By researching long-tail keywords and integrating them into your website, you’ll greatly increase the volume of related organic queries you rank for. These interactive infoboxes often appear above all search results and can circumvent SEO if you have the right schema Google’s algorithms are looking for. More and more often, we see infoboxes rising to the top of search results, often obscuring any organic results. Here’s what one of my SEO blogs looks like in search results. I want to make sure I’m the Neil Patel you see in search results. It’s easy to move (or remove) the site name from your title tag using Yoast SEO for WordPress. A good place to start is CoSchedule’s headline analysis tool.Here’s a report based on the title “5 Free Tools to Check Your Headline”: Here’s a report based on the title “5 Free Tools to Check Your Headline”: As you can see, it uses several common words and power words. Then check how many the same link gets using an alternate title. The only way to get this traffic is to get clicks from Google and other search engines. We used to optimize search results for keywords, then it was long-tail keywords.
So you have a website built, but nobody’s visiting?
It can’t be the page copy because you already checked that.
The problem could be that you’re not getting enough organic search traffic.
There’s an old joke in the SEO world that if you’re looking for a good place to hide a dead body, the second page of Google is the best place.
It’s a bit morbid but rings true. The front page of Google is the only place to be if you want to bring in organic traffic.
Research continuously shows higher-ranking pages have higher click-through rates.
Of course, that’s not the only factor that attracts clicks anymore.
Google has added a variety of features to its SERPs in recent years. They get clicks too, often answering the question directly through an infobox.
Don’t just take my word for it. Let’s check a live tool!
The MozCast Feature Graph tracks what is being displayed for a variety of search results.
There’s a lot more going on than you’d think.
Actual company site links only represent 18.5% of matched queries.
Even other site search results, which include things like external blogs, take up only about half (57.6%) of what’s displayed.
Then we have Knowledge Panels, Reviews, Related Questions, Top Stories, In-depth Articles, and more.
What this means is to attract clicks, you’ll need to pull out all the bells and whistles.
This guide will walk you through examples of how to increase click-through rates and (free!) organic search traffic to your site.
Let’s get started.
1. Research long-tail keywords
Long-tail keywords are a vital part of every SEO strategy.
They’re also essential for blogs.
By researching long-tail keywords and integrating them into your website, you’ll greatly increase the volume of related organic queries you rank for.
It’s kind of like playing the lottery or sweepstakes.The more tickets you buy, the better your chances of winning.
The more tickets you buy, the better your chances of winning.
Long-tail keywords are the key to building a solid sales funnel.
While single keywords can build the top of the funnel, long-tail keywords create your mid and bottom funnels.
For example, when a customer searches for “best bikes under $500” or “black Trek mountain bike,” they’re much more likely to buy than when searching “bike” or “bicycle.”
If you’re a bicycle retailer or manufacturer, you’ll get more qualified click-throughs on the long-tail keywords.
Here’s another chart explaining the relationship between long-tail keywords and the conversion funnel.
In fact, e-retail giant Amazon makes the majority of its sales from long-tail keywords.
Amazon is one of the most valuable companies in the world, so if you can’t follow its lead, whose can you?
2. Write effective meta descriptions
Description meta tags make up the majority of your SERP entry.
They tell potential visitors what to expect when clicking a link.
Here’s what the title and description tags look like for my LinkedIn page:
Writing an effective description tag can greatly increase click-through rates.
People say you can’t judge a book by its cover, but this short paragraph is your elevator pitch to potential customers.
Don’t let the opportunity go to waste.
You have 160 characters to write an effective meta description. It looks like this:
<head>
<meta name=”description” content=”This is an example of the text that will show up in search results. Read on to learn more about description tags.”>
</head>
Without a description tag, search engines display the sentence around the keyword query to provide context.
This tactic works well for Amazon because of the detailed product descriptions and customer reviews.When I search for “
When I search for “mens wallet with coin compartment,” Amazon is the second result.
This is despite the exact query not appearing in the title or URL.
You can control what search engines display for your page preview by entering a meta description in WordPress with Yoast.
Easy, right?
Once you have the meta description completed, you can move on to more advanced click-through techniques.
3. Implement structured data
Structured data (a.k.a. schema markup) is the key component to much of the rich, interactive content found on Google’s SERPs.
For example, search “best movies 2017,” and you’ll be presented with a carousel of what Google determined was the best movies from that year.
Click on a movie, and you get an infobox with showtimes.
Search for a review, and you get another well-organized list.
These interactive infoboxes often appear above all search results and can circumvent SEO if you have the right schema Google’s algorithms are looking for.
It’s a sign of things to come as Google clearly sees search being presented in a whole new way moving forward.
More and more often, we see infoboxes rising to the top of search results, often obscuring any organic results.
Social media sites like Twitter and reference sites like Wikipedia and IMDB have long used schema markup.
It adds just the right touch of interactive color to your SERP results and is already an industry standard.
Without structured data, you risk being invisible on the new Internet.
You can get started here.
4. Create posts with images
Pictures are worth 1,000 words when it comes to click-through rates.
They can increase click-through rates up to 42% in emails.
Images also increase engagement across all social media channels.
You can’t fit 1,000 words into your search previews. You can, however, use images.
In fact, over 90% of marketers responded to a recent survey that they use visual content for over half of all articles published in 2015 and 2016.
If you were paying attention in the last section, you also realize images played a big part in being included in infoboxes.
Be sure to include original, relevant visual content in as much content as possible.
5. Use descriptive URLs
Your page URL is an opportunity for a long-tail keyword implementation.
It’s one of the few things that appear on your link preview to entice clicks.
Your URL length, path, and categories can also affect search results.
This is another…
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