#maybe I should post snippets or something. for external validation.

[ilovedthestars]

scratching at the walls of my brain. I WANNA POST SOMETHING NEW TO AO3. but that means I have to FINISH SOMETHING which is so harddd

[lesbeet]

not to be a nerd but i accidentally just wrote a whole impromptu essay about editing ndjsdksksk im throwing it under a cut bc it's fucking inane and really long but honestly... i just want other people to become as passionate about editing as i am lmaooooo

i also recommend 2 books in the post so if anything at least check those out!

quality books about editing... *chef's kiss* a lot of the basic ones (including blog posts online n such) are geared towards beginners and end up repeating the same info/advice, much of it either oversimplified or misrepresented tbh. but i read one yesterday and i'm reading another one right now that really convey this passion for editing + consideration for it as its own sort of art and i just!!

it's such a weird thing to be passionate about lmao but i AM and i've spent a lot of time the past year or so consciously honing my craft (ik i mention this like 4 times a week i'm just really proud of how much i've learned and improved) and kind of like. solidifying my instincts into conscious choices i guess?

and these GOOD editing books have both a) taught me new information and/or presented familiar information through a new perspective that helped me understand something differently or in more depth, and b) validated or even just put into words certain preferences or techniques that i've developed on my own, that i don't normally see on those more basic lists i mentioned

btw the book i finished yesterday is self-editing for fiction writers: how to edit yourself into print by renni brown and dave king, and the one i'm reading currently is the artful edit: on the practice of editing yourself by susan bell.

the former was pretty sharp and straightforward. the authors demonstrated some of their points directly in the text, which was usually funny enough that i would show certain quotes to my sister without context

("Just think about how much power a single obscenity can have if it’s the only one in the whole fucking book." <- (it was)

"Frequent italics have come to signal weak writing. So you should never resort to them unless they are the only practical choice, as with the kind of self-conscious internal dialogue shown above or an occasional emphasis."

or, my favorite: "There are a few stylistic devices that are so “tacky” they should be used very sparingly, if at all. First on the list is emphasis quotes, as in the quotes around the word “tacky” in the preceding sentence. The only time you need to use them is to show you are referring to the word itself, as in the quotes around the word “tacky” in the preceding sentence. Read it again; it all makes sense.")

and like i said, i also learned some new ideas or techniques (or they articulated vague ideas i already had but struggled to put into practice), AND they mentioned some suggestions that ive literally never seen anyone else bring up (not to say no one has! just that ive never seen it, and ive seen a lot in terms of writing tips, advice, best practices, etc) that ive already sort of established in my own writing

for example they went into pretty fine detail about dialogue mechanics, more than i usually see, and in talking about the pacing and proportion of "beats" and dialogue in a given scene, they explicitly suggested that, if a character speaks more than a sentence or two and you plan on giving them some sort of dialogue tag or an action to perform as a beat, the tag or action should be placed at one of the earliest (if not the first) natural pauses in the dialogue, so as not to distance the character too far from the dialogue -- bc otherwise the reader ends up getting all of the dialogue information first, and then has to go back and retroactively insert the character, or what they're doing, or the way they look/sound while they're giving their little speech

and like this was something ive figured out on my own, mostly bc it jarred me out of something i was reading enough times (probably in fic tbh) that i started noticing it, and realized that it's something i do naturally, kind of to anchor the character to the dialogue mechanic to make sure it makes sense with the actual dialogue

so like. ok here's an example i just randomly pulled from the song of achilles (it was available on scribd so i just looked for a spot that worked to illustrate my point djsmsks)

the actual quote is written effectively, but here's a less effective version first:

“Perhaps I would, but I see no reason to kill him. He’s done nothing to me," Achilles answered coolly.

see and even with such a short snippet it's so much smoother and more vivid just by moving the dialogue tag, not adding or cutting a word:

“Perhaps I would, but I see no reason to kill him.” Achilles answered coolly. “He’s done nothing to me.”

the rhythm of it is better, and the beat that the dialogue tag creates functions as a natural dramatic pause before achilles delivers an incredibly poignant line, both within the immediate context of the scene and because we as the readers can recognize it as foreshadowing. plus, it flows smoothly because that beat was inserted where the dialogue already contained a natural pause, just bc that's how people speak. if you read both versions aloud, they both make sense, but the second version (the original used in the novel) accounts for the rhythm of dialogue, the way people tend to process information as they read, AND the greater context of the story, and as a result packs significantly more purpose, information, and effect into the same exact set of words

and THAT, folks, is the kind of editing minutia i can literally sit and hyperfocus on for hours without noticing. anyway it's a good book lmao

the one i'm reading now is a lot more about the cognitive process/es of editing, so there's less concrete and specific advice (so far, anyway) and more discussion about different mental approaches to editing, as well as tips and tools for making a firm distinction between your writer brain and your editor brain, which is something i struggle with

but there have been so many good quotes that ive highlighted! a lot of just like. reminders and things to think about, and also just lovely articulations of things id thought of or come to understand in much more vague ways.

scribd won't let me copy/paste this one bc it's a document copy and not an actual ebook, but this passage is talking about how the simple act of showing a piece of writing to someone else for the very first time can spark a sudden shift in perspective on the work, bc you'll (or at least i) frantically try to re-read it through their eyes and end up noticing a bunch of new errors -

or she talked about the perils of constant re-reading in the middle of writing a draft, which is something i struggle with a LOT, both bc i'm a perfectionist and bc i prefer editing to writing so i sit and edit when i'm procrastinating doing the actual hard work of writing lmao

it's just this side of fake deep tbh but i so rarely see editing discussed like this--as a mixture of art and science, a collaboration between instinct and technique, that really requires "both sides of the brain" to be done well.

and because of the way my own brain works, activities that require such a balanced concentration of creativity and logic really appeal to me. even though ive seen a lot of people (even professional writers) who frame it as the creative art of writing vs the logical discipline of editing. but i think that's such a misleading way of thinking about it, because writing and editing both require creativity and logic -- just different kinds! (not to mention that the line between writing and editing, while mostly clear, can get a little blurry from up close)

but like...all stories have an inner logic to them, even if the writer hasn't explicitly or consciously planned it, and even if the logic is faulty in places in the first couple of drafts. when you're sitting and daydreaming about your story, especially if you're trying to figure out how to bridge the gap between two points or scenes (or, how to write a sequence of events that presents as a logical, inevitable progression of cause and effect), the voice in your head that evaluates an idea and decides to 1) go with it, 2) scrap it, 3) tweak it until it works, or 4) hold onto it in case you want it later? that's your logic! if an idea feels wrong, or like it just doesn't work, it's probably because some part of you is detecting a conflict between some part of the idea and the overall logic of your story. every decision you make as you write is formed by and checked against your own experiential logic, and also by the internal logic of your story, which is far less developed (or at least, one would hope), and therefore more prone to the occasional laspe

but while ive seen a number of articles that discuss the logic of writing, i don't see people gushing as much about the art of editing and it's such a shame

the inner editor is so often characterized as the responsible parent to the writer's carefree child, or a relentless critic of the writer's unselfconscious, unpolished drivel

and it's like... maybe you just hate thinking critically about your work! maybe you view it that way because you're imposing external standards too fiercely onto your writing, and it's sucked the joy out of shaping and sculpting your words until they sing. maybe you prefer to conceive of your writing as divine communication, the process of which must remain unencumbered by lessons learned through experience or the vulnerability of self-reflection, until the buzzkill inner editor shows up with all those "rules" and "conventions" that only matter if you're trying to get published

and like obviously the market doesn't dictate which conventions are worth following, but the majority of widely-agreed-upon writing standards, especially those aimed at beginners, (and most especially those regarding style, as opposed to story structure) have to do with the effectiveness and efficiency of prose, and, in addition to often serving as a shorthand for distinguishing an amateur from a pro, overall help to increase poignancy and clarity, which is crucial no matter the genre or type of writing. and even if you personally believe otherwise, it's better to understand the conventions so you can break them with real purpose.

so editing shouldn't be about trying to shove your pristine artistic masterpiece into a conventional mold, it should be about using the creative instincts of your ear and your logic and experience-based understanding of writing as a craft to hone your words until you've told your story as effectively as possible

thank u for coming to my ted talk ✌️

[iturbide]

hmmmm 1, 9, 25, 26, 29 and 30

haha whoops i wrote a novel again

Author Asks

1. Where do you typically get your ideas?

I guess when it comes right down to it, I get my ideas from asking questions.  Sometimes they’re silly questions, like “I love this narrative but what if it was Fire Emblem?” (Cursed Fate, Heart of the Moon, the Promare AU), sometimes they’re speculative questions like “how different was Lucina’s timeline compared to the revised one” or “why does Grima act that way in the game when they should hold all the cards?” (Future Built), sometimes they’re ‘what if’ type questions like “what if Robin was raised in Plegia?” (Crown of Shadows/Shrouded Throne), and sometimes it’s just a matter of asking “what happens next???” at the end of a completed story (Across the Bridge, Scourge Post-Canon which was literally me going “holy fuck Bany I love this what do you mean there’s no more here’s a loose three-arc concept and a downpayment of 10k words”).  This may explain why most of the series I write for are ones that make me ask questions, because if I’m not wondering I’m not creating.

9. Do you tend to have an external narrator or use one of the characters?

Oh, embedded characters all the way.  I think it’s amazing what people can do with external narrators and omniscient perspective, but I’ve always had the most fun picking a character and writing from their view.  It helps to build out the world and the characters in interesting ways, because every individual looks at things slightly differently, up to and including themselves.  Robin in Future Built tends to be one of my favorite examples of this: since we follow him exclusively through the first several chapters, we get a pretty strong sense of him as a high-strung young man who’s constantly trying to feign calm, though he often worries he fails at it; once we switch over to Chrom’s perspective in the Ferox chapter, we realize that Robin is significantly more adept at his act than he gives himself credit for, because Chrom finds him unreadable and even impassive, verging on emotionless.  Narrator’s bias is a delight.

