%
Favoring infographics, Muhammad Mateen Khan, Digital Marketing Strategist at PureVPN says, “The main reason why these posts worked for us was its URL, OG image, and graphics, which were so enticing that readers wanted to find more about it, and our CTR kept soaring up. Content distribution is not given that much importance most of the time. Great content is a waste if your audience does not know of these exits. For content distribution, we pushed the blog to each platform and groups, even asked the relevant influencers to tweet it for maximum exposure.”
24. Optimize Around Popular “Related Queries”
- Example: LinkedIn Ads Funnel for Account-Based Marketing – How to Run LinkedIn Ads Like a Pro
- CTR: 3.3%
For Djordje at StableWP, the best performing content formats, in terms of CTR, are comprehensive guides about marketing strategies. He says,
“Content structure and on-page optimization help achieve higher than average organic CTR. Optimized around popular ‘related queries’, the users perceive this type of content as specific and relevant to what they need. These guides also win the featured snippets quite often, which in our experience brings higher CTR. Finally, catchy headlines and meta descriptions with strategically placed keywords also help boost organic CTR.”
25. Write Lengthy & Informative Articles
- Example: Lead Generation For Financial Advisors: 3 Steps To 3X AUM
- CTR: 2.3%
Defining how-to guides as ‘absurdly productive for driving leads’ and this post as ‘a machine for converting new leads,’ Brian Robben, CEO & Founder of Robben Media says, “The 5,498 - word beast gives exact step-by-step information on how a financial advisor can use an unconventional method to drive new business. Advisors and wealth managers love it. I’m convinced this works because the visitor has full proof of our process, methodology, and results... We’re giving it all away practically. For one, it’s easy for prospects to now put themselves in the client’s shoes and visualize the transformation for their own business. Two, they're likely thinking if that blog post is free, I bet their paid services are magnificent. That’s why content marketing wins the day.”
Conclusion
Every website aspires to have a higher organic click-through rate as it determines the number of clicks to a site, ultimately affecting sales. Relevant and value-driven content that educates visitors and keeps them engaged for a long time wins in the long run. With SEO, try to be on the first page and then stand out with your headlines, featured snippets, and personal approach. Let the qualified digital marketing services take care of your marketing from top to bottom. Get inspired from the blog post examples given here, and achieve that ever-coveted higher organic CTR!