tony_d
Elite Member
- Jun 22, 2013
- 2,676
- 3,294
After testing over a few months, and today reviewing the numbers, I am conclusively satisfied that the click through rate you get from the SERPs is a significant factor on your rankings overall, and perhaps more so than ever before...
When looking at some (12) of my sites that were starting to rank over the last month, I noticed that when a site first appears on page 1, it bounces around a fair bit - usually bottom, middle, and top 3. It can change hourly, but certainly daily.
What's new about this, you say? Nothing new about dancing around - but, what I think happens during that dance is that the G algo experiments with sending more eyeballs to your result in the SERPs, and the higher the CTR, the better the algo considers the match to be, and therefore, the higher your overall position when it settles down.
I tested this by giving some sites really attractive titles, ie "[city][service] - best price guaranteed - call [phone]" and then the meta description was written like a marketing headline, encouraging users to click through.
On other sites, I used really boring titles and descriptions like "[company name][city]" and a boring meta description, so as to attract a lower click through rate.
The sites that had killer titles and meta descriptions settled in the top 3, and the sites that had boring titles and metas (and hence lower CTR's) settled either mid-page or lower page.
In summary: do not ignore your title and description of the ranking page - I think it plays a big role in determining your eventual 'settled down' ranking on page 1.
The theory makes sense in the bigger picture too - G has an inherently vested interest in giving users the best experience, so logic dictates that a listing with a higher CTR is a better and more relevant match than a listing with a lower CTR, and therefore a better user experience.
The potential downside of having a super attractive search result is that once you get the clicks, if you don't keep them on your site for a reasonable period of time and they instead bounce back to G, that will negatively affect your rankings. But, you should be very focused on making your content relevant to the searchers intent in any event, and therefore, shouldn't have that problem.
When looking at some (12) of my sites that were starting to rank over the last month, I noticed that when a site first appears on page 1, it bounces around a fair bit - usually bottom, middle, and top 3. It can change hourly, but certainly daily.
What's new about this, you say? Nothing new about dancing around - but, what I think happens during that dance is that the G algo experiments with sending more eyeballs to your result in the SERPs, and the higher the CTR, the better the algo considers the match to be, and therefore, the higher your overall position when it settles down.
I tested this by giving some sites really attractive titles, ie "[city][service] - best price guaranteed - call [phone]" and then the meta description was written like a marketing headline, encouraging users to click through.
On other sites, I used really boring titles and descriptions like "[company name][city]" and a boring meta description, so as to attract a lower click through rate.
The sites that had killer titles and meta descriptions settled in the top 3, and the sites that had boring titles and metas (and hence lower CTR's) settled either mid-page or lower page.
In summary: do not ignore your title and description of the ranking page - I think it plays a big role in determining your eventual 'settled down' ranking on page 1.
The theory makes sense in the bigger picture too - G has an inherently vested interest in giving users the best experience, so logic dictates that a listing with a higher CTR is a better and more relevant match than a listing with a lower CTR, and therefore a better user experience.
The potential downside of having a super attractive search result is that once you get the clicks, if you don't keep them on your site for a reasonable period of time and they instead bounce back to G, that will negatively affect your rankings. But, you should be very focused on making your content relevant to the searchers intent in any event, and therefore, shouldn't have that problem.
