Being a digital marketer, you keep hearing about CTR and also know that it holds utmost importance in digital marketing especially when it comes to PPC.

Click Through Rate often abbreviated as CTR is a metric that measures the number of clicks received on your ads per number of impressions.

(Total Clicks on Ad/ Total Impressions) X 100= Click Through Rate

CTR=Clicks/Impressions×100

It is basically the percentage of people who view your ad and those who actually go and click on it.

Attaining a high CTR is significantly important for your PPC success because it directly affects your Cost per Click and Quality Score.

As higher CTR leads in high-Quality Score and high-Quality Score improves your ad position.

Quality Score is the rating of Google as pertaining to the quality and relevance of your PPC ads and keywords.

Another reason why having a higher CTR is important because it correlates with higher conversion rates.

As we all know that having a good PPC CTR is important for various reasons like increased quality traffic, increased conversions, reduced Cost per Click, higher ad rank and increased Quality Score.

Basically, there are a lot of reasons for you work on improving your PPC CTR.

Here are the 11 most easy and powerful quick tips that will increase your PPC CTR in no time.

1. Use Negative Keywords

The importance of negative keywords in the success of any Google AdWords campaign is incomparable.

Sooner or later the internet marketers have realized the potential of negative keywords and hence are using them even more.

Negative keywords are those keywords that prevent your ads from being displayed for any kind of irrelevant and inappropriate search queries.

And if your ads get triggered for irrelevant search queries then your ads won’t receive clicks at all and this would push the ad down in a lower position.

Lower ad position is equivalent to lower CTR.

Or if they receive any clicks the visitor would bounce off due to irrelevant information.

So primarily, negative keywords help in increasing your CTR as with the help of negative keywords, your ads will be directed towards the targeted audience with no irrelevant impressions and clicks.

Negative keywords also reduce the click that will not convert into sales.

Thereby, your CTR will increase because there will be fewer circumstances of the ads being viewed but not clicked.

Negative Keywords are quite essential as it not only increases your CTR but also saves your budget from being wasted.

2. Increase Your Bids

Increasing bids is one of the fastest ways to increase the CTR.

An increased bid means higher average position.

You get more visibility and exposure of your ads is increased due to a higher ad position.

A higher ad position also leads to an increased CTR as it is pretty obvious that ads appearing on the top tend to receive more clicks than the bottom ones.

When you increase the bid, you get a better position and better impressions in the never ending fight for traffic.

This results in an increased and improved quality of your traffic.

Carefully examine your bidding strategies to see which keywords are being underbid and which one are over bid.

Re-evaluate the bidding according to the performance of the keywords.

You need to also be careful while raising the bids as it can also cost you much in term of higher CPC.

You should increase bids for only those keywords where you see an opportunity for improvement.

3. Use Trademark or Registered Symbols in Headlines

A trademark can be a word, sign, symbol or graphic that you apply to your Company, Goods or Services to differentiate them from those of the competitors.

The trademarks or registered symbols give customers a confidence to click on the ad to look for more details of the product.

The purchasing decisions of the customers are highly influenced by trademarks as nowadays being brand oriented is in vogue.

Using trademarks or registered symbols in the headline will help you to stand apart from your competitors in the Search Engine Result Page.

And it will also boost confidence in customers regarding the professionalism of your business.

The influence of a trademark or a registered symbol is that it creates a sense of authority among the visitors which ultimately attracts more clicks to your ads.

Merely using a trademark out of the blue is not justified.

You have to be careful while choosing one for your business and remember to keep it original.

Ensure that you at least one of them as it is one of the quickest methods to increase CTR.

4. Add Sitelink Extension

Sitelink Extensions is one of the most commonly used extensions in PPC ads.

They are located under your headline and the description.

They are additional links which are typically displayed when the ad holds the first or second position in the Google’s Search Engine Result Page.

Sitelinks helps you to capture prime space in the SERP, highlights other pages of your website and also provides additional information to the user.

You can create 6-10 different site links but Google has full control over which site link to show.

