Showing posts with label SEO strategies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SEO strategies. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 27, 2017

Email Marketing Strategies to Boost Your Business

In today's tech-obsessed society, marketing is an ongoing theme, and its ideas originate every split-second. But the real trick to making something great often has little to do with the idea, and much more to do with the execution in order to get some pretty darn impressive result.

One of the strongest marketing channels in SEO is email marketing to execute ideas.

Let`s take a look!

 Travis Beauchesne

Email marketing is one of the elite channels for business communication – as it enables marketers to simply trigger specific messages to potential consumers whenever they take a particular action.

According to the stats, over 144 billion emails sent each and every day. So how to separate signal from the noise?

To ensure, finding the key to a stand-out message is critical to your bottom line. Whether the bottom line is - cold, hard cash or community engagement or anything in between. What follows is three inbox - tested email marketing strategies from Travis Beauchesne that successfully made receivers to get their emails clicked.

Lead Nurturing Sequence


Every customer that comes to your business is usually the product of a significant investment, whether it’s social channels, conference booth, or word-of-mouth. Therefore, it`s requisite to integrate an automated email sequence to take care of your hard-won leads. Travis Beauchesne named this process - lead nurturing, and it works.

B2B marketers perceived a 20% increase in sales opportunities from nurtured leads compared to non-nurtured leads, according to DemandGen`s report.

To initiate the process, Travis Beauchesne recommend sending a series of emails consistently, incorporating attention-seeking content. Great content for free - establishes authority in your business alongside builds trust with your new leads. With that as your foundation, you can ask for the sale. Make sure to consider your purchase cycle when you’re thinking through the timing.

You can set up a sequence to get things rolling, and then integrate additions and tweaks after finding - what’s working and what’s not!

A Welcome Note, When Someone Joins Your Email List


According to MarketingSherpa, the average open rate for a welcome email is a staggering 50%, making them 86% more effective than newsletters.

Customers are least concerned about what you have to say when they join your email list. It’s your desire to aware them. Yet, a lot of businesses added new customers to their email list and do nothing else. For days or even weeks, they leave out an email to that list and loose subscriber’s initial interest.

With an automated welcome note, you can easily make a connection with new subscribers. It’s an utmost way to take people toward more resources and draw them into your brand’s story.

To convert customers in lead - Set up a tone of friendship. Plus, use illustrations and big calls to action, pointing key aspects of your mission. This recommendation from Travis Beauchesne helps customers in deeper understanding of your product and services.

Customer Onboarding Sequence


How to set your customer up for success? When they purchase your product or service.

  Travis Beauchesne

The key is encouraging them to become a repeat customer. Send series of emails in a new customer’s inbox right after they’ve purchased. The first, immediately after the purchase, would be a simple thank you note. The second, a week later, might feature tips. The third, after another week, could be an invitation to share the product on social media. And the final email could include links to buy a similar product.

If you’re new to automation, try one of these email marketing strategies and let us know whether or not these email automation strategies have worked for your business.

Leave a comment and share your experience with Travis Beauchesne!

Friday, June 16, 2017

How to Protect Your Online Business

You’ve got enough to do with running your online business without having to deal with cyber attacks. However, internet threats seem to pop up with greater frequency all the time. How can you protect your online business? What’s more, the tips Travis Beauchesne share here are easy to implement.

Keeping your website safe is probably be one of your main concerns or it should be. A website that has little security offers crooks an easy way into your business’s infrastructure.  From there, they can wreak all kinds of havoc, from malicious leaks to abuses of personal information. In a word, your customers and clients but especially your business can suffer great harm.

Travis Beauchesne

It doesn’t have to go that way, however. There are some simple things that you can do to ensure that your business is significantly better protected. If you know you need to be more cautious with regard to the online medium and you want to take steps to prevent hackers from getting an easy score, keep reading for some tips you can implement today.

