In analytical term, click through rate is a measurement of a total number of clicks against the total number of an impression. More the clicks mean more users drive to the website and a high chance of business conversion. It is a machine learning user metrics to understand a scope to convert your traffic into the business goal and hence is one of the main factors to consider during data analytic and taka a reference for further optimization and changed strategy. For different campaigns with equal impression counts, CTR helps to determine which campaign is performing good and has more potential to success.

CTR can be either for search results page for google, yahoo or bing, facebook advert, google Adwords campaign in display/search network, email newsletter campaign, banner ads or any other marketing campaign that aim to provide an opportunity for any user to click on something they are looking for.

How to calculate CTR?

Mathematically, CTR is calculated as

CTR= (Total number of clicks/Total number of impression)x100%

For example: In search analytic, if total impression counts for one keyword is 150 and total number of clicks is 20, then, mathematically the CTR for that keyword is

CTR(Keyword)=20/150=13.33%

For advertisement, it would be

CTR= (Ad clicks/Ad Views)x100%

The Same rule applies for other keywords and marketing campaigns.

CTR and SEO

In Search engine optimization process, every online business aims to have the top position in search engine results for invaluable business opportunities. This is because the average impression counts and CTR for position 1-10 in the first phase are higher than in any other pages and the CTR decreases as we move to second, third and consequent pages. Even first, second and third position in the first page of search results has more average CTR than other position on the same page.

In SEO campaign, while working on keywords, people often target their main keywords to rank in top position. This is an ideal case but most of them miss a catch to identify other keywords including long tail keywords that have higher CTR despite low impression counts, low search volume, and low competitions .These keywords can take a huge share of business goals and could be enough to run a business.

For example, You can have some keywords with 1000 impression in search results and 25 clicks resulting 2.5% CTR. But you can also have some keywords with 50 impression counts and 25 clicks resulting 50% CTR. The summary is we should not miss the keywords that have 50% CTR despite only 50 search results impression counts and should optimize to grow more.

How to maximize your CTR?

Maximizing you CTR is not a one time job. It depends on user behavior, trending keywords and how you often optimize your campaign to grow your impression counts. Though here are some ideas to consider for CTR growth:

• Increase your impression counts
• Optimize your campaign for user
• Focus on relevancy of content, images, tags etc
• Use compelling headlines and text.
• Apply call to action button
• Check what your competitors are doing
• Understand the behavior of users and re-optimize your campaign

If you not sure with your current CTR and looking for a more online business opportunity with search analytic, contact me for a free SEO consultation, analytic report, and suggestions to improve your CTR and grab an opportunity to get a business from potential keywords that have high CTR you might be missing.