25. How do you create an original character?

OH THERE ARE LOTS OF WAYS.  In stories where I have a solid understanding of the plot and need specific roles filled, I’ll often design original characters specifically for that part in a story, using the niche as a mold and filling in everything about them (this is how most of the kids in Project: Elements came to be).  Especially in original works where the plotline may not be as strong but the overall world concept is, I’ll start with personality or concept seeds and grow out from there (this is how most of the Starships crew came to be).  It is…also not uncommon for me to be playing games with generic recruits and make them characters based on random coincidences in battles (this happened a lot with Final Fantasy Tactics: Advance okay).  also there’s a not insignificant number of ‘original characters’ I have that were just dragged out of their actual canon and evolved whoops

26. How do you go about world building?

Worldbuilding is an arcane and mystical thing and honestly I kind of go about it in the same way that I approach story ideas: asking questions.  For existing properties like Fire Emblem, a lot of the questions tend to be rooted in things the game shows (for example, why was Gangrel king in Awakening and not Validar?) or doesn’t show (what does the Grimleal faith actually look like, since I refuse to believe that Validar’s cult is representative of all Grima’s worshippers?), teasing out threads of consistency through the larger context.  For original work, a lot of it starts with setting: understanding the world itself, what rules it follows and how it operates, and then digging into how the populations within that world work with or against those rules, with cultural contexts developing based on environmental factors (such as, for example, how a population in a colder region necessarily acts and interacts differently with the world than a population from a temperate or desert region).  Basically it’s a ton of who, what, when, where, and especially why questions.  This becomes especially fun when you throw it at friends and they start asking you the questions.

29. How do you plot your stories?

Recklessly and with abandon.  And it actually depends a lot on the length of the story: for shorter stories (anything I can reliably predict a chapter count for), I’ll usually chart the whole thing out in some form or another, planning the major beats of each chapter, maybe even doing an actual outline; for bigger stories, I tend to leave things a lot more loose, and usually start grouping by arcs rather than chapters, defining each one by either major events (like with Future Built, where Arc 1 is through the end of the Ylisse-Plegia War ending in Gangrel’s death, Arc 2 is from the ensuing peacetime through the war with Valm, Arc 3 is the ensuing peacetime and ends with Everything Goes Wrong) or by the general theme of what’s going on (like with the Post-Scourge, where Arc 1 is the whole fallout and associated investigation into the Parnassus Incident, Arc 2 is the transition and settling period where Galo and Lio both try to adjust to the major upheavals in their lives, and Arc 3 is all about change and growth once things finally stabilize).  From there it’s mostly just about defining the timeline of events, writing things out, and getting things grouped so that each chapter feels complete.  But regardless of how I do the planning, I always have the ending in mind: without an ending I really can’t write the story (which is part of why I have a ton of AU ideas with nothing but piecemeal snippets written, because I like the overall concept but don’t have a complete story arc with ending in mind, so I can’t make real progress on them).

30. How do you edit your stories?

I abandon them and go on vacation.  Fairly literally, too: once I finish something and decide that it’s done as a draft, I’ll put it aside for at least a few days (sometimes a week, sometimes longer, it depends on what else is going on and how much validation I’m craving); when I do finally go back to it, having fully disconnected and pulled my head out of the proverbial storytelling weeds, I’m better able to see areas that need to be smoothed out, words that need to be varied, inconsistencies that need to be addressed, etc.

[disregardcanon]

A decade in fanfiction

The meme template was made by me myself and I! Please, if you’re interested go ahead and do it! I would love to see other people reflecting on their writing right along with me :) 

Where can we read your fic? Please give us a link so that we can check these stories out!

my early fics can be read on my ffn The Ficsmith 

on ao3, my pseuds are sunkelles and fullmetal anime

I also have lots of short things here on tumblr. i would try searching a favorite fandom of yours and au on my blog and something might pop up. 

How many words of fanfiction have you written this decade?

On ao3, I have posted  1,031,824 words. I would bet that I posted 40k on ffn before i started posting concurrently to my ao3, and that i’ve posted maybe 80k of stuff just to tumblr? If I estimate that way and don’t think about unfinished works and wips, I’d say 1,151,824 words thereabouts. 

How many stories have you written?

I’ve posted 338 stories to ao3. I am not going to go do the math to add on my stories from ffn as well. 

Have you written on multiple websites? If so, which website is your favorite and why?

ao3 is my favorite website for fic because it’s just so EASY to search through, post to, and get your stats from. plus it’s very visually appealing. 

Have you used multiple pen names? If so, list them and tell us the story behind the name

on ffn, i used a lot of pen names over the years, but i only remember 3 of them 

1. thee sun. this was my first pen name on the internet and it was because back then, my friends and i had series of nicknames going where we were each a part of the solar system. one of my friends suggested that i should be the sun because i was happy and bouncy and the friend group “orbited” around me. it wasn’t really accurate then or now, but sun ended up sticking. 

2. sunless skies was my emo change to that pseud 

3. the ficsmith is my current name there as i thought the word “wordsmith” was badass and decided that ficsmith sounded very, very cool 

on ao3, my primary pseud has always been “sunkelles”. half of it’s the old nickname and half of it’s another nickname i won’t get into. it’s a very personal handle for me that i love dearly 

my second pseud is fullmetal anime, my anime pseud. fullmetal alchemist was one of my first anime when my old roommate got me onto my weeb phase in my twenties, and i thought that sounded too badass to pass up. 

What is the first story you posted this decade?

I Will Never Leave You Alone: this is a percy jackson fic set after the lost hero. It was my imaging of how the meeting in son of neptune might go if percy didn’t get his memories back. it’s bad, but it was my first attempt at fanfiction. i think that it could have been a lot worse. 

What is the last story that you posted this decade?

Not Willing to Wait for it: this is a tangled the series fic about cassandra. it’s not really my favorite thing i’ve ever written, but it’s not a terrible thing to end the decade on either. 

What is the longest story that you have wrote this decade?  

The Poetry of Time and Space: this is a pipabeth fic with annabeth as the doctor and piper mclean as rose tyler fic that i wrote back in 2013 at the urging of my first internet friend. coming in at 27,842 words, it’s the longest fic i have ever written. 

while i wouldn’t call it some of my best work, i’m still fairly proud of the thing. writing it helped me make a friend (even if we don’t keep in touch anymore), it helped me find some cool poetry, and i did a lot of fun historical research for it! 

i learned a loooottt about the history of spain for this fic and it was really cool. 

What is the shortest?

A Good Listener coming in at 192 words, this pipabeth fic is at the polar opposite end of the spectrum. 2013 was a wild year, my dudes. 

What’s your favorite?

I think that choosing a “favorite” would probably be too hard, but the one that I come back to the most is Over the Shadowy Hills. This fic could have been just good, but my friend was like. girl. you need to sort your shit out. and then i deleted it, worked on it with her help, and fixed it into something that i can still be really proud of. I’m glad that I decided to stick with it and give this fic the time and attention that it needed. 

What story do you feel was your biggest challenge?

I don’t have a fic in particular I would say is my biggest challenge, but one challenge has been the growing pains of becoming a better writer. I’ve moved into a point where I need to tell more thorough, longer stories, but I also don’t have the time needed to do that at the moment and my desire for instant validation is fighting against my desires to not do work and be a better writer. 

I know that right now I’m growing as a writer, but I’m not exactly sure what direction I’m growing in and how to deal with it. 

Which story was your most creative?

All Katz Go to Heaven is certainly an idea that no one but me would have come up with XD the premise is “all of hannibal’s victims from the show hannibal die and are reincarnated in brooklyn 99″ 

Which story do you think demonstrates the greatest growth?

I think that Paint a New Horizon demonstrates a lot of my progress as a writer. 

1. coming in at 23k, it’s one of my longest fics ever 

2. it has some of my best visual descriptions ever, as i decided to write sansa as a painter and it make visual descriptions a FAR bigger part of the story than they normally are when i write 

3. it handles dark subject matter, but i feel like i go into well. i’ve found myself dwelling in this universe a LOT, and i think that i might actually go back and write more of it over this next semester or summer because i just. like being in it. even though it was dark, it was also homey and lively and interesting, you know? 

4. it’s the best romance i’ve written this year, hands down. 

Here, have a snippet 

She dared a glance forward and met Margaery’s eyes- a deep, chocolate brown. They were warm and inviting and Margaery’s little curly bangs framed her face like a heart. Margaery’s head went over the back of the booth and it seemed to almost be floating against the flowery wallpaper. It looked like Margaery was lying out in a field of flowers- the Maiden gazing up at the clouds and trying to make shapes of them.

She could imagine Margaery telling her that this one is a flower, like Tyrell, and this one’s a deer, like Baratheon, and this one’s a dick, like Joffrey. She giggled nervously again and felt her cheeks flush. She’d never felt this giddy and unsteady in her whole life.

“Are you alright, Sansa?” Margaery asked cautiously. She reached across the table and laid a hand over Sansa’s own. The touch was warm and tender, and Sansa felt the blush from her toes to the tip of her head.

“I’m perfect!” Sansa nearly screeched. Margaery laughed at that, but her look was kind.

“Yes, darling,” she said with a smile that was wide and fond, “I think that you are.”

Lesbian. The word wasn’t supposed to fill her with such a warm, hopeful feeling, was it? She wiggled awkwardly in her chair, trying to get situated and stop feeling so silly and excited and vulnerable, but it didn’t fix anything. She felt Margaery’s leg brush against hers under the table. It sent a jolt through her.

Lesbian.

Sansa took a shaky breath. She thought to herself that there might be something to that.

Tell us about your writing process.

my writing process is quite frankly all over the board. sometimes, i’ll sit down and just hammer out a fic start to finish in one sitting, but when i don’t do that i’ll make the thing come together in patchwork. i’ll normally start with some vivid pieces of dialogue that i want to write and then i’ll figure out where i’m going and how. often, since i write in a nonlinear fashion i might end up having to change what i’ve written for the middle or the end, but when i get there and it doesn’t feel right for what i ended up writing, i always decide that i’m better off with what feels more natural. 

Tell us about how you come up with fic titles.