Keep Your Platform Updated


Keep your platform updated, because software developers try to stay one step ahead of the threats. That’s why they send out updates frequently. On the other side of the equation, hackers are coming up with their nefarious new methods all the time, too. So if you don’t update, their newest and most efficient hacking techniques may well find a way to exploit your website’s weaknesses.

Choose a Different Hosting Service for Each of Your Websites


According to Travis Beauchesne, a lot of people seem to think it’s okay to use the same hosting plan for all of their websites. However, this approach is unwise.

The reason it’s not a good idea if that one server becomes compromised, all your websites could go down. It’s better to choose a different hosting service for each of your websites.

Create Strong Passwords


A password like “1234” or “password,” especially if it’s a critical company database, is cyber suicide. Most likely, it’s just a matter of time before you get hacked if this is your practice. It can be easy to create strong passwords that are hard to crack and impossible to guess. Strong passwords will ensure that you’re not leaving your website open to attack by strangers who want to mess around with your company’s vital information.

 Travis Beauchesne

Be Savvy About Where You Keep Your Backup Storage


Backups are essential. Backups ensure that if something happens to your website you won’t lose everything. It’s important to keep your backups and your website on different servers, however. Keeping them on the same server is the virtual equivalent of leaving the key to your home’s front door in plain sight on your front porch. That’s practically an open invitation to burglars or hackers to step right on in.

As Per Travis Beauchesne, Follow these few simple tips to keep your online business safe and out of the hands of evil-minded hackers.

Source URL: http://www.business-opportunities.biz/2017/06/08/protect-online-business/

Tuesday, May 30, 2017

Promote Your Business With a Blog

Starting a blog to promote your business doesn’t have to be complex and costly. As a matter of fact, lots of people start their own blogs every day. The cost is minimal, and the entire process should only take you an hour or less.

Travis Beauchesne here talks about setting up a blog on WordPress, which is the most popular blogging platform. If you want, though, you can shop around for others.If you’ve never started a blog before, you might be feeling overwhelmed at first. But if you’re in a hurry, here’s the shortened version:

Step 1 – Choose a Domain Name and a Web Host

Before you start blogging, you’ll need a couple of things first:

 Travis Beauchesne

A Domain Name - Make a list of domain names that are unique and accurately describe what your business is about.Make the names on your list as descriptive as you can, while still keeping them short and sweet. You want your readers to easily recognize what your blog—and your business—are all about. Some bloggers use their own name as their blog name. That way, they prevent other people from registering their given name. You can try to do the same with your business, and register the name of your business before anyone else does. This will be easier to do if your business has a one-of-a-kind name.We’ll talk a little more about domain names a little further on.

A Web Host - Your web host will store your blog’s files and deliver them to your readers when they type your domain name.When it comes to web hosting, you’ve got lots of choices. The top 5, according to PC Magazine, are HostGator, 1&1, InMotion, DreamHost, and GoDaddy.But if you’re operating on a shoestring budget, you might want to look at free web hosting. You’ve got your choices there, too. Take a look at Wix, 000webhost, x10Hosting, Weebly, and AwardSpace. Look for a web host that offers free, simple-to-install blogging tools and around-the-clock customer service. The best ones even offer a money-back guarantee.

Step 2 – Set Up Your Blog

As Per Travis Beauchesne, Start by typing the first name on your list into the search box on your web host site. Don’t lose heart if you find that someone else is already using that name. Your web host will offer similar names for you to choose from. Try to find one that is similar to the one you had your heart set on, but if you can’t, move on down your list, and try the next one. Use your imagination. Get those creative juices flowing and find a domain name that’s right for your business.

Remember that if things go well, you’re going to have to live with this domain name for a long, long time. Next, you’ll need to choose a domain extension, such as .com, .net or .org. After you’ve chosen your domain name and extension, you will be directed to a registration page and asked to give your billing details. Here is where you’ll choose from among the various hosting packages and options.

Once you’ve set up your account, you can log in by going to the web host homepage and clicking the login tab. The next thing you should see is a control panel for installing WordPress. Click on the “install” option and get started.