Sitelinks offer you unique opportunity to drive in more traffic and maximize your chances of success with PPC.

By using Sitelinks, you can add additional information or navigation into your website directly from your ad copy.

Look at this ad for Car Insurance. The four arrows indicate the site links displayed by Google.

Sitelinks offer quick access to your conversion oriented pages. They drive in more users who are looking for something specific.

Also, to gain maximum advantage out of site links, make sure that you link each of your site link to the most relevant landing page.

Do not use the same link for multiple site links. Use a unique site link for each landing page.

Sitelinks are a strong way for advertisers to boost up their CTR and conversion rates.

If you execute the performance of site links optimally, you can get away with higher CTR and overall PPC success without any additional cost.

5. Have A Strong Call-to-Action

Okay, so now you have perfectly grabbed the attention of your visitors with your headline.

Also developed confidence in visitors with respect to the validity of your business through trademark and registered symbols.

You have even provided extra information about your business through site links.

The final move of PPC ad is to tell the visitors what they need to do next i.e. inclusion of a Call-to-Action in the ad.

After going through your entire ad, the visitor comes up with a question that says “What should I do now?”

The Call-to-Action is the answer to this particular question.

So, in order to have a highly efficient ad that attracts most of the clicks, you should include a Call-to-Action.

They initiate the visitors to take the desired action which leads to conversions.

The reason why including Call-to-Action is important in your PPC ads is because it makes it more likely for people who are interested in your product/service to go and click on the ad.

If your visitors know what they are expected to do, will go on to complete the desired Call-to-Action and are more likely to make a purchase.

Some Call-to-Action examples are: Buy Online Now, Sign Up Today, Call Us Today, Learn More

6. Put Your Main Keyword in the Display URL

Display URL is one of the most overlooked elements and its importance is often underestimated.

The display URL is a part of your PPC ad text and hence, it should be utilized as much as other parts.

Since you only have a limited number of lines of text; hence, you should take maximum advantage of each of them.

The display URL in the PPC ad is a great place to add you main keywords those keywords that attract maximum attention.

You can increase your CTR by including your main keyword in the display URL with the 35 character limit.

Putting the main keyword in the URL gives an idea to the visitor that your ad is most relevant to their search.

And when they get see the main keyword in your URL, they become surer that you are providing exactly the things that they are looking for.

Your main keyword can be a product name, feature or benefit or any other word that is attractive enough to grab the attention of the users.

You can also test the CTRs by experimenting with the headlines, descriptions and the display URL.

Therefore, it has been noted that ads with their main keywords in the display URL have much higher CTR than the rest.

7. Write Compelling Ad Copy

Do not forget the fact that your ad copy is the first impression of your business.

Also, it is the strongest tool that influences the CTR of your ad text.

Writing compelling Ad Copy sounds easy but the execution is what matters the most.

You have to take out a substantial amount of time to write Ad copy that is attractive, engaging and efficient in increasing CTR along with enhanced conversions.

The ad text is the soul of your ad where you have to convince the visitors to click on your ad.

To make your Ad copy mores capable enough of increasing the CTR, make sure that your ad text contains the keywords that you are targeting.

Your targeted keyword, when added in the ad text, will become bold after being triggered by the user in the search box.

Do not stuff the keywords in your ad text; use only those that bear the most relevance.

Do some research on the adverts of your competitors, use the USP of your business in the ad text and keep testing and experiment various elements to know which ad copy has the highest CTR.

8. Choose Right Keywords and Correct Negative Keywords

Keywords play a significant role in PPC.

It is just because of keywords that your ad appears on search engines when someone uses your chosen keyword.

You should build a large list of keywords as it will strengthen your basics of identified potential keywords and phrases that can convert into targeted traffic.

Remember that your ad will never achieve a good CTR if it appears for irrelevant search queries.

The advantage of using the targeted keywords in your ad copy is that Google makes them bold thus making it more likely to grab the attention of the users.

Also, run search query reports to see which keywords are generating impressions and clicks.

