Hey everyone! Brian Dean here and welcome to Module 4 of SEO That Works.You’ve come a long way, and I want to take a moment to say congratulations for making it this far! I hope you enjoyed the journey up to this point. I know it takes some legit dedication to follow through like you did.
The good news is now’s the time when you should start to see your hard work paying off. So right now, let me quickly recap everything we’ve done so far and show you how it all comes together in this module. In Module 1, you set a strong foundation for your site’s SEO. Specifically, you figured out who your Linkreators are and what types of content they already link to.
Then, you found a medium tail keyword for your first Power Page. In Module 2 you created a Power Page that’s specifically engineered to rank on Google’s first page, using proven Content Frameworks like the Expanded List Post and The Detailed Checklist. In Module 3, you learned exactly how to promote and build links to your content using a number of tested strategies.
And in this Module, Module 4, I’ll show you how to master a set of critical ranking factors known as UX Signals. Yes I’ll show you what they are and why they’re important. But I’ll also show you how you can use UX Signal optimization to quickly get higher Google rankings. So, let’s begin. Now that you’ve created and promoted your Power Page, what’s next?
Well, it’s time to optimize it the right way. And when I say optimize, I’m NOT talking about adding your keyword to your title tag. Sure, old school on-page stuff like that can help. In fact, I have an additional training lesson in this module that shows you exactly how to keyword-optimize every page on your site.
So yeah, traditional on-page SEO is still important. But it’s not enough. In fact, just the ticket to entry. If you want to rank on Google’s first page (and stay there) you also need to optimize for UX Signals. I’ll explain. Back in the day, Google would rank a page based on two main factors, the links pointing to that page and the keywords that were on that page.
That’s it. For example, let’s say that you did a search a few years back for “red tennis shoes”. Google would choose which pages to rank based mostly on the number of backlinks those pages had. They’d also take into account keywords that appeared on each page. So a page that included “red tennis shoes” in their title tag, alt text and description tag would rank higher than a page that didn’t include those terms.
And this is all still largely the case. So, what’s changed? Well, Google added a THIRD ranking factor into the mix. UX Signals. Specifically, a few years back Google rolled out something called Google RankBrain.
In fact around that time, a Google engineer recently said that RankBrain was one of Google’s top 3 ranking signals, behind links and content, the focus of this program so far. You may have heard about RankBrain already. But if you haven’t, here’s a quick overview. RankBrain is a machine learning algorithm that helps Google understand whether users are satisfied with a search result. For example, let’s go back to our red tennis shoes example. Thanks to RankBrain, Google knows which results on the first page are making their users happy.
So they uprank those pages. They also downrank pages that aren’t making users happy. So, how do they know if your page is satisfying their users? Well, RankBrain looks at what are known as User Experience Signals. This is just like it sounds. Google measures how users interact with the search results. And they use that data to uprank and downrank the results on the first page.
These User Experience Signals include Click Through Rate, Dwell Time, Bounce Rate and more. Since then, Google has refined their algorithm. Today, RankBrain is one of many ways that they measure user experience signals. So RankBrain first allowed Google to measure and understand UX signals at scale. But they’ve since improved the technology that measures UX signals.
And in this lesson we’re going to focus on what’s perhaps the most important UX Signal of all, Organic Click Through Rate (CTR). First, I’ll show you evidence that Google measures and uses CTR in their RankBrain algorithm. Then, I’ll show you a bunch of super actionable techniques that you can use to boost your CTR. So let’s jump right in. You might be wondering how does Google use CTR exactly?
Well, let’s go back to our red tennis shoes example. According to this study of organic click-through- rate, the #7 result in Google gets around 4% of all the clicks. But let’s say, for example that your site ranks #7. And the the #7 result is getting a whopping 8% of all clicks. What’s Google going to think about that result? That users want to see it! So instead of burying that result in the 7th spot, they’re going to give it a rankings boost. That way, users can easily find it.
Make sense? And there’s lots of evidence that CTR is an especially important part of how Google orders the first page results. For example, Google Engineer Paul Haar once stated that Google uses click-through-rate to help them determine which results on the first page are making users happy. And my friend Larry Kim, founder of WordStream, has plenty of data on how CTR affects rankings. For example, Larry once found that pages with an above average CTR tend to rank higher than they “should” based on traditional factors like links and on page SEO.