Step 3 – Time to Blog

Now, you’re really on your way. It’s time to start blogging. In the editor section, you will write your thoughts and ideas. A menu gives you choices about whether and when to publish what you’ve written. If you want to add pictures to your blog post, click “add media” and browse to upload images from your computer.
  Travis Beauchesne
Step 4 – Pick a Theme

You’ll want to pick a theme for your blog, but WordPress makes it easy. 

Step 5 – Promote Your Blog

According to Travis Beauchesne, Tell people all about your blog via email, online forums, social networks, links to other blogs, and guest posting on other people’s blogs. The most important thing you can do to promote your blog, though, is to post amazing content frequently.

Sunday, May 21, 2017

Latest Branding Trends for Marketing Your Business

Branding is constantly changing. Each year, new trends come along that shape the direction of branding for the year ahead, and companies would be wise to keep these trends in mind and stay ahead of their competition. Here Travis Beauchesne has shared some of the most important branding trends to keep an eye on over the coming months so that your business stays ahead of the curve.

 Travis Beauchesne

Virtual Reality

Not a day goes by when we don’t read something about how virtual reality is taking hold. New VR devices like the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive are already available, and they are only going to get better.

It’s inevitable that VR will start to play a bigger role in branding, and it’s already starting. Brands are creating VR experiences to put VR to use in creative ways for business, and not just for playing games. That’s one of the reasons why Facebook bought Oculus because it could see how VR would go beyond gaming.

Greenery Is the Color

Pantone always chooses a color for the year ahead, and this year it is a color called Greenery, as reported in Strata beat. Greenery’s yellow-green shade represents new beginnings, spring, and freshness and suggests trends in healthy eating. Darker greens such as olive green are also set to feature, as are earthy colors, including browns, deep reds and gray.

Physical Accessories

While everything seems to be going increasingly digital, don’t forget about the need for physical branding. Branded accessories have been popular for a long time, and this year will be no exception. Indeed, as people become increasingly fatigued with the always-digital lifestyle, physical items could become more popular.

According to Travis Beauchesne an internet marketing expert, Branded accessories are ideal for event branding at conferences and trade shows, where you can use lanyards, name badges, wristbands, tote bags and USB drives to brand your business. 

Greater Authenticity

Authenticity has always been important, but now it’s even more important. This could in part be a reaction to the fact that stories on the internet are getting harder to believe.
An authenticity backlash could lead to a greater focus on products rather than their packaging. People do not want to see the product hiding behind the packaging, and they are seeking greater transparency.

Focus on Customer Experience

Customer experience is another important trend for this year. Of course, this has always been important, but it is becoming an even more crucial brand differentiator. You can benefit by creating ideal experiences for your audience and providing various customer experiences rather than only a single one.

 Travis Beauchesne

Brands Get Political

This could also be the year that brands get more political, primarily as a reaction to recent elections. This could see a rise in activist brands that choose to relate to their target customers in political ways. However, this also risks alienating customers, so brands will have to tread carefully.

These are a few of the most important trends in branding that you can expect to see over the coming year. While some of them may not be relevant to your business, no doubt other trends will be. As Per Travis Beauchesne, Keep a close eye on branding trends and adopt them into your own branding to provide a better experience for your customers over the months ahead.

Monday, May 15, 2017

10 Things You Should do to Market Your Business Online

Online advertising is slowly taking over more traditional forms of marketing. In the event you currently have little or no online presence, you will want to jump on the online train so you do not get left behind. Here Travis Beauchesne has shared some easy steps you can take to boost your exposure and ultimately draw in more customers.

Figure Out Your Goals

Establishing a marketing plan can be difficult to do without knowing what it is you want to achieve. Your goals could be to increase sales, develop a larger customer database or enhance your social media following and all of those are great goals. However, the more specific you can be with each of them the better off your plan will be.

 Travis Beauchesne

Build Your Brand

Effective marketing is reliant on knowing what sets your business apart from the competition. Every message you send out through your website, email announcements and social media channels need to be on-brand. Highlight the aspects of your business that are unique.  

