The survey involved over 500 respondents aged between 25-60, and sought to discover exactly what it is that searchers are looking for when deciding which result to click.
Which factors had the biggest impact on CTR (Click Through Rate)?
The analysis revealed that the single biggest factor that determined whether or not the searcher clicked on a result was: the meta description.
A massive 62.9% of the respondents identified this as the most important factor when it came to choosing a result.[1]
The next biggest influence was the brand name in the search result, which accounted for 24.2% of the respondents, whilst the actual page title itself was the determining factor for just 13% of the survey respondents.
What about other SERP features?
Perhaps surprisingly, 55% of people surveyed said that they preferred to see written content in their search results, over video and image content.
The survey also asked:
"Do you think Google is improving search results by sending less traffic to websites and instead delivering its own content or snippets of website content in the search results?’"
The majority (55.5%) of people responded "yes" to this question, showing that users are happy with the changes that have been introduced by Google.
Google Ads was another area that the survey covered, and 66.7% of survey participants stated that having more ads in the search results would make them use the search engine less.
72% of searchers were happy with the search results that they were getting and that the results matched what they were looking for.
How to write a good meta description
With the importance of having a good meta description being so important, as revealed by the survey, marketers should be making sure that they are getting this part of their website just right.
The difference between a really good meta description and a poor one is huge and yet, it is only a very short piece of text.
Some tips for writing a good meta description:
- Include your primary keyword, making sure it appears naturally.
- Summarise your page content as accurately as possible.
- Have unique descriptions for each web page.
- Include a call-to-action e.g. ‘Try for free’, or ‘Find out more’.
Looking to improve your organic CTR?
If you're looking to increase your organic click through rate, get in touch today to find out how Optiminder can help. We'll analyse the CTR of your key pages and benchmark them against your competitors', and test different versions of your metadata until we find the combination that resonates best with your audience. We can also help you implement Schema.org markup (structured data) and Feature Snippet Optimisation, to help you truly differentiate your site in the search results.