I have 3 different systems for determining fic tiles 

1. come up with a cool title to write a fic around. i wrote Chasing Annabeth solely because i thought that would be badass title 

2. try to find something external to the story, like a saying, a lyric or quote, that works with the message or mood of the story. for If You Believe in Me (I’ll Still Believe), I realized that both Memoria by Nirvana and Holland Road by Mumford and Sons shared a distinct feel with what I was doing with the fic, so I went through the lines of both and identified some possible titles. 

Then, I decided that the line “if you believe in me I’ll still believe” felt the most right. I thought that it best conveyed how much Jeyne believing that Theon could become better again contributed to him actually going through with it, whereas some of the other options didn’t have either the external influence or faint hope that I felt the fic deserved. 

3. find something from the fic itself or the source material! often times, i’ll end up with a motif in the fic that makes a perfect title, or i’ll have something to draw on from the source material. this feels different from the 2nd option because whereas that first one is going outside the world of the fic, this 3rd one is going inside the world of the fic. 

Have you ever used an epigraph? Tell us about your reasoning.

I use epigraphs for the same reason that I use outside sources for fic titles. While sometimes I have that lyric or quote in mind while I am writing the fic, like Washing Machine Heart, sometimes you get to the end of writing and realize that you’ve created something that would be enhanced if you were to have your readers mulling over the theme brought up in a song while they’re reading, like Unfinished Business. 

I don’t know, these are probably the reasons that ANYONE uses epigraphs, but it’s cool to see other people’s thought process. 

What are some of your favorite lines that you’ve ever written?

Here’s a few of my favorite exchanges from my older or more underrated fics!

She swallows the spit that has started to pool in her mouth and continues, "We'll all end up dying and meeting the void face to face and blah blah fucking blah, but the thing is that's tomorrow. This is today. You remember Thalia, so she matters. And you matter because you're alive. Your heart's still beating. You can still do shit. See shit. Be the shit. Annabeth Chase, you can still do anything."

Chasing Annabeth (2013)

Annabeth tsks as she laughs, “You’ve always got to steal the attention for yourself, don’t you?”

Piper laughs and then pretends to glare, “Borrow. I borrow things.”

“Borrowing BMWs is still frowned upon, my friend,” Annabeth says and then everything is back to normal. The future is forgotten, if only for a moment in the company of a friend.

The Fates Smiled (2014) 

“I guess,” Arya mutters, and she walks straight over to the trash. She pops the lid, and dumps the enormous plastic cock unceremoniously into it. Then she lets the lid close. She and Shireen look to the trash can in horror.

“Do you think that we should burn it?” Shireen asks.

She pauses a moment before she adds, “I’m afraid it’s going to attack us in our sleep.” Arya bursts out into laughter.

“I can hear the news anchors already,” Arya says, “women murdered in sleep by haunted dildo.” The Kids Are Alright (2015) 

"I think huckleberry just came out too," Maya stage-whispers back, "two gays for the price of one."

"Bi one get one free," Riley says with a shit-eating grin 

A Guide to Coming Out (2015) 

"Do I look like a man with a plan to you?" He tries to look as crazy as he can. Rachel isn't buying it. "You impersonated a member of the mayor's honor guard, you predetermined and informed us of every victim before you killed them. You're a planner, Joker. You're even a good one." The Joker shrugs. "I'm not a schemer, though. Don't hang my hat on whether or not things work out." In that moment, Rachel understands this man. Rachel understands why he does the things that he does, even though she thinks that he's the scum of the earth. "You wanted to let us know all our plans would fall apart. You wanted chaos." "You're a smart woman, Ms. Dawes," The Joker says, cracking a smile, "you know what I did to you and your boy toy was nothing personal. It was just to turn the schemer's plans on their toes.

The City of Bats and Clowns (2016) 

Zatanna crosses her arms over her chest as she leans against Bruce’s black SUV. The “parking lot” at this camp is a glorified field of grass. It rained last night, and there are muddy ruts left all throughout the field and little muddy puddles scattered everywhere. It’s disgusting and rundown and everywhere that Zatanna doesn’t want to spend three weeks of her summer.

“I don’t want to go to this stupid camp.” Endless Summer (2017) 

Rose feels a twist in her gut. This might be worse than finding out he wanted to desert. This is knowing the reasons behind it, having to see him as human in his mistakes and understand why he made them.

Oh how heroes fall and then stumble back up again.

The Spark That Will Light the Fire (2017)

Sloth is all the memories you have and never asked for, all the feelings you don't know what to do with.

Sloth is your feelings towards two boys who aren't your sons- can't be- because you never wanted them in the first place.

You never asked for this, to be born half-formed and hungry. To be born somewhere between not caring and caring too much, to just go along with what you were told because you don't care enough not to.

You never asked for those two boys to look at you the way they do, like you're something hideous and beautiful all at once. Like you're their sin to bury, their damsel to save. All you've ever wanted is for it all to stop.

The Seven Deadly Almost People (2018) 

What are you favorite characters to write. 

I don’t really have “favorite” characters to write because I bounce around so often. I’ll have a new favorite next year, but my favorite me character that I wrote THIS year was Dabi. 

Which story was the most fun to write.

Out of all the stories I’ve written, Dicks in the Wind comes to mind as being the most fun. The soulmate au where whatever your soulmate draws on their skin appearing on yours might not be my all time favorite, but the idea of spitefully drawing dicks on your own face to spite the soulmate who hurt you while also hurting yourself is both really fun but also really interesting? I really liked getting to explore the implications of that idea, the humor, Sabine’s relationship with Kanan, and the possibility of a reconciliation between her and Ketsu. 

If you use ao3, tell us about your fics with the most

Kudos: The Matter of Soulmates 1,049

Comments: Her Heart’s Duet 63 comment threads

Hits: Golden Cages, Silver Linings 15,272 hits

Subscriptions: The Matter of Soulmates 105 subscriptions

If you could have written one story this decade that you didn’t get around to, what would this have been?

There’s lot of fics that I wish I would have gotten written this decade. I think that if I could have written ONE fic that I didn’t get around to this decade, though, I would have turned my tucker turns ed into a chimera instead of nina tumblr post into a real fic. 

Do you write original fiction as well?

Sometimes! I don’t write it as much as I’d like, but I’ve written some short stories and I have some longer wips. 

Did you ever do nanowrimo this decade? If so, tell us about your projects.

I tried nanowrimo in both 2017 and 2018. My 2017 was a story idea about magic pirates. My 2018 was a story based on a fic idea I had where ed HAD created al like al thought he did in fma 03 for a while. it would feature prominent relationships with characters inspired by winry, wrath, and lust. both of these have about 15k to their name. 

What have you learned writing in the past decade?

I’ve learned a lot about myself as a person. For better or for worse, the easiest way to get to know me would be to go through my ao3 and just start reading. 

I also feel like I’ve learned that I CAN be a writer. While I have a long way to go if I ever want to become any good at original fiction and develop a thick enough skin to get it worked up to publishing shape, I know that I have the skills to at least give it a try.  If I don’t, I’ll always have these stories that I hold closely to my heart and this hobby that’s brought me a lot of joy. 

What are your writing goals going forward?

At the moment, I’m not entirely sure. I feel a little bit like I’ve stagnated and I need to figure out a way forward, but I’m not entirely sure what that way forward IS. I think that the way forward is longer projects (maybe even more original fiction) but I’m going to need to figure out a way to not devote all my mental energy to these projects at a time and also not let them wither and die. 

In the past, I’ve only been able to do proper, well written long fics when I had a LONG time to dedicate to getting the thing done. Like, days and days off that I could devote multiple hours to the writing project. In the future, I don’t think I’ll have that. I just need to find a way to not get SO into it that I can’t do anything else, but also maintain the energy and drive to keep coming back to it. 

Tell us about what aspect of your writing makes you the most proud.

I feel like I excel at word choice. People frequently comment on my fics that there’s something about the wording that just FLOWS, and I would have to agree. I feel like I’m good at choosing words that both sound good and hit emotionally. 

Tell us anything else that you’d like! This is your reflection post, so end on whatever bang you would like!

Thank you to everyone who has supported me over these past nine years! I haven’t been on tumblr for this whole time (i’ve only been here since 2012), but i grown a lot, both as a person and a writer, over this decade.

if you had told me when i wrote my first fanfiction that by the end of the decade i would write the order of the phoenix more than 5 times over in fanfiction, i would never have believed you. 

not every fic that i wrote was fantastic, but every fic that i wrote was MINE, and it’s a memory that i get to come back to when i’m feeling sad or lonely or like i can’t do something. so, thank you fanfiction, for always being there for me. even if you might be there for me a little too much XD

[mariaajamesol]

3 Creative Ways To Increase Your Organic CTR

Crafting compelling meta titles and descriptions or doing other efforts to increase CTR, isn’t always a top priority for digital marketers and SEO’s, even though it’s becoming more and more important. Let me show you 3 creative ways that you can increase your CTR!

But first, let’s start with the basics. What is CTR?

Well, CTR is a shortened term for Click Through Rate and is a performance metric that measures the numbers of clicks a specific link gets divided by the number of impressions. The formula looks like this:

This metric can be used to measuring performance for both email marketing, SEM and SEO among other digital marketing channels. However, in this article, I will focus on the latter!

Why is Click Through Rate important for SEO?

  As I mentioned, in the beginning, CTR is becoming more and more important in the SEO world, but why is that you’re maybe wondering? Let me explain!

Beyond the fact that Click Through Rate is an overall important metric to:

Analyze user intent

Measure the quality of your copy

Analyze the effectiveness of your call-to-action

CTR is also important to boost your organic search positions

Something that people have suspected for a long time. Even back in 2013, a blog post on SEMrush stated that CTR is important for SEO because:

“Your website’s ranking for a particular keyword on Google depends hugely on the number of inbound links. Yet, you should not forget the fact that Google also checks the searcher votes you get when someone clicks on your website in the search engine results to get through to your website. A combination of external votes and searcher votes would lead your website to the top of the rankings for a particular keyword. This would help you a great deal with its SEO.”

As well as:

“Every marketer wants his/her website to appear on the first page of the search results for the main keywords. However, even if your website is on the first page but not getting clicked on enough, Google has every reason to push you down the ladder. Sometimes, websites from the second and even third page of the search results manage to make it to the first page simply by having a higher click-through rate. Falling off the first page isn’t exactly ideal for your SEO.”