Utilize Social Media

At the very least you will want to have a Facebook or Twitter account. Use these accounts every day if possible and be sure to your followers and customers. If you do not have time to do it yourself, hire someone to do it for you. 

Develop an Email Campaign

Directly emailing people is a great way to stay in your customers’ minds. When people visit your storefront, encourage them to sign up for your mailing list, so they stay in the loop.

Implement SEO Practices

As Per Travis Beauchesne, Search engine optimization is the practice of using valuable keywords in your company’s online content so that it appears higher up in search engine rankings. Any business with a website can use Google Analytics to determine what local keywords to include. Proper SEO also entails using keywords in URL links and adding Meta descriptions and title tags on web pages.

Create Shareable Content

It is not enough for a business to simply create web pages. You want to be certain the content you are publishing is something people will want to share while still being relevant to your business. Your audience will be more likely to engage in the content and share it on their social media pages.

Use Special Techniques for Promotions

If your business is offering a temporary promotion, then you need to get the word out fast. Pay per click campaigns is useful in this endeavor because they can be fully customized to meet your needs. You can use geo-targeting so that only potential customers in your city see the ads. With these campaigns, it is more beneficial to focus on enticing visuals rather than a lot of text. 

Establish Text Campaigns

This is similar to an email campaign in that you have customers give you their mobile phone numbers when they sing up for your newsletter or other name capture element to your website. This way, when you have a special promotion, you can text individuals so they get a notification immediately. 

Make Your Website Mobile Friendly

More people are researching businesses on smartphones than traditional computers. Therefore, it is prudent to ensure your website can be easily viewed, and items ordered, on mobile devices. If it is impossible for someone to look up information about your business on a phone, then he or she will go elsewhere.

 Travis Beauchesne

Promote Any News

Customers like feeling as if they are part of the family. If something big happens around your business, feel free to talk about it on social media. This can include hiring a new person or talking about any new inventory that came in.

You can get started on any of these tips today with an eye toward the future. Social media and SEO are not going away so start building your online presence with Travis Beauchesne right now. 

Tuesday, May 9, 2017

About Travis Beauchesne

Travis Beauchesne was born in Maine on Nov 29, 1976. He Grew up in the tiny town of Bath, Maine. Bath is situated on the banking institutions of the Kennebec river, rich in maritime backdrop deep fishing heritage.

Travis Beauchesne enjoyed woodworking and carpentry from an early on age and apprenticed in a cabinet shop in Yarmouth. He enrolled in college or university in southern Maine but quickly decided institution has not been for him and dropped out. After a few years as a carpenter and contractor, Travis Beauchesne decided to go west. Loaded up with surfboards and a carrier of clothes, He established a course for Santa Claus Cruz, Ca. Maine has waves from time to time, but hot water and regular waves beckoned.

 Travis Beauchesne


A single of the stops along the pilgrimage west was the great state of Utah. Travis Beauchesne linked with some ski bottom friends while stopping to do laundry. Utah was unlike anything he got ever seen. After a very short 2 week stay in California and on his way back again to Maine, Travis Beauchesne yet again stopped in Utah. What started out as a 3-day pit stop, has converted into an 18-year residency. He decided to make Utah home in 1998 and never viewed back. Travis Beauchesne is married to the love of his life and has 3 incredible children.

Over the past 18 years, Travis Beauchesne has operated many successful businesses, including an internet marketing companies, skateboard shops, a merchant processing business and more.

Travis Beauchesne discovered internet marketing early in his career and has become a part of since. This individual enjoys creating opportunities from inception as well as making an existing idea better. The idea of solving a marketing issue is what he was delivered to do. Travis Beauchesne enjoys his downtime as much as crunch time, and these days he can enjoying being a lot of the time father. Keeping up with his kids and making dinner are long his greatest successes.