Look out for queries that are not relevant to your ads and then add them as negative keywords to prevent wastage of Ad spend.

You should examine the search box of your website to know what the visitors are looking for on your website. The search box is also a great source of building long tail keywords that are more conversion oriented.

So ensure that all your targeted keywords are relevant to your business and include negative keywords that will prevent your ads from being shown for irrelevant search queries.

9. Focus on Benefits and Not on Features

Features are characteristics and qualities of a product/service whereas benefit is the positive impact that occurs because of the features.

Moreover, if you want to make a compelling ad copy that majorly attracts clicks, you need to pay more attention towards the benefit and not features.

As the benefit prompts the visitors to make a purchase rather than the feature.

Do not forget that you create an ad copy to provide solutions to the pain points of the customers and not to simply publicize your brand.

To better understand the search intent of the customer, you will have to put on the shoes of the customer.

Think of yourself as a customer and decide which ad you would click on:

1. The ad that simply brags about the features, qualities, and characteristics of the product/service.
2. The ad that explains the benefits that the consumer will have after using the product.

Undoubtedly, the second ad is the one that you will click on. It is human tendency to look out for solutions when facing a problem or a query.

Write ads that solve the problems of the potential searchers. This will not only increase the CTR but will also induce a relationship of loyalty.

10. Make Full Use of Ad Extensions

Apart from site links extension, there are other types of extensions that can make your ad excel.

The use of Ad extensions increases the relevance of your ads thus improving your CTR.

They give you a greater opportunity to deliver your message with greater visibility and increase the chances for your ad to get maximum clicks.

You can use the following types of extensions to enhance your CTR

1. Call Extensions

With Call extensions, you can display your business phone number in the search results.

When you add Call extensions to your ads, you make it easier for people to get in touch with you.

If you are a local business that place value on receiving phone calls, then adding call extensions to your ads are a must.

The call extensions do not cost extra money and are a great way to increase CTR.

2. Location Extensions

With location extensions, you can add your business address to your ads.

The mere presence of a location extension convinces more people to click on your ads.

The reason why people are convinced with location extension is the users get a proof of your valid physical location.

3. Review Extensions

There is nothing better than getting a good review for your product/service.

Potential customers are influenced by them and sometimes base their choice on these reviews.

By adding positive reviews for your product/service, you can give your potential customers one more valid reason to click on your ads.

4. Callout Extensions

These are statements that you can add to your ads.

They improve your ads by promoting offers to the users like Free Shipping, Discount etc.

They highlight your business offering and are flexible as you can change your callout extensions whenever you want.

11. Use More Restrictive Keyword Match Type

Match type selection at the keyword level can have a great impact on the CTR of your ad.

An exact match keyword may typically have a higher CTR than a broad match keyword.

If you have an extremely limited budget then you should consider using phrase and exact match type keywords to avoid wasted ad spend.

But if your budget is unlimited then you can even use broad match modifier with the rest of the two.

The phrase and exact match type keywords help you to improve your ad position.

On the other hand, broad match type keywords have a wider reach that also involves irrelevant searches, thus declining your CTR.

You can also increase the CTR by turning off broad match for specific keywords after collecting many negative keywords from them.

You should also bid higher for exact match and lower for broad match.

This will help you in increased CTR and improved overall performance.

Conclusion

There above quick tips to increase PPC CTR should certainly help you out.

Your CTR has an impactful influence on the overall account performance so it would be a wise choice to optimize the CTR seriously.

Increasing the CTR needs continuous testing and experiment and cannot be achieved overnight.

So for this, you need to have relentless patience and firm determination.

If you liked this post, check out our Small Business Guide to Paid Search.

About the Author

Dinesh Thakur is the co-founder of Ads Triangle which is a Google Partner and Bing Ads Accredited agency. He has over 7 years of experience in Pay per Click marketing. Dinesh has helped hundreds of businesses to grow their revenues through PPC. He has expertise skills in Google Adwords and is passionate about Pay Per Click.