RankBrain and CTR

After the introduction of RankBrain in late 2015, a new machine learning algorithm from Google, things changed and CTR became even more important. Something that a Google engineer called Paul Haahr confirmed when he showed this slide on a conference:

In other words, the slide is basically saying that the new algorithm sometimes ranks pages higher up then they “should” rank. Also, if that page gets an above average Click Through Rate, Google could use that as a sign that the page should get a permanent ranking boost.

To verify this WordStream conducted a test to see whether or not an above average CTR would mean higher rankings. This is what they found:

In connection with this, they also stated that:

“The more your pages beat the expected organic CTR for a given position, the more likely you are to appear in prominent organic positions. So, if you want to move up by one spot (e.g., Position 5 to Position 4) in Google’s SERP, you need to increase your organic CTR by 3 percent. If you want to move up again (e.g., Position 4 to Position 3), you’ll need to increase your CTR by another 3 percent.”

How to increase your CTR

The basics of increasing your Click Through Rate in the organic search is to make your page stick out from the crowd. Something that could be done by simply crafting flawless meta titles and descriptions.

Even though a compelling copy is great, there’s nowadays a lot of other things you could do to make your page stand out in the SERP and increase your CTR!

Use review snippets to increase CTR

A great way to make your page stand out from the rest of the SERP as well as making it more compelling for people to click on is by using review snippets:

The review snippet has created a major stir in the SEO world the past years since people, like many other things in this space, started to abuse it. It all happened when more and more people started to realize that pretty much any site could achieve the review snippet by just adding the aggregateRating schema markup to their pages.

(Hint: when I say that people started to add the aggregateRating schema markup to their pages I’m not talking of a handful of pages. I’m talking about every single one of them!)

For a long time, there’s been a lot of unclear information on what triggers the review snippets to appear in the SERP. Now Google has made all of the heavy lifting, making a complete guide to the review snippets.

In the guide they state that you could expect to see a review snippet when Google finds a valid review or rating markup for the following kind of content:

Local businesses

Movies

Books

Music

Products

In supplement to using structured data, they also recommend you to follow these guidelines:

Some people would probably also claim that it’s possible to achieve review snippets by using third-party review software such as TrustPilot. Even though I’ve also experienced this (at least on Swedish customers), I would recommend you to first follow the guidelines from big brother aka Google.

Use emojis to increase CTR

Another creative way to increase your CTR is by using emojis in your meta title and description. Something that has received a lot of attention lately, not least due to Garrett Mehrguth’s amazing article How to Increase Your Click Through Rate With Emojis as of recently.

Google has been experimenting with this for a long time. In fact, they first introduced the emojis in mobile SERPs in 2012, then pulled them all back in 2015 and then, as of the beginning of 2017, they brought the emojis back:

As you can imagine, having one or several emojis in your meta title or description will make your page more compelling for people to click on. Though, there’s no reason to start overuse them since Google will only display them in results where they are relevant, useful and fun.

Instead, use them with care and try to think where they can be relevant, useful and fun since this will increase your chances of having the emoji showing up at all. Also, if you want some inspiration, you can check out the result from a study SISTRIX recently conducted showing the most used emojis in the SERPs:

Use descriptive URLs to increase CTR

Most SEO companies know that a descriptive URL and a good URL structure is a great way to receive better rankings, but did you know that it could also increase your CTR? A study from Microsoft found out that a descriptive URL get so much as 25% (!) more clicks compared to “generic” URLs!

Best practices for an SEO friendly URL that increases your CTR is to keep it:

As short as possible

As descriptive and readable as possible (for both search engines and users)

As consistent as possible (make a plan and stick with it through your whole website)

Surrounding your target keyword/phrase

Here’s an example of a good and a bad URL:

  That’s it, three relatively easy and creative ways that can increase your organic CTR as well as your rankings. What tactics will you use to improve your Click Through Rate? And how well do they work for you?

Author bio

  Albin Sandberg is currently working at a digital marketing agency, called Adsight, where he helps customers with everything from SEO and SEM to social media advertising. He’s also a regular contributor to various publications.

https://ift.tt/2EwymZ9

[elenaturnerge1]

3 Creative Ways To Increase Your Organic CTR

Crafting compelling meta titles and descriptions or doing other efforts to increase CTR, isn’t always a top priority for digital marketers and SEO’s, even though it’s becoming more and more important. Let me show you 3 creative ways that you can increase your CTR!

But first, let’s start with the basics. What is CTR?

Well, CTR is a shortened term for Click Through Rate and is a performance metric that measures the numbers of clicks a specific link gets divided by the number of impressions. The formula looks like this:

This metric can be used to measuring performance for both email marketing, SEM and SEO among other digital marketing channels. However, in this article, I will focus on the latter!

Why is Click Through Rate important for SEO?

  As I mentioned, in the beginning, CTR is becoming more and more important in the SEO world, but why is that you’re maybe wondering? Let me explain!

Beyond the fact that Click Through Rate is an overall important metric to:

Analyze user intent

Measure the quality of your copy

Analyze the effectiveness of your call-to-action

CTR is also important to boost your organic search positions

Something that people have suspected for a long time. Even back in 2013, a blog post on SEMrush stated that CTR is important for SEO because:

“Your website’s ranking for a particular keyword on Google depends hugely on the number of inbound links. Yet, you should not forget the fact that Google also checks the searcher votes you get when someone clicks on your website in the search engine results to get through to your website. A combination of external votes and searcher votes would lead your website to the top of the rankings for a particular keyword. This would help you a great deal with its SEO.”

As well as:

“Every marketer wants his/her website to appear on the first page of the search results for the main keywords. However, even if your website is on the first page but not getting clicked on enough, Google has every reason to push you down the ladder. Sometimes, websites from the second and even third page of the search results manage to make it to the first page simply by having a higher click-through rate. Falling off the first page isn’t exactly ideal for your SEO.”

RankBrain and CTR

After the introduction of RankBrain in late 2015, a new machine learning algorithm from Google, things changed and CTR became even more important. Something that a Google engineer called Paul Haahr confirmed when he showed this slide on a conference:

In other words, the slide is basically saying that the new algorithm sometimes ranks pages higher up then they “should” rank. Also, if that page gets an above average Click Through Rate, Google could use that as a sign that the page should get a permanent ranking boost.

To verify this WordStream conducted a test to see whether or not an above average CTR would mean higher rankings. This is what they found:

In connection with this, they also stated that:

“The more your pages beat the expected organic CTR for a given position, the more likely you are to appear in prominent organic positions. So, if you want to move up by one spot (e.g., Position 5 to Position 4) in Google’s SERP, you need to increase your organic CTR by 3 percent. If you want to move up again (e.g., Position 4 to Position 3), you’ll need to increase your CTR by another 3 percent.”

How to increase your CTR

The basics of increasing your Click Through Rate in the organic search is to make your page stick out from the crowd. Something that could be done by simply crafting flawless meta titles and descriptions.

Even though a compelling copy is great, there’s nowadays a lot of other things you could do to make your page stand out in the SERP and increase your CTR!

Use review snippets to increase CTR

A great way to make your page stand out from the rest of the SERP as well as making it more compelling for people to click on is by using review snippets:

The review snippet has created a major stir in the SEO world the past years since people, like many other things in this space, started to abuse it. It all happened when more and more people started to realize that pretty much any site could achieve the review snippet by just adding the aggregateRating schema markup to their pages.

(Hint: when I say that people started to add the aggregateRating schema markup to their pages I’m not talking of a handful of pages. I’m talking about every single one of them!)

For a long time, there’s been a lot of unclear information on what triggers the review snippets to appear in the SERP. Now Google has made all of the heavy lifting, making a complete guide to the review snippets.

In the guide they state that you could expect to see a review snippet when Google finds a valid review or rating markup for the following kind of content:

Local businesses

Movies

Books

Music

Products

In supplement to using structured data, they also recommend you to follow these guidelines:

Some people would probably also claim that it’s possible to achieve review snippets by using third-party review software such as TrustPilot. Even though I’ve also experienced this (at least on Swedish customers), I would recommend you to first follow the guidelines from big brother aka Google.

Use emojis to increase CTR

Another creative way to increase your CTR is by using emojis in your meta title and description. Something that has received a lot of attention lately, not least due to Garrett Mehrguth’s amazing article How to Increase Your Click Through Rate With Emojis as of recently.

Google has been experimenting with this for a long time. In fact, they first introduced the emojis in mobile SERPs in 2012, then pulled them all back in 2015 and then, as of the beginning of 2017, they brought the emojis back:

As you can imagine, having one or several emojis in your meta title or description will make your page more compelling for people to click on. Though, there’s no reason to start overuse them since Google will only display them in results where they are relevant, useful and fun.

Instead, use them with care and try to think where they can be relevant, useful and fun since this will increase your chances of having the emoji showing up at all. Also, if you want some inspiration, you can check out the result from a study SISTRIX recently conducted showing the most used emojis in the SERPs:

Use descriptive URLs to increase CTR

Most SEO companies know that a descriptive URL and a good URL structure is a great way to receive better rankings, but did you know that it could also increase your CTR? A study from Microsoft found out that a descriptive URL get so much as 25% (!) more clicks compared to “generic” URLs!

Best practices for an SEO friendly URL that increases your CTR is to keep it:

As short as possible

As descriptive and readable as possible (for both search engines and users)

As consistent as possible (make a plan and stick with it through your whole website)

Surrounding your target keyword/phrase

Here’s an example of a good and a bad URL:

  That’s it, three relatively easy and creative ways that can increase your organic CTR as well as your rankings. What tactics will you use to improve your Click Through Rate? And how well do they work for you?

Author bio

  Albin Sandberg is currently working at a digital marketing agency, called Adsight, where he helps customers with everything from SEO and SEM to social media advertising. He’s also a regular contributor to various publications.

https://ift.tt/2EwymZ9

[evanstheodoredqe]

3 Creative Ways To Increase Your Organic CTR

Crafting compelling meta titles and descriptions or doing other efforts to increase CTR, isn’t always a top priority for digital marketers and SEO’s, even though it’s becoming more and more important. Let me show you 3 creative ways that you can increase your CTR!