Thursday, May 4, 2017

Top 10 Facebook Marketing Tips

As an Internet Marketing Expert, Travis Beauchesne has shared 10 free Facebook marketing tips and how to use them in your business.

Use Canva to Create an Eye-Catching Cover Photo

You don’t have to hire a professional designer to create a stunning and engaging cover photo. There are many great FREE tools like Canva can use to create or edit your images.

Be Mindful of Moving Your Fans to Your Email List

While Facebook is an extremely useful and powerful marketing tool, remember that you will never truly own your audience. It’s important to make sure you’re always moving your fans to your email list.

 Travis Beauchesne

Ask Questions to Boost Engagement

Some business owners are still using Facebook as a way to broadcast a one-way message to their fans. However, Facebook works best when you use it for two-way conversations. One of the best ways to do this is to use questions in your posts. 

Consult Facebook Insights to Find Out Which Types of Posts Resonate With Your Audience

According to Travis Beauchesne, You don’t need to guess at which types of posts are getting the most engagement with your audience! Regularly consult your Insights to see which post types and topics are resonating with your audience.

Post Image Quotes

Simply overlay a funny, motivational or inspiration quote on an eye-catching background, and then share it on your page. 

Use Buzzsumo to Find New Content Ideas

Use a free tool like Buzzsumo to find the most popular content for a given subject. Plug in a relevant topic and Buzzsumo will give you a list of the most popular content on that topic, based on the number of social shares.

Offer Exclusive Deals and Promotions

Overlay graphics with promotional content or coupon codes, and share it on your Facebook page. You can also create a Facebook offer from your page for free. This is a great way to move your fans into your online marketing funnel!

Try Posting Link Updates

Buffer wanted to know which types of posts worked best on Facebook, so they tested out a variety of strategies. After a week of sharing only link updates, their median reach increased by about 70% and clicks increased by almost 10%.

 Travis Beauchesne

Integrate Your Website with Your Facebook Page

When you’re working with a small budget, it’s critical that you find ways to leverage your existing audience to grow your Facebook page. If you have a Word Press site, use plugin like Facebook Comments to add a Facebook comment box to your blog.

Be Committed and Consistent

The final tip by Travis Beauchesne for marketing your business for free on Facebook is to be consistent. This is the way to build relationships with your audience that are built on trust.

Tuesday, May 2, 2017

Secrets of Getting Internet Marketing Success

We all have the desire to keep on adding and updating different ideas to our business such that our business may flourish to its extremist limit and this is very much possible by online marketing many other SEO tips. But as you are not the only one in the market thus it becomes very much necessary for each one of us to seek some secrets of getting internet marketing success. Points given below by Travis Beauchesne will help you doing so:   

 Travis Beauchesne

Website Directory Listings

Before you start any advertising effort, ensure that the site you're advancing has been recorded in the basic catalogs such Google My Business, Bing Places and online Yellow pages. Regardless of the possibility that you're utilizing a promoting page off of the root index of your site, make sure that the essential site is recorded. This guarantees prospects can keep on finding your advertising pages long after you've propelled your crusade. 

Generating Traffic

With a specific end goal to understand an arrival on your venture, you have to create the activity to your showcasing pages. There are various approaches to doing as such on the web. Probably the most prominent incorporate Google Adwords, Bing Ads, and Yahoo Localworks. Different techniques incorporate associated projects and focused on site publicizing. Examine different sites that have the group of onlookers you're searching for and arrange positive promotion rates for your web based advertising effort. 

Marketing Pages

According to Travis Beauchesne try not to lead forthcoming buyers at a nonexclusive site. On the off chance that you do, potential purchasers won't realize what to do next. The less demanding you make if for prospects to exploit your offer, the better. At whatever point making an advertising effort on the web, give a particular page to driving buyers to your item or benefit or a board that features the offer. Remove the mystery from making a buy and more purchasers will purchase.

Testimonials

Client tributes are the most intense approach to offer your item or administration. At the point when buyers get notification from the individuals who have obtained and utilized your item or administration, they pick up a specific level of trust and solace in what you bring to the table. Request tributes after each buy and utilize those that are the most persuading to imminent buyers.