And Google actually testified to the FTC that they use clicks to evaluate the quality of the search results. So yeah, there’s no doubt that Google uses CTR in their algorithm. The question is how important is CTR? Is it something that’s more of a tiebreaker that can move you up one spot? Or can it make or break your rankings?
Well, in my experience, CTR is a SUPER important make or break ranking factor. Especially once you start to rank on the first page. As soon as you crack Google’s first page, Google starts collecting CTR data. And if they see lots of people clicking on your result, they’ll say: “Wow, this is a great result. Let’s bump it up a few spots”. On the other hand, if no one clicks on your result, it will tell Google: “Hmmm. This result doesn’t seem to be a good fit. Let’s drop it down”. Which is why it’s super important to optimize your site’s CTR. For example, you may have seen a few years ago when I created a WordPress plugin called YoRocket.
Now, we ended up retiring that product. That’s a different story for a different video. The reason that I’m mentioning it is to let you know that this product gave us a unique insight into how important CTR is for getting higher Google rankings. In fact, that tool gave us LOTS of data from our hundreds of users. Data that clearly shows better CTR, higher rankings. Here’s an example of how much a difference CTR can make on your organic traffic. And now it’s time for me to show you exactly how to improve your organic CTR.
Specifically, I’m going to show you a bunch of strategies that you can use to get more clicks from Google searchers. Now, as you probably know, your Google result shows three main pieces of information. Your title tag, your description tag and your URL. I’ll show you how to optimize all three of these in this lesson. Of the three, your title tag is the most important. So let’s start with that. Strategy number one is to add a number to your title tag. There’s a reason that magazine covers are plastered with numbers, numbers grab attention. And the data backs this up.
A study by Conductor found that number-rich headlines get 36% more clicks than headlines without a number. And you can use numbers for almost ANY title even if your content isn’t a list post. For example, you can add “23% Off” to an ecommerce product page title tag. Or “Over 517 Clients Served” to your service page. You get the idea. And while you’re adding a number, use an odd number if possible. Outbrain, which has a ridiculous amount of data on what people click on, found that odd numbers work better than even numbers.
Strategy number two is to use brackets and parentheses. This little trick can make a BIG difference in your CTR. You may have noticed that I use brackets or parentheses in many of my titles. And that’s for the simple reason that: they work really well. In fact, data from HubSpot discovered that brackets or parentheses can increase CTR by 38%. Pretty cool. Strategy three, which is an optional one, is to add the current year. This step is optional because it doesn’t make sense for every page on your site. But whenever you can include the current year, use it.
For example, I started adding “(Year Update)” to many of my titles. Needless to say, when someone’s searching through the search results, mine looks more appealing. After all, it has content from this year! As a bonus, lots of people search for “keyword year” in Google. And adding the year to your title can help you rank for those terms. Strategy number four is to increase emotional sentiment. So, as you might have seen, a while back we analyzed data from several different Google Search
Console accounts to better understand CTR.
Console accounts to better understand CTR.
One of our most interesting findings was that titles with a positive or negative emotional sentiment increase CTR by about 7%. That may not sound like a lot. But 7% more clicks can be the difference between Google seeing your site as a great fit for your target keyword. Or a result that should be buried on page 3. So yeah, this finding shouldn’t come as a surprise. As you learned in Module 2, research by Jonah Berger shows that emotions push people to take action. Well, as it turns out, emotions push people to share. But they also push them to click.
And our study isn’t the only one to figure this out. A study conducted by The Federal University of Brazil found that highly emotional headlines got more clicks than headlines that weren’t emotional. How can you do that? Make your title elicit a real feeling. This is pretty tough to teach, but you know an emotional title when you see one. For example, a title like ”5 Tips for Weight Loss” is pretty “blah”. On the other hand, a title like “5 Super Easy Tips for Burning Fat” is much more emotionally compelling. That said: there’s a giant caveat here that I need to point out.
Yes, you want emotional titles. But you don’t want to resort to clickbait. In fact, our study found that title tags with so-called “Power Words” actually decreased CTR. In other words, emotional titles get more clicks. To a point. But if you go overboard with clickbait, it can actually hurt your CTR. For example, this title tag from Backlinko has a little bit of emotion.