But first, let’s start with the basics. What is CTR?

Well, CTR is a shortened term for Click Through Rate and is a performance metric that measures the numbers of clicks a specific link gets divided by the number of impressions. The formula looks like this:

This metric can be used to measuring performance for both email marketing, SEM and SEO among other digital marketing channels. However, in this article, I will focus on the latter!

Why is Click Through Rate important for SEO?

  As I mentioned, in the beginning, CTR is becoming more and more important in the SEO world, but why is that you’re maybe wondering? Let me explain!

Beyond the fact that Click Through Rate is an overall important metric to:

Analyze user intent

Measure the quality of your copy

Analyze the effectiveness of your call-to-action

CTR is also important to boost your organic search positions

Something that people have suspected for a long time. Even back in 2013, a blog post on SEMrush stated that CTR is important for SEO because:

“Your website’s ranking for a particular keyword on Google depends hugely on the number of inbound links. Yet, you should not forget the fact that Google also checks the searcher votes you get when someone clicks on your website in the search engine results to get through to your website. A combination of external votes and searcher votes would lead your website to the top of the rankings for a particular keyword. This would help you a great deal with its SEO.”

As well as:

“Every marketer wants his/her website to appear on the first page of the search results for the main keywords. However, even if your website is on the first page but not getting clicked on enough, Google has every reason to push you down the ladder. Sometimes, websites from the second and even third page of the search results manage to make it to the first page simply by having a higher click-through rate. Falling off the first page isn’t exactly ideal for your SEO.”

RankBrain and CTR

After the introduction of RankBrain in late 2015, a new machine learning algorithm from Google, things changed and CTR became even more important. Something that a Google engineer called Paul Haahr confirmed when he showed this slide on a conference:

In other words, the slide is basically saying that the new algorithm sometimes ranks pages higher up then they “should” rank. Also, if that page gets an above average Click Through Rate, Google could use that as a sign that the page should get a permanent ranking boost.

To verify this WordStream conducted a test to see whether or not an above average CTR would mean higher rankings. This is what they found:

In connection with this, they also stated that:

“The more your pages beat the expected organic CTR for a given position, the more likely you are to appear in prominent organic positions. So, if you want to move up by one spot (e.g., Position 5 to Position 4) in Google’s SERP, you need to increase your organic CTR by 3 percent. If you want to move up again (e.g., Position 4 to Position 3), you’ll need to increase your CTR by another 3 percent.”

How to increase your CTR

The basics of increasing your Click Through Rate in the organic search is to make your page stick out from the crowd. Something that could be done by simply crafting flawless meta titles and descriptions.

Even though a compelling copy is great, there’s nowadays a lot of other things you could do to make your page stand out in the SERP and increase your CTR!

Use review snippets to increase CTR

A great way to make your page stand out from the rest of the SERP as well as making it more compelling for people to click on is by using review snippets:

The review snippet has created a major stir in the SEO world the past years since people, like many other things in this space, started to abuse it. It all happened when more and more people started to realize that pretty much any site could achieve the review snippet by just adding the aggregateRating schema markup to their pages.

(Hint: when I say that people started to add the aggregateRating schema markup to their pages I’m not talking of a handful of pages. I’m talking about every single one of them!)

For a long time, there’s been a lot of unclear information on what triggers the review snippets to appear in the SERP. Now Google has made all of the heavy lifting, making a complete guide to the review snippets.

In the guide they state that you could expect to see a review snippet when Google finds a valid review or rating markup for the following kind of content:

Local businesses

Movies

Books

Music

Products

In supplement to using structured data, they also recommend you to follow these guidelines:

Some people would probably also claim that it’s possible to achieve review snippets by using third-party review software such as TrustPilot. Even though I’ve also experienced this (at least on Swedish customers), I would recommend you to first follow the guidelines from big brother aka Google.

Use emojis to increase CTR

Another creative way to increase your CTR is by using emojis in your meta title and description. Something that has received a lot of attention lately, not least due to Garrett Mehrguth’s amazing article How to Increase Your Click Through Rate With Emojis as of recently.

Google has been experimenting with this for a long time. In fact, they first introduced the emojis in mobile SERPs in 2012, then pulled them all back in 2015 and then, as of the beginning of 2017, they brought the emojis back:

As you can imagine, having one or several emojis in your meta title or description will make your page more compelling for people to click on. Though, there’s no reason to start overuse them since Google will only display them in results where they are relevant, useful and fun.

Instead, use them with care and try to think where they can be relevant, useful and fun since this will increase your chances of having the emoji showing up at all. Also, if you want some inspiration, you can check out the result from a study SISTRIX recently conducted showing the most used emojis in the SERPs:

Use descriptive URLs to increase CTR

Most SEO companies know that a descriptive URL and a good URL structure is a great way to receive better rankings, but did you know that it could also increase your CTR? A study from Microsoft found out that a descriptive URL get so much as 25% (!) more clicks compared to “generic” URLs!

Best practices for an SEO friendly URL that increases your CTR is to keep it:

As short as possible

As descriptive and readable as possible (for both search engines and users)

As consistent as possible (make a plan and stick with it through your whole website)

Surrounding your target keyword/phrase

Here’s an example of a good and a bad URL:

  That’s it, three relatively easy and creative ways that can increase your organic CTR as well as your rankings. What tactics will you use to improve your Click Through Rate? And how well do they work for you?

Author bio

  Albin Sandberg is currently working at a digital marketing agency, called Adsight, where he helps customers with everything from SEO and SEM to social media advertising. He’s also a regular contributor to various publications.

https://ift.tt/2EwymZ9

[wendyjudithqe]

3 Creative Ways To Increase Your Organic CTR

Crafting compelling meta titles and descriptions or doing other efforts to increase CTR, isn’t always a top priority for digital marketers and SEO’s, even though it’s becoming more and more important. Let me show you 3 creative ways that you can increase your CTR!

But first, let’s start with the basics. What is CTR?

Well, CTR is a shortened term for Click Through Rate and is a performance metric that measures the numbers of clicks a specific link gets divided by the number of impressions. The formula looks like this:

This metric can be used to measuring performance for both email marketing, SEM and SEO among other digital marketing channels. However, in this article, I will focus on the latter!

Why is Click Through Rate important for SEO?

  As I mentioned, in the beginning, CTR is becoming more and more important in the SEO world, but why is that you’re maybe wondering? Let me explain!

Beyond the fact that Click Through Rate is an overall important metric to:

Analyze user intent

Measure the quality of your copy

Analyze the effectiveness of your call-to-action

CTR is also important to boost your organic search positions

Something that people have suspected for a long time. Even back in 2013, a blog post on SEMrush stated that CTR is important for SEO because:

“Your website’s ranking for a particular keyword on Google depends hugely on the number of inbound links. Yet, you should not forget the fact that Google also checks the searcher votes you get when someone clicks on your website in the search engine results to get through to your website. A combination of external votes and searcher votes would lead your website to the top of the rankings for a particular keyword. This would help you a great deal with its SEO.”

As well as:

“Every marketer wants his/her website to appear on the first page of the search results for the main keywords. However, even if your website is on the first page but not getting clicked on enough, Google has every reason to push you down the ladder. Sometimes, websites from the second and even third page of the search results manage to make it to the first page simply by having a higher click-through rate. Falling off the first page isn’t exactly ideal for your SEO.”

RankBrain and CTR

After the introduction of RankBrain in late 2015, a new machine learning algorithm from Google, things changed and CTR became even more important. Something that a Google engineer called Paul Haahr confirmed when he showed this slide on a conference:

In other words, the slide is basically saying that the new algorithm sometimes ranks pages higher up then they “should” rank. Also, if that page gets an above average Click Through Rate, Google could use that as a sign that the page should get a permanent ranking boost.

To verify this WordStream conducted a test to see whether or not an above average CTR would mean higher rankings. This is what they found:

In connection with this, they also stated that:

“The more your pages beat the expected organic CTR for a given position, the more likely you are to appear in prominent organic positions. So, if you want to move up by one spot (e.g., Position 5 to Position 4) in Google’s SERP, you need to increase your organic CTR by 3 percent. If you want to move up again (e.g., Position 4 to Position 3), you’ll need to increase your CTR by another 3 percent.”

How to increase your CTR

The basics of increasing your Click Through Rate in the organic search is to make your page stick out from the crowd. Something that could be done by simply crafting flawless meta titles and descriptions.

Even though a compelling copy is great, there’s nowadays a lot of other things you could do to make your page stand out in the SERP and increase your CTR!

Use review snippets to increase CTR

A great way to make your page stand out from the rest of the SERP as well as making it more compelling for people to click on is by using review snippets:

The review snippet has created a major stir in the SEO world the past years since people, like many other things in this space, started to abuse it. It all happened when more and more people started to realize that pretty much any site could achieve the review snippet by just adding the aggregateRating schema markup to their pages.

(Hint: when I say that people started to add the aggregateRating schema markup to their pages I’m not talking of a handful of pages. I’m talking about every single one of them!)

For a long time, there’s been a lot of unclear information on what triggers the review snippets to appear in the SERP. Now Google has made all of the heavy lifting, making a complete guide to the review snippets.

In the guide they state that you could expect to see a review snippet when Google finds a valid review or rating markup for the following kind of content:

Local businesses

Movies

Books

Music

Products

In supplement to using structured data, they also recommend you to follow these guidelines:

Some people would probably also claim that it’s possible to achieve review snippets by using third-party review software such as TrustPilot. Even though I’ve also experienced this (at least on Swedish customers), I would recommend you to first follow the guidelines from big brother aka Google.

Use emojis to increase CTR

Another creative way to increase your CTR is by using emojis in your meta title and description. Something that has received a lot of attention lately, not least due to Garrett Mehrguth’s amazing article How to Increase Your Click Through Rate With Emojis as of recently.

Google has been experimenting with this for a long time. In fact, they first introduced the emojis in mobile SERPs in 2012, then pulled them all back in 2015 and then, as of the beginning of 2017, they brought the emojis back:

As you can imagine, having one or several emojis in your meta title or description will make your page more compelling for people to click on. Though, there’s no reason to start overuse them since Google will only display them in results where they are relevant, useful and fun.