  Travis Beauchesne


Create a Compelling Offer 

Make sure to offer something that nobody else is right now advertising. On the off chance that your offer is like your rivals or is not exceptionally intriguing, customers have no motivation to take in more. Obviously giving something to FREE is regularly an incredible approach to tempt potential clients. Perhaps it's a 3-day free trial or a free assessment or some likeness thereof. Be innovative, have a go at something new, and measure the reaction. 

These are the five secrets of getting internet marketing success by Travis Beauchesne such that you make a better aspect of showing your company career growth and at the same time giving tough competition to the market rivals.    

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Facts to Empower Your SEO Strategy

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO as it is commonly referred to, is a well-known technique that helps website owners use various techniques to increase their organic search ranking. However, if you are new to the world of SEO, you may not know what expect when taking on these new and somewhat foreign tactics. Understanding more about the goal of SEO, how it works, how long it takes and other essential factors will give you peace of mind you are doing everything right and help you see the results that have actually taken place. Hiring Travis Beauchesne is a great way to get the answers and help you are looking for.

The Primary Goal of SEO

SEO helps to communicate with search engines what your business has to offer. The search engines have a unique language that they expect websites to speak, as well, so they know what is being offered. SEO also works to ensure that the most relevant properties of a website are understood, quality content is built and links are established to make the pages you have created appear more relevant. SEO will help you build an online presence making it much easier for your targeted audience to find you.

 Travis Beauchesne

Results are not Instant

When you take your time and use good SEO, it can have a powerful and long-lasting impact for your website rankings and traffic. The results achieved are usually done so with a number of tasks that take a bit of time to be implemented and then recognized by the various search engines. It is important to keep in mind that when you do SEO right there are no shortcuts or tricks that will make results happen faster. You have to base the results you see on factors such as the competition for the keywords you have targeted, the budget you have and search trends. In some cases, results can take several months to be recognized.

Choosing the Right Keywords

An essential part of SEO is the keywords you choose. You need to incorporate these words into your website so that it is more relevant and search engine friendly. The words will be used for directing searches to your site and it is essential that you find the phrases and terms that are most likely going to be searched for. If you are unsure of how to proceed with this, Hire Travis Beauchesne Utah. He can ensure the keywords you target are perfect for your business and will gain the most traction in results pages.

Source Url: http://www.business-opportunities.biz/2016/11/12/understanding-seo-facts-can-help-enhance-seo-strategy/

Wednesday, April 5, 2017

4 Ways To Conquer Online Marketing

Technology has certainly changed the way things are done. By looking at the proposed trends for this year, you can tell there is no other direction technology is going but up. Big corporate got the memo a few years ago, and we can see the scramble for the creme at the top, with virtually every company taking up online marketing. Strategies are being refined, and the work has begun.

Travis Beauchesne

Here Travis Beauchesne has shared some ways to get noticed and conquer online marketing:

Smart Optimization

Google, the largest and indeed most important search engine, uses a special algorithm to rank sites. It also uses a unique algorithm to rank searches when an item is entered. For your article, blog, or website to find its way to first page, you have to optimize in a smart way. Apply the keyword too many times, and you might just get penalized for it, or under utilize it, and you get lost in the millions of similar sites. The best way to go about optimization is by hiring an expert who knows their way around the topic, preferably one who has been around through the numerous changes of Google’s algorithm, such as Wisdekcorp.

Killer Content

Content is king, people. It not only needs to be well written but also relevant to your niche. The people visiting your site will not be looking for presentation alone; they will want to get the information they seek. Your current web surfer is a skimmer; they skim through the content to see whether what you have is beneficial to them and if it is not, they will pass. As Per Travis Beauchesne, They move on so fast to find content that meets their needs. The tricky thing about content is that it needs to not only be informative but also engaging enough to keep them reading beyond the first two lines.

