Tag: CTR Manipulation

CTR Manipulation: Getting to Number 1 on Google’s Results

Sunday, January 1st, 2017 | Affiliate Marketing, Using Long-tail keywords to Rank Well within Google | admin

CTR Manipulation : That Number 1 spot on Google

It has been debated for several years now. Is it possible to manipulate the CTR and get yourself a Number 1 ranking within Google?

While Google has denied that CTR is a popular ranking metric for SEO there have been some case studies performed in more recent years that would suggest that Google is indeed ranking pages based on their Click-through rate.

It is said that a Number 1 result in Google should be getting at least a 33% CTR and around 40% or higher for a “buy product keyword” specific to a niche market.

Above is the Imec Lab CTR Test in Google

Imec Lab conducted a test where they used Twitter users to manipulate the CTR of the keyword IMEC Lab and push it from #7 to #1 in Google. It took 3 hours to get there.

The Case Studies into CTR manipulation have tested out different scenarios of sending traffic to a domain based on searching for a specific keyword in Google and then finding the website down the list of Google Results and clicking on it.

Some of these case studies were done with small amounts of traffic of say 200-500 clicks and had significant changes in the search engine results. We all know that it isn’t as simple as being on the “First Page of Google“. For example spots 6-10 on the first page generally don’t get a great deal of traffic unless that specific keyword has 100,000 to a Million searches per month and then just making it to the first page of one of those is pretty much a pipedream without heavy backlinking and other SEO.

Another thing that is worth mentioning on the case study into CTR manipulation is that where CTR bots were used with the help of proxies, proxy scrapers and other software they were as successful changing the results within Google. Google knows fake traffic and is very good at detecting it. Afterall their advertising network Adwords which brings Google in a lot of money each year depends on it!

The CTR Manipulation case study also looked at how long you had to spend on a website. If you click through to the website and then back out straight away then the bounce rate increases for that site and Google figures that if the bounce rate is too high then the content must not be relative to the Title Description that you have seen in the search engine and is just being used as Clickbait.

You can check out your CTR on your websites by installing Google Search Console and looking at the CTR Data for the individual landing pages of each of your sites and also checking the search query data. Anything with a Google position of 1-4 should be getting a bare minimum of 10% CTR, more for a Top Page Google Ranking. If you aren’t getting that then it is time to change your Titles to make your posts stand out more, keeping in mind that you still keep your Title Description completely relative to your post otherwise you will be penalised by Google.

Google Organic Search Click-Through Rates in 2016

The Google CTR in 2016 has changed a little bit, especially since the introduction of the 2 separate search engine listings for desktop and mobile/tablets. This was introduced so that the mobile-friendly websites show up first on the mobiles. If you haven’t optimised your website for mobile traffic you could be missing out on a lot of traffic and business!

With over 3.5 billion searches per day and 50% of those coming from users who are on a tablet or mobile this is so very important to your website.

Also the first 5 Google results on a search query account for over 67% of all CTR. Longtail with 5 or more words the first result on page one of Google for a query is over 65% alone so you really want your page to be mobile friendly.

CTR Manipulation in 2018

As Google and the other search engines look to CTR as an ever increasing and important ranking factor we are going to see more and more CTR Manipulation from a SEO perspective. There is now cases where people are clicking results on pages 2 and 3 and having other users click those same results to try and score higher in the SERPs listings. Google for one is measuring data to see what users want and bumping those listings up in the SERPs and why wouldn’t they? I mean these are what the end user is clicking on so it shows that these are the relevant pages we believe we want to see.

List of Ranking Factors

Search Metrics continually sift through a ton of data to show what is working and what is not. They have the ability through their case studies to show what ranking factors work and what don’t but more importantly which ranking factors are more valuable on the scoring system. As of now Content Relevance is a huge user intent key focus and is something that Google are basing results on. So if you were to get 100 people to click on your search term and only click your link you could see a dramatic jump in the SERPs. If you know which Ranking Factors are most important you can use these to your advantage to obtain that first page ranking within Google.

Monster Truck SEO – Terry Kyle

You just have to look towards SEO techniques like Terry Kyle’s Monster Truck SEO to see how SEO strategies & software has evolved even in the past 2 years. There are now methods out there that show you how to obtain these page 1 rankings without even having a simple backlinks. If PBN’s were the 2015 answer to SEO then I think CTR Manipulation and techniques surrounding such manilpulation in the SERPs are the answer in 2018.

Want your website Mobile Friendly? Check out Instabuilder V2.0