Instead, use them with care and try to think where they can be relevant, useful and fun since this will increase your chances of having the emoji showing up at all. Also, if you want some inspiration, you can check out the result from a study SISTRIX recently conducted showing the most used emojis in the SERPs:

Use descriptive URLs to increase CTR

Most SEO companies know that a descriptive URL and a good URL structure is a great way to receive better rankings, but did you know that it could also increase your CTR? A study from Microsoft found out that a descriptive URL get so much as 25% (!) more clicks compared to “generic” URLs!

Best practices for an SEO friendly URL that increases your CTR is to keep it:

As short as possible

As descriptive and readable as possible (for both search engines and users)

As consistent as possible (make a plan and stick with it through your whole website)

Surrounding your target keyword/phrase

Here’s an example of a good and a bad URL:

  That’s it, three relatively easy and creative ways that can increase your organic CTR as well as your rankings. What tactics will you use to improve your Click Through Rate? And how well do they work for you?

Author bio

  Albin Sandberg is currently working at a digital marketing agency, called Adsight, where he helps customers with everything from SEO and SEM to social media advertising. He’s also a regular contributor to various publications.

https://ift.tt/2EwymZ9

[lindasharonbn]

3 Creative Ways To Increase Your Organic CTR

Crafting compelling meta titles and descriptions or doing other efforts to increase CTR, isn’t always a top priority for digital marketers and SEO’s, even though it’s becoming more and more important. Let me show you 3 creative ways that you can increase your CTR!

But first, let’s start with the basics. What is CTR?

Well, CTR is a shortened term for Click Through Rate and is a performance metric that measures the numbers of clicks a specific link gets divided by the number of impressions. The formula looks like this:

This metric can be used to measuring performance for both email marketing, SEM and SEO among other digital marketing channels. However, in this article, I will focus on the latter!

Why is Click Through Rate important for SEO?

  As I mentioned, in the beginning, CTR is becoming more and more important in the SEO world, but why is that you’re maybe wondering? Let me explain!

Beyond the fact that Click Through Rate is an overall important metric to:

Analyze user intent

Measure the quality of your copy

Analyze the effectiveness of your call-to-action

CTR is also important to boost your organic search positions

Something that people have suspected for a long time. Even back in 2013, a blog post on SEMrush stated that CTR is important for SEO because:

“Your website’s ranking for a particular keyword on Google depends hugely on the number of inbound links. Yet, you should not forget the fact that Google also checks the searcher votes you get when someone clicks on your website in the search engine results to get through to your website. A combination of external votes and searcher votes would lead your website to the top of the rankings for a particular keyword. This would help you a great deal with its SEO.”

As well as:

“Every marketer wants his/her website to appear on the first page of the search results for the main keywords. However, even if your website is on the first page but not getting clicked on enough, Google has every reason to push you down the ladder. Sometimes, websites from the second and even third page of the search results manage to make it to the first page simply by having a higher click-through rate. Falling off the first page isn’t exactly ideal for your SEO.”

RankBrain and CTR

After the introduction of RankBrain in late 2015, a new machine learning algorithm from Google, things changed and CTR became even more important. Something that a Google engineer called Paul Haahr confirmed when he showed this slide on a conference:

In other words, the slide is basically saying that the new algorithm sometimes ranks pages higher up then they “should” rank. Also, if that page gets an above average Click Through Rate, Google could use that as a sign that the page should get a permanent ranking boost.

To verify this WordStream conducted a test to see whether or not an above average CTR would mean higher rankings. This is what they found:

In connection with this, they also stated that:

“The more your pages beat the expected organic CTR for a given position, the more likely you are to appear in prominent organic positions. So, if you want to move up by one spot (e.g., Position 5 to Position 4) in Google’s SERP, you need to increase your organic CTR by 3 percent. If you want to move up again (e.g., Position 4 to Position 3), you’ll need to increase your CTR by another 3 percent.”

How to increase your CTR

The basics of increasing your Click Through Rate in the organic search is to make your page stick out from the crowd. Something that could be done by simply crafting flawless meta titles and descriptions.

Even though a compelling copy is great, there’s nowadays a lot of other things you could do to make your page stand out in the SERP and increase your CTR!

Use review snippets to increase CTR

A great way to make your page stand out from the rest of the SERP as well as making it more compelling for people to click on is by using review snippets:

The review snippet has created a major stir in the SEO world the past years since people, like many other things in this space, started to abuse it. It all happened when more and more people started to realize that pretty much any site could achieve the review snippet by just adding the aggregateRating schema markup to their pages.

(Hint: when I say that people started to add the aggregateRating schema markup to their pages I’m not talking of a handful of pages. I’m talking about every single one of them!)

For a long time, there’s been a lot of unclear information on what triggers the review snippets to appear in the SERP. Now Google has made all of the heavy lifting, making a complete guide to the review snippets.

In the guide they state that you could expect to see a review snippet when Google finds a valid review or rating markup for the following kind of content:

Local businesses

Movies

Books

Music

Products

In supplement to using structured data, they also recommend you to follow these guidelines:

Some people would probably also claim that it’s possible to achieve review snippets by using third-party review software such as TrustPilot. Even though I’ve also experienced this (at least on Swedish customers), I would recommend you to first follow the guidelines from big brother aka Google.

Use emojis to increase CTR

Another creative way to increase your CTR is by using emojis in your meta title and description. Something that has received a lot of attention lately, not least due to Garrett Mehrguth’s amazing article How to Increase Your Click Through Rate With Emojis as of recently.

Google has been experimenting with this for a long time. In fact, they first introduced the emojis in mobile SERPs in 2012, then pulled them all back in 2015 and then, as of the beginning of 2017, they brought the emojis back:

As you can imagine, having one or several emojis in your meta title or description will make your page more compelling for people to click on. Though, there’s no reason to start overuse them since Google will only display them in results where they are relevant, useful and fun.

Instead, use them with care and try to think where they can be relevant, useful and fun since this will increase your chances of having the emoji showing up at all. Also, if you want some inspiration, you can check out the result from a study SISTRIX recently conducted showing the most used emojis in the SERPs:

Use descriptive URLs to increase CTR

Most SEO companies know that a descriptive URL and a good URL structure is a great way to receive better rankings, but did you know that it could also increase your CTR? A study from Microsoft found out that a descriptive URL get so much as 25% (!) more clicks compared to “generic” URLs!

Best practices for an SEO friendly URL that increases your CTR is to keep it:

As short as possible

As descriptive and readable as possible (for both search engines and users)

As consistent as possible (make a plan and stick with it through your whole website)

Surrounding your target keyword/phrase

Here’s an example of a good and a bad URL:

  That’s it, three relatively easy and creative ways that can increase your organic CTR as well as your rankings. What tactics will you use to improve your Click Through Rate? And how well do they work for you?

Author bio

  Albin Sandberg is currently working at a digital marketing agency, called Adsight, where he helps customers with everything from SEO and SEM to social media advertising. He’s also a regular contributor to various publications.

https://ift.tt/2EwymZ9

[samiaedithg]

3 Creative Ways To Increase Your Organic CTR

Crafting compelling meta titles and descriptions or doing other efforts to increase CTR, isn’t always a top priority for digital marketers and SEO’s, even though it’s becoming more and more important. Let me show you 3 creative ways that you can increase your CTR!

But first, let’s start with the basics. What is CTR?

Well, CTR is a shortened term for Click Through Rate and is a performance metric that measures the numbers of clicks a specific link gets divided by the number of impressions. The formula looks like this:

This metric can be used to measuring performance for both email marketing, SEM and SEO among other digital marketing channels. However, in this article, I will focus on the latter!

Why is Click Through Rate important for SEO?

  As I mentioned, in the beginning, CTR is becoming more and more important in the SEO world, but why is that you’re maybe wondering? Let me explain!

Beyond the fact that Click Through Rate is an overall important metric to:

Analyze user intent

Measure the quality of your copy

Analyze the effectiveness of your call-to-action

CTR is also important to boost your organic search positions

Something that people have suspected for a long time. Even back in 2013, a blog post on SEMrush stated that CTR is important for SEO because:

“Your website’s ranking for a particular keyword on Google depends hugely on the number of inbound links. Yet, you should not forget the fact that Google also checks the searcher votes you get when someone clicks on your website in the search engine results to get through to your website. A combination of external votes and searcher votes would lead your website to the top of the rankings for a particular keyword. This would help you a great deal with its SEO.”

As well as:

“Every marketer wants his/her website to appear on the first page of the search results for the main keywords. However, even if your website is on the first page but not getting clicked on enough, Google has every reason to push you down the ladder. Sometimes, websites from the second and even third page of the search results manage to make it to the first page simply by having a higher click-through rate. Falling off the first page isn’t exactly ideal for your SEO.”

RankBrain and CTR

After the introduction of RankBrain in late 2015, a new machine learning algorithm from Google, things changed and CTR became even more important. Something that a Google engineer called Paul Haahr confirmed when he showed this slide on a conference:

In other words, the slide is basically saying that the new algorithm sometimes ranks pages higher up then they “should” rank. Also, if that page gets an above average Click Through Rate, Google could use that as a sign that the page should get a permanent ranking boost.

To verify this WordStream conducted a test to see whether or not an above average CTR would mean higher rankings. This is what they found:

In connection with this, they also stated that:

“The more your pages beat the expected organic CTR for a given position, the more likely you are to appear in prominent organic positions. So, if you want to move up by one spot (e.g., Position 5 to Position 4) in Google’s SERP, you need to increase your organic CTR by 3 percent. If you want to move up again (e.g., Position 4 to Position 3), you’ll need to increase your CTR by another 3 percent.”

How to increase your CTR

The basics of increasing your Click Through Rate in the organic search is to make your page stick out from the crowd. Something that could be done by simply crafting flawless meta titles and descriptions.

Even though a compelling copy is great, there’s nowadays a lot of other things you could do to make your page stand out in the SERP and increase your CTR!