Why? We are a busy people, with only so much time to spare before moving on to other ventures. If you cannot write content that catches the eye in the first few lines, then hire someone who can.

Presentation

Everyone loves aesthetically appealing presentation. You capture more attention through graphic presentation than you do with blocks of writing (no matter how informative). Videos, which made a bold entry last year – what with Facebook launching the “Live” feature – are certainly here to stay. You can use videos to attract a larger following, which will bring more awareness to your brand.

Data Insights

When you collect all their relevant data from the various digital sources, you could turn it into quite useful information that will enable you to move your brand a notch higher. You could, for example, note when it is the best time to post something on your online channel to maximize engagement with your online community.

Travis Beauchesne

Parting Shot

A user-friendly site will attract and retain users – whom you can convert to sales. If you reckon they could help, you could make use of affiliate sites to pull crowds. Affiliate marketers make marketing bliss by spreading the work to other online users that you would otherwise have not known about. Hire Travis Beauchesne who can do online marketing for your business.

Wednesday, November 23, 2016

Important 5 SEO Experiments That Will Blow Your Mind

In SEO, there’s no shortage of theory and best practices. But experimentation is what really keeps this great industry moving forward.

All of today’s best practices came as a result of past experiments – both failures and successes. Everything we do in SEO is an opportunity to learn and improve.

That’s why I love doing experiments. While Google may reveal a few bits and pieces of information, they’ll never tell us everything we need to know to evolve our SEO strategies from the ordinary into the realm of unicorns.

Today I’d like to share six mind-blowing SEO experiments we did this year, what we learned from them, and what it all means.

1. Does Organic Search Click-Through Rate Matter?


We know that machine learning – including Google RankBrain – is changing SEO as we've known it. Already, Google uses RankBrain for every search, and it impacts "a lot" of queries.

Is RankBrain (or other machine learning-based elements) impacting rankings? If so, how? Well, that’s exactly what wanted we wanted to find out: what’s a good click-through rate for organic search.

For this experiment, we looked at a set of 1,000 keywords from Google's Search Console for the WordStream site. What we found is very interesting. In April, the average CTR for the top position was 22 percent. That increased to 24 percent by July and 27 percent by September.

SEO Trends



So our data clearly showed that are top ranked results had its highest CTRs by September. Meanwhile, on the other end, the data showed that lower positions (4-10) were being clicked on less than ever.

Clearly, the click curve is bending. I believe this is exactly what you would expect to see from a machine learning algorithm – it’s about providing the best answers (based on the highest user engagement), which means fewer people will need to scroll down and click lower results.

So does organic search CTR matter? YES! More than ever before.

2. Is Organic CTR an Organic Search Ranking Factor?


So we’ve established CTR is important. But what’s the relationship between organic CTR and organic search rankings?

Numerous people who work at Google have said they don’t use click-through rate for the purposes of ranking. But when they say this, they mean they don’t use it as a “direct” signal. Could it be that clicks have an indirect impact on Google’s search results?

We decided to find out the answer to this question with an experiment designed to figure out whether CTR impacts SEO rankings.

The goal of this experiment was to see whether there was any clear relationship between organic search CTR and organic search position. The biggest challenge was that separating CTR and ranking is like separating Kanye West from his ego.

CTR


So we attempted to isolate the natural relationship between CTR and ranking by taking the difference between an observed organic search CTR minus the expected CTR:

After looking at our data, we found that, on average, pages that beat the expected average organic CTR for a given position were far more likely to rank in the top four positions. These are unicorns! For example, a page that beats the expected CTR for a given position by 20 percent will likely appear in position 1.

Also, pages that failed to beat the expected organic search CTR were more likely to appear in positions 6–10. These are donkeys. For example, a page that falls below the expected CTR for a given position by 6 percent will likely appear in position 10.

So, based on the data, does CTR impact organic search rankings? It certainly seems that way!

3. Can Rewriting Your Titles Boost Your CTR?


So if you’ll be rewarded for having a higher click-through rate, what’s the best way to raise your CTR?
If people see nothing else, they will see your headline in the SERPs. Your content may be totally awesome – but they won’t click on it if the headline is boring.