But it’s not clickbaity. Strategy number five is to use relatively short title tags. How long should your title tags be? Again, let’s go back to the CTR study that I’ve mentioned a few times. In that study we found that relatively short titles work best. For example, this page’s title tag is about 40 characters. And it has a solid CTR. To be clear: this isn’t a hard and fast rule.
More of a rule of thumb. If it makes sense to go above 40 characters, feel free. For example, my keyword for this page is pretty long. So I really had no choice but to go above 40 characters. And despite that, the page has still done super well. So again, the goal here isn’t to count characters all the time. Instead, you just want to use shorter titles than you might otherwise use. Now let’s switch gears and talk about your description tag.
No, Google doesn’t use your description tag as a direct ranking signal. And, according to one industry study, Google will only show your description in the search results about 1/3rd of the time. Knowing that, you might be wondering is it even worth writing a description in the first place? Yup! Here’s why. First of all, Google themselves recommend writing a unique description for every page on your site.
And Google even reports that a compelling description can increase your CTR.Plus, the CTR study found that pages with a description had a significantly higher CTR compared to pages without one. This backs up my personal experience. I’ve found that a well-written description can make a significant dent in your CTR and rankings.
The question is how do you write a description that pushes people to click? It’s simple, follow this proven description formula. Here’s an example of this template in action. To be clear, you don’t need to follow this exact template for every single page. The idea here is that you want to use your description to outline what your content is and let people know what they’ll get by clicking on it. As long as you nail those two things, you can write your description any way you want.
I just find that having a formula helps. Which is why I tend to use the formula that I just shared with you most of the time. Strategy number seven is to include your keyword in your description. You probably already do this anyway. But it bears repeating here because it’s important. Including your keyword in your description is important for two reasons. First, when users see your keyword in your description, it lets them know that your result is relevant for what they’re searching for. For example, let’s say you’re searching for “keto bread recipes”. And you come across these two results.
Which one are you going to click on? Probably the second result. It literally has the phrase you’re searching for in the description. Obviously, this all happens subconsciously. But the fact is: you’re going to automatically see a page with the exact thing you’re looking for as a good fit.
Which is why I recommend including your target keyword once or twice in your description. There’s another reason to use keywords in your description. Google will sometimes bold that keyword in your description. Which helps your site really stand out. Strategy eight is to use short, keyword-rich URLs. The truth is, most Google users don’t pay attention to the URLs that appear in the search results. Plus, Google doesn’t display them like they used to. That said, some people do.
So it’s worth optimizing for. So how can you create URLs that people want to click on? First, make them short. Our study found that short URLs can get upwards of 45% more clicks than long URLs. This makes sense if you think about it. A page’s URL describes what that page is all about. And if your URL is like this, it’s going to confuse people.So I recommend making your URLs short and sweet, like this. And make sure to include your keyword in your URL, like this.
Why? Well, our organic CTR study that I’ve mentioned a bunch of times already found that keyword-rich URLs can make a huge difference in your click through rate. You can either make your URL just your keyword. Or add a word before or after it. In other words: you don’t need to ONLY put your keyword in the URL and nothing else. You can add a word or two before or after your keyword too. For example, I sometimes add the word “guide” to my URLs.
And I haven’t seen it make much of a difference compared to only using my keyword. So yeah, as long as your URL is short and contains your keyword, you’re good to go. With that, one quick word of warning: I don’t recommend changing your old URLs just to get an increased CTR. When you change a URL, you need to redirect the old URL to the new one, which can cause SEO issues. And these issues probably aren’t worth the slight bump in CTR.
Instead, I recommend implementing this URL optimization strategy for future pages that you publish on your site. And with that, this lesson is now complete. To quickly recap, you learned that organic CTR is a SUPER important Google ranking factor. I also showed you several strategies that you can use to improve your CTR.
And in the next lesson, Lesson 2, I’m going to show you how to optimize your content for another super important UX ranking factor, Dwell Time. But that can wait for Lesson 2. For now, put these strategies into practice. In the worksheet below this video I lay out these strategies in more detail. And have a few extra examples. So go ahead and download the worksheet. And I’ll see you in the next lesson.
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