Use review snippets to increase CTR

A great way to make your page stand out from the rest of the SERP as well as making it more compelling for people to click on is by using review snippets:

The review snippet has created a major stir in the SEO world the past years since people, like many other things in this space, started to abuse it. It all happened when more and more people started to realize that pretty much any site could achieve the review snippet by just adding the aggregateRating schema markup to their pages.

(Hint: when I say that people started to add the aggregateRating schema markup to their pages I’m not talking of a handful of pages. I’m talking about every single one of them!)

For a long time, there’s been a lot of unclear information on what triggers the review snippets to appear in the SERP. Now Google has made all of the heavy lifting, making a complete guide to the review snippets.

In the guide they state that you could expect to see a review snippet when Google finds a valid review or rating markup for the following kind of content:

Local businesses

Movies

Books

Music

Products

In supplement to using structured data, they also recommend you to follow these guidelines:

Some people would probably also claim that it’s possible to achieve review snippets by using third-party review software such as TrustPilot. Even though I’ve also experienced this (at least on Swedish customers), I would recommend you to first follow the guidelines from big brother aka Google.

Use emojis to increase CTR

Another creative way to increase your CTR is by using emojis in your meta title and description. Something that has received a lot of attention lately, not least due to Garrett Mehrguth’s amazing article How to Increase Your Click Through Rate With Emojis as of recently.

Google has been experimenting with this for a long time. In fact, they first introduced the emojis in mobile SERPs in 2012, then pulled them all back in 2015 and then, as of the beginning of 2017, they brought the emojis back:

As you can imagine, having one or several emojis in your meta title or description will make your page more compelling for people to click on. Though, there’s no reason to start overuse them since Google will only display them in results where they are relevant, useful and fun.

Instead, use them with care and try to think where they can be relevant, useful and fun since this will increase your chances of having the emoji showing up at all. Also, if you want some inspiration, you can check out the result from a study SISTRIX recently conducted showing the most used emojis in the SERPs:

Use descriptive URLs to increase CTR

Most SEO companies know that a descriptive URL and a good URL structure is a great way to receive better rankings, but did you know that it could also increase your CTR? A study from Microsoft found out that a descriptive URL get so much as 25% (!) more clicks compared to “generic” URLs!

Best practices for an SEO friendly URL that increases your CTR is to keep it:

As short as possible

As descriptive and readable as possible (for both search engines and users)

As consistent as possible (make a plan and stick with it through your whole website)

Surrounding your target keyword/phrase

Here’s an example of a good and a bad URL:

  That’s it, three relatively easy and creative ways that can increase your organic CTR as well as your rankings. What tactics will you use to improve your Click Through Rate? And how well do they work for you?

Author bio

  Albin Sandberg is currently working at a digital marketing agency, called Adsight, where he helps customers with everything from SEO and SEM to social media advertising. He’s also a regular contributor to various publications.

https://ift.tt/2EwymZ9

[miettawilliemk]

3 Creative Ways To Increase Your Organic CTR

Crafting compelling meta titles and descriptions or doing other efforts to increase CTR, isn’t always a top priority for digital marketers and SEO’s, even though it’s becoming more and more important. Let me show you 3 creative ways that you can increase your CTR!

But first, let’s start with the basics. What is CTR?

Well, CTR is a shortened term for Click Through Rate and is a performance metric that measures the numbers of clicks a specific link gets divided by the number of impressions. The formula looks like this:

This metric can be used to measuring performance for both email marketing, SEM and SEO among other digital marketing channels. However, in this article, I will focus on the latter!

Why is Click Through Rate important for SEO?

  As I mentioned, in the beginning, CTR is becoming more and more important in the SEO world, but why is that you’re maybe wondering? Let me explain!

Beyond the fact that Click Through Rate is an overall important metric to:

Analyze user intent

Measure the quality of your copy

Analyze the effectiveness of your call-to-action

CTR is also important to boost your organic search positions

Something that people have suspected for a long time. Even back in 2013, a blog post on SEMrush stated that CTR is important for SEO because:

“Your website’s ranking for a particular keyword on Google depends hugely on the number of inbound links. Yet, you should not forget the fact that Google also checks the searcher votes you get when someone clicks on your website in the search engine results to get through to your website. A combination of external votes and searcher votes would lead your website to the top of the rankings for a particular keyword. This would help you a great deal with its SEO.”

As well as:

“Every marketer wants his/her website to appear on the first page of the search results for the main keywords. However, even if your website is on the first page but not getting clicked on enough, Google has every reason to push you down the ladder. Sometimes, websites from the second and even third page of the search results manage to make it to the first page simply by having a higher click-through rate. Falling off the first page isn’t exactly ideal for your SEO.”

RankBrain and CTR

After the introduction of RankBrain in late 2015, a new machine learning algorithm from Google, things changed and CTR became even more important. Something that a Google engineer called Paul Haahr confirmed when he showed this slide on a conference:

In other words, the slide is basically saying that the new algorithm sometimes ranks pages higher up then they “should” rank. Also, if that page gets an above average Click Through Rate, Google could use that as a sign that the page should get a permanent ranking boost.

To verify this WordStream conducted a test to see whether or not an above average CTR would mean higher rankings. This is what they found:

In connection with this, they also stated that:

“The more your pages beat the expected organic CTR for a given position, the more likely you are to appear in prominent organic positions. So, if you want to move up by one spot (e.g., Position 5 to Position 4) in Google’s SERP, you need to increase your organic CTR by 3 percent. If you want to move up again (e.g., Position 4 to Position 3), you’ll need to increase your CTR by another 3 percent.”

How to increase your CTR

The basics of increasing your Click Through Rate in the organic search is to make your page stick out from the crowd. Something that could be done by simply crafting flawless meta titles and descriptions.

Even though a compelling copy is great, there’s nowadays a lot of other things you could do to make your page stand out in the SERP and increase your CTR!

Use review snippets to increase CTR

A great way to make your page stand out from the rest of the SERP as well as making it more compelling for people to click on is by using review snippets:

The review snippet has created a major stir in the SEO world the past years since people, like many other things in this space, started to abuse it. It all happened when more and more people started to realize that pretty much any site could achieve the review snippet by just adding the aggregateRating schema markup to their pages.

(Hint: when I say that people started to add the aggregateRating schema markup to their pages I’m not talking of a handful of pages. I’m talking about every single one of them!)

For a long time, there’s been a lot of unclear information on what triggers the review snippets to appear in the SERP. Now Google has made all of the heavy lifting, making a complete guide to the review snippets.

In the guide they state that you could expect to see a review snippet when Google finds a valid review or rating markup for the following kind of content:

Local businesses

Movies

Books

Music

Products

In supplement to using structured data, they also recommend you to follow these guidelines:

Some people would probably also claim that it’s possible to achieve review snippets by using third-party review software such as TrustPilot. Even though I’ve also experienced this (at least on Swedish customers), I would recommend you to first follow the guidelines from big brother aka Google.

Use emojis to increase CTR

Another creative way to increase your CTR is by using emojis in your meta title and description. Something that has received a lot of attention lately, not least due to Garrett Mehrguth’s amazing article How to Increase Your Click Through Rate With Emojis as of recently.

Google has been experimenting with this for a long time. In fact, they first introduced the emojis in mobile SERPs in 2012, then pulled them all back in 2015 and then, as of the beginning of 2017, they brought the emojis back:

As you can imagine, having one or several emojis in your meta title or description will make your page more compelling for people to click on. Though, there’s no reason to start overuse them since Google will only display them in results where they are relevant, useful and fun.

Instead, use them with care and try to think where they can be relevant, useful and fun since this will increase your chances of having the emoji showing up at all. Also, if you want some inspiration, you can check out the result from a study SISTRIX recently conducted showing the most used emojis in the SERPs:

Use descriptive URLs to increase CTR

Most SEO companies know that a descriptive URL and a good URL structure is a great way to receive better rankings, but did you know that it could also increase your CTR? A study from Microsoft found out that a descriptive URL get so much as 25% (!) more clicks compared to “generic” URLs!

Best practices for an SEO friendly URL that increases your CTR is to keep it:

As short as possible

As descriptive and readable as possible (for both search engines and users)

As consistent as possible (make a plan and stick with it through your whole website)

Surrounding your target keyword/phrase

Here’s an example of a good and a bad URL:

  That’s it, three relatively easy and creative ways that can increase your organic CTR as well as your rankings. What tactics will you use to improve your Click Through Rate? And how well do they work for you?

Author bio

  Albin Sandberg is currently working at a digital marketing agency, called Adsight, where he helps customers with everything from SEO and SEM to social media advertising. He’s also a regular contributor to various publications.

https://ift.tt/2EwymZ9

[mariaajameso]

3 Creative Ways To Increase Your Organic CTR

Crafting compelling meta titles and descriptions or doing other efforts to increase CTR, isn’t always a top priority for digital marketers and SEO’s, even though it’s becoming more and more important. Let me show you 3 creative ways that you can increase your CTR!

But first, let’s start with the basics. What is CTR?

Well, CTR is a shortened term for Click Through Rate and is a performance metric that measures the numbers of clicks a specific link gets divided by the number of impressions. The formula looks like this:

This metric can be used to measuring performance for both email marketing, SEM and SEO among other digital marketing channels. However, in this article, I will focus on the latter!

Why is Click Through Rate important for SEO?

  As I mentioned, in the beginning, CTR is becoming more and more important in the SEO world, but why is that you’re maybe wondering? Let me explain!

Beyond the fact that Click Through Rate is an overall important metric to:

Analyze user intent

Measure the quality of your copy

Analyze the effectiveness of your call-to-action

CTR is also important to boost your organic search positions

Something that people have suspected for a long time. Even back in 2013, a blog post on SEMrush stated that CTR is important for SEO because:

“Your website’s ranking for a particular keyword on Google depends hugely on the number of inbound links. Yet, you should not forget the fact that Google also checks the searcher votes you get when someone clicks on your website in the search engine results to get through to your website. A combination of external votes and searcher votes would lead your website to the top of the rankings for a particular keyword. This would help you a great deal with its SEO.”