SEO has evolved. It’s silly to write title tags like it’s still 2008!

WordStream has been trying to move away from overly “optimized” “SEO titles” like this one: "Guerilla Marketing: 20+ Examples and Strategies to Stand Out."

That old headline followed “SEO best practices.” The most important keyword was at the front and everything fell within 60 characters. But it’s kind of a snore, right?



So we ran a little CTR optimization experiment. Our content and SEO manager Elisa Gabbert changed only the title of the post – to “20+ Jaw-Dropping Guerrilla Marketing Examples.” The new headline is closer to this super-successful headline template that foregrounds the list format, the emotional impact and the content type (examples):

The article text, images, links, or anything else you can think of were left untouched.

After updating the headline, the article CTR increased to 4.19 percent (up from 1 percent) and it ranked in position 5 (up from position 8).

So can you increase your CTR just by changing your title? Yes!

Don’t be boring! Write brilliant headlines that people will click on like crazy. (Just make sure the content behind them backs them up.)

4. Do Website Engagement Rates Impact Organic Search Rankings?


It’s super important to create clickable headlines, but the goal isn’t just to create clickbait. You also must have great engagement metrics. If people feel cheated and go right back to the SERP, Google can detect that.

Dwell time is really the thing that matters. And time on site is a much better proxy for dwell time than bounce rate.

My theory is that Google uses dwell time (which we can’t measure, but is proportional to time on site) to validate click-through rates. These metrics help Google figure out whether users ultimately got what they were looking for (i.e., a successful search).

So do engagement metrics (bounce rates, time on site, conversion rates) impact organic search rankings?



To put this theory to the test, we gathered some engagement rate data. First, we looked at whether the bounce rate of the pages/keywords we rank for had any relationship to their ranking:

See that “kink” in the graph? Kind of hard to miss, right?

Landing pages that had a bounce rate below 76 percent were more likely to show up in one of the top four positions. But landing pages that had a bounce rate of 78 percent or higher were more likely to show up in position five or lower.
What about time on site?

This graph shows that if your keyword/content pairs have decent time on site, then you’re more likely to be in top organic positions 1–6. If engagement is weak on average, however, then you’re more likely to be in positions 7 or lower.

And how about conversion rates? This data shows that higher CTRs tend to lead to higher conversion rates:

Why is this? Because if you can get someone excited enough to click on your offer, that excitement typically carries through to a purchase or sign-up.

Higher CTRs, engagement rates, and conversion rates lead to more leads and sales. But I believe this data clearly shows proof that improving engagement metrics and conversion rates will also lead to better organic search rankings.

5. Do Engagement Metrics Impact the Selection of Featured Snippets?


Google's Featured Snippets, which appear in so-called Position 0 above the organic search results, come in the form of text, lists, images, and charts, among others. But how does Google's algorithm pick Featured Snippets?

First, I wanted to find out whether Google's traditional organic search ranking factors impacted whether your site gets snipped. So I looked at data for 981 snippets that the WordStream site has earned.

Clearly not. Otherwise, the top ranked position would get the snippet every time. Google is featuring snippets from content that ranks on page 2 to as far back as the 71st position!

Having on-page copy that is clear and concise is also clearly important. But, again, word count isn't the full picture.

So we dove deeper and investigated this page after seeing it as a snippet for searches relating to getting Bing Rewards points. We discovered two interesting things from our Google Analytics and Search Console data:

•             An unusually high CTR (21.43 percent), even though it had an average position of 10

•             Unusually high time on site (14:30), which was 3x above the site average.

So do engagement rates play a role in the selection of Featured Snippets? I absolutely believe so!

In other words: Optimize for PEOPLE! Write headlines that will make them click and then reward them for that click by publishing amazing and memorable content that will make them want to stay on your site and share your stuff.

Did any of these experiments surprise you? What SEO experiments would you like to see next?