As well as:

“Every marketer wants his/her website to appear on the first page of the search results for the main keywords. However, even if your website is on the first page but not getting clicked on enough, Google has every reason to push you down the ladder. Sometimes, websites from the second and even third page of the search results manage to make it to the first page simply by having a higher click-through rate. Falling off the first page isn’t exactly ideal for your SEO.”

RankBrain and CTR

After the introduction of RankBrain in late 2015, a new machine learning algorithm from Google, things changed and CTR became even more important. Something that a Google engineer called Paul Haahr confirmed when he showed this slide on a conference:

In other words, the slide is basically saying that the new algorithm sometimes ranks pages higher up then they “should” rank. Also, if that page gets an above average Click Through Rate, Google could use that as a sign that the page should get a permanent ranking boost.

To verify this WordStream conducted a test to see whether or not an above average CTR would mean higher rankings. This is what they found:

In connection with this, they also stated that:

“The more your pages beat the expected organic CTR for a given position, the more likely you are to appear in prominent organic positions. So, if you want to move up by one spot (e.g., Position 5 to Position 4) in Google’s SERP, you need to increase your organic CTR by 3 percent. If you want to move up again (e.g., Position 4 to Position 3), you’ll need to increase your CTR by another 3 percent.”

How to increase your CTR

The basics of increasing your Click Through Rate in the organic search is to make your page stick out from the crowd. Something that could be done by simply crafting flawless meta titles and descriptions.

Even though a compelling copy is great, there’s nowadays a lot of other things you could do to make your page stand out in the SERP and increase your CTR!

Use review snippets to increase CTR

A great way to make your page stand out from the rest of the SERP as well as making it more compelling for people to click on is by using review snippets:

The review snippet has created a major stir in the SEO world the past years since people, like many other things in this space, started to abuse it. It all happened when more and more people started to realize that pretty much any site could achieve the review snippet by just adding the aggregateRating schema markup to their pages.

(Hint: when I say that people started to add the aggregateRating schema markup to their pages I’m not talking of a handful of pages. I’m talking about every single one of them!)

For a long time, there’s been a lot of unclear information on what triggers the review snippets to appear in the SERP. Now Google has made all of the heavy lifting, making a complete guide to the review snippets.

In the guide they state that you could expect to see a review snippet when Google finds a valid review or rating markup for the following kind of content:

Local businesses

Movies

Books

Music

Products

In supplement to using structured data, they also recommend you to follow these guidelines:

Some people would probably also claim that it’s possible to achieve review snippets by using third-party review software such as TrustPilot. Even though I’ve also experienced this (at least on Swedish customers), I would recommend you to first follow the guidelines from big brother aka Google.

Use emojis to increase CTR

Another creative way to increase your CTR is by using emojis in your meta title and description. Something that has received a lot of attention lately, not least due to Garrett Mehrguth’s amazing article How to Increase Your Click Through Rate With Emojis as of recently.

Google has been experimenting with this for a long time. In fact, they first introduced the emojis in mobile SERPs in 2012, then pulled them all back in 2015 and then, as of the beginning of 2017, they brought the emojis back:

As you can imagine, having one or several emojis in your meta title or description will make your page more compelling for people to click on. Though, there’s no reason to start overuse them since Google will only display them in results where they are relevant, useful and fun.

Instead, use them with care and try to think where they can be relevant, useful and fun since this will increase your chances of having the emoji showing up at all. Also, if you want some inspiration, you can check out the result from a study SISTRIX recently conducted showing the most used emojis in the SERPs:

Use descriptive URLs to increase CTR

Most SEO companies know that a descriptive URL and a good URL structure is a great way to receive better rankings, but did you know that it could also increase your CTR? A study from Microsoft found out that a descriptive URL get so much as 25% (!) more clicks compared to “generic” URLs!

Best practices for an SEO friendly URL that increases your CTR is to keep it:

As short as possible

As descriptive and readable as possible (for both search engines and users)

As consistent as possible (make a plan and stick with it through your whole website)

Surrounding your target keyword/phrase

Here’s an example of a good and a bad URL:

  That’s it, three relatively easy and creative ways that can increase your organic CTR as well as your rankings. What tactics will you use to improve your Click Through Rate? And how well do they work for you?

Author bio

  Albin Sandberg is currently working at a digital marketing agency, called Adsight, where he helps customers with everything from SEO and SEM to social media advertising. He’s also a regular contributor to various publications.

https://ift.tt/2EwymZ9

[anthonykrierion]

3 Creative Ways To Increase Your Organic CTR

Crafting compelling meta titles and descriptions or doing other efforts to increase CTR, isn’t always a top priority for digital marketers and SEO’s, even though it’s becoming more and more important. Let me show you 3 creative ways that you can increase your CTR!

But first, let’s start with the basics. What is CTR?

Well, CTR is a shortened term for Click Through Rate and is a performance metric that measures the numbers of clicks a specific link gets divided by the number of impressions. The formula looks like this:

    This metric can be used to measuring performance for both email marketing, SEM and SEO among other digital marketing channels. However, in this article, I will focus on the latter!

  Why is Click Through Rate important for SEO?

  As I mentioned, in the beginning, CTR is becoming more and more important in the SEO world, but why is that you’re maybe wondering? Let me explain!

Beyond the fact that Click Through Rate is an overall important metric to:

Analyze user intent

Measure the quality of your copy

Analyze the effectiveness of your call-to-action

CTR is also important to boost your organic search positions

Something that people have suspected for a long time. Even back in 2013, a blog post on SEMrush stated that CTR is important for SEO because:

“Your website’s ranking for a particular keyword on Google depends hugely on the number of inbound links. Yet, you should not forget the fact that Google also checks the searcher votes you get when someone clicks on your website in the search engine results to get through to your website. A combination of external votes and searcher votes would lead your website to the top of the rankings for a particular keyword. This would help you a great deal with its SEO.”

As well as:

“Every marketer wants his/her website to appear on the first page of the search results for the main keywords. However, even if your website is on the first page but not getting clicked on enough, Google has every reason to push you down the ladder. Sometimes, websites from the second and even third page of the search results manage to make it to the first page simply by having a higher click-through rate. Falling off the first page isn’t exactly ideal for your SEO.”

RankBrain and CTR

After the introduction of RankBrain in late 2015, a new machine learning algorithm from Google, things changed and CTR became even more important. Something that a Google engineer called Paul Haahr confirmed when he showed this slide on a conference:

    In other words, the slide is basically saying that the new algorithm sometimes ranks pages higher up then they “should” rank. Also, if that page gets an above average Click Through Rate, Google could use that as a sign that the page should get a permanent ranking boost.

To verify this WordStream conducted a test to see whether or not an above average CTR would mean higher rankings. This is what they found:

  In connection with this, they also stated that:

“The more your pages beat the expected organic CTR for a given position, the more likely you are to appear in prominent organic positions. So, if you want to move up by one spot (e.g., Position 5 to Position 4) in Google’s SERP, you need to increase your organic CTR by 3 percent. If you want to move up again (e.g., Position 4 to Position 3), you’ll need to increase your CTR by another 3 percent.”

How to increase your CTR

  The basics of increasing your Click Through Rate in the organic search is to make your page stick out from the crowd. Something that could be done by simply crafting flawless meta titles and descriptions.

Even though a compelling copy is great, there’s nowadays a lot of other things you could do to make your page stand out in the SERP and increase your CTR!

Use review snippets to increase CTR

  A great way to make your page stand out from the rest of the SERP as well as making it more compelling for people to click on is by using review snippets:

The review snippet has created a major stir in the SEO world the past years since people, like many other things in this space, started to abuse it. It all happened when more and more people started to realize that pretty much any site could achieve the review snippet by just adding the aggregateRating schema markup to their pages.

  (Hint: when I say that people started to add the aggregateRating schema markup to their pages I’m not talking of a handful of pages. I’m talking about every single one of them!)

  For a long time, there’s been a lot of unclear information on what triggers the review snippets to appear in the SERP. Now Google has made all of the heavy lifting, making a complete guide to the review snippets.

In the guide they state that you could expect to see a review snippet when Google finds a valid review or rating markup for the following kind of content:

Local businesses

Movies

Books

Music

Products

In supplement to using structured data, they also recommend you to follow these guidelines:

    Some people would probably also claim that it’s possible to achieve review snippets by using third-party review software such as TrustPilot. Even though I’ve also experienced this (at least on Swedish customers), I would recommend you to first follow the guidelines from big brother aka Google.

  Use emojis to increase CTR

Another creative way to increase your CTR is by using emojis in your meta title and description. Something that has received a lot of attention lately, not least due to Garrett Mehrguth’s amazing article How to Increase Your Click Through Rate With Emojis as of recently.

Google has been experimenting with this for a long time. In fact, they first introduced the emojis in mobile SERPs in 2012, then pulled them all back in 2015 and then, as of the beginning of 2017, they brought the emojis back:

    As you can imagine, having one or several emojis in your meta title or description will make your page more compelling for people to click on. Though, there’s no reason to start overuse them since Google will only display them in results where they are relevant, useful and fun.

Instead, use them with care and try to think where they can be relevant, useful and fun since this will increase your chances of having the emoji showing up at all. Also, if you want some inspiration, you can check out the result from a study SISTRIX recently conducted showing the most used emojis in the SERPs:

    Use descriptive URLs to increase CTR

Most SEO companies know that a descriptive URL and a good URL structure is a great way to receive better rankings, but did you know that it could also increase your CTR? A study from Microsoft found out that a descriptive URL get so much as 25% (!) more clicks compared to “generic” URLs!

Best practices for an SEO friendly URL that increases your CTR is to keep it:

As short as possible

As descriptive and readable as possible (for both search engines and users)

As consistent as possible (make a plan and stick with it through your whole website)

Surrounding your target keyword/phrase

Here’s an example of a good and a bad URL:

    That’s it, three relatively easy and creative ways that can increase your organic CTR as well as your rankings. What tactics will you use to improve your Click Through Rate? And how well do they work for you?

Author bio

  Albin Sandberg is currently working at a digital marketing agency, called Adsight, where he helps customers with everything from SEO and SEM to social media advertising. He’s also a regular contributor to various publications.

  3 Creative Ways To Increase Your Organic CTR was originally posted by Video And Blog Marketing