How To Fix High Impression and Low Click Pages in Google Search Console – 118

Transcript For How to Fix High Impression and Low Click Pages in Google Search Console – 118;

Caleb Baumgartner: Welcome to Local SEO Tactics, where we bring you tips and tricks to get found online. I am producer Caleb Baumgartner. Do you have a website that ranks well and generates impressions, but doesn’t generate clicks? In this episode, Jesse explains how to identify your high impression pages using Google search console and how to work on those pages to turn those impressions into clicks. So your high ranking also translates to high performance. Thanks for checking us out and enjoy the show.

Jesse Dolan : Welcome back to Local SEO Tactics, where we bring you tips and tricks to get found online. I’m your host Jesse Dolan, here today to talk with you about Google search console. And specifically what we’re going to dive into today is using Google search console to find pages that are getting a lot of visibility within Google search, but you’re not getting a lot of action and traction on them and something that you can do about that. And some strategies to deploy to try to get clicks from Google search and traffic to your website. And hopefully from there, you convert them to clients, right? Now, before we dive into that, we do want to talk about what is Google search console. We’ve got a few episodes in our archive that talk about this a little bit more in depth, but if you’re just jumping in now, I do want to kind of set the stage for what the heck Google search console is, what kind of data it provides and give you some context for what we’re going to be doing here.

Before I jump into that, I do want to mention our free instant SEO audit tool. If you haven’t used it yet, go on out to localseotactics.com. Go up to the top right corner, look for the yellow button for the free instant SEO audit, click on that button. And you’re going to pop in the web page that you want to do an audit against and the keyword that you want to check it out for. And it’s going to run an audit on that page and give you a checklist and basically a score, a report card for how well optimized that webpage is for that keyword. Now this is page by page. So if you’ve got a service page on your website or a landing page, make sure you grab that exact URL, not the homepage and pop that in. And you can run this a couple of times, if you want for different keywords, just to kind of see what works, what doesn’t. It’s totally free. Use it as many times as you want going out to localseotactics.com, check it out and get your free instant SEO audit today.

I should mention too. It’s going to present you all of this into a PDF so you can save it, emails it to you for later. It’s portable. You can share it. It’s a great resource. Tons of people use it. We get whatever, a dozen on any given day people using it. So check it out. Totally free. localseotactics.com. All right. So Google console is a free tool that is put out by Google. You do have to have a Google account set up to log in and use it. If you’re using Google analytics or Google My Business, anything like that or Gmail, you already have a Google account. You would just log in with that. And you do have to verify your website.

So you can’t just pop this open and look up information on any websites. You do have to kind of connect it to your website. Again, we walked through that in some other episodes on how to do that. So assuming you’re logged into Google search console and that you have the ability to access the data about your website, what Google search console is going to be showing you is basically your visibility and exposure within Google search. So this isn’t traffic on your website. This is not actions happening on your website. This is all from within Google search. So if you go onto google.com and do a search and you see your website, that’s what we’re talking about is, was your website shown on Google, right? What position was it in Google? And some other information like that.

Google search console does give us a lot of other great reporting as SEO, business owners, and webmasters for what pages are indexed by Google. Is there any issues with mobile viewing, things like that. We’re not going to get into that today. What we’re specifically going to talk today about is when you have pages that are ranking high in Google, that are getting a lot of exposure in Google, but people are not clicking on them off of that Google search result page, the SERP, what to do. Okay. So I’m going to share my screen here to show a PDF that I have, and this is a screenshot of Google search console. And for this website here, we’re using as an example, this is a website in the pallet racking and material handling industry. And you can see here, it’s kind of focused and based in the Denver Colorado area.

So what we’ve done is we’ve gone into the performance tab on the left hand side. When you’re logged into Google search console, you’ll see a few different options. We’ve clicked on the one that says performance and that’s then going to show you the impressions is nothing that we’re looking at here. An impression is how many times was your website shown an impression? How many times was it shown within Google search? And over here on the left hand side, you can see here where it says top queries. This would be the term that was used, where your website was shown. Again, this doesn’t mean that somebody actually went to your website. This is just that it was shown. Now, depending on what location they were in, their browsing history and other factors, maybe you were ranked first, third, fifth, seventh, who knows, but Google does show you on the far right hand side, what the average position is for your website when people use that term.

Now this particular term at the top here is a great example, which is why we use the screenshot. It’s a great example of what we want to be looking for to make an impact for SEO. In this case, the phrase is pallet racking, Colorado Springs, CO. This website over the last three months had 760 impressions for that term. And the average rank for that term over time for this exposure was 4.2. So not quite in the top three, but pretty close. So if that’s the average position, I bet you sometimes it was ranked one, two, three, sometimes four, five, six. So it’s towards the top of the page and it had zero clicks. So out of 760 chances, it was shown to people 760 times, but nobody clicked on it even one time.

So here we have something that’s got some decent SEO. It’s ranking high, it’s getting visibility. It’s a search term that’s popular enough for what, two to 300 people per month searching for it. And again, this is geo-specific. The term itself zeroes in on Colorado Springs, Colorado. This is not a national e-commerce campaign, right? So a very specific result for a very specific product in a very specific market. It’s getting ranking. It’s got volume for the keyword searches, got volume for the impressions, but it’s getting zero clicks. So why is that? Well, we have to look at, I’m going to stop my screen sharing example here.

So what you’d want to look at in this case is there’s really two main areas on that search engine results page that you can focus on. And what we’re going to try to do is make something compelling for the user who do that search to click on your result even if you’re not first. How can you look more attractive than that first option if you’re second, or third, or fourth, right? So there’s two spots. One is going to be your page title, and one is going to be your meta description. So your meta-description, if you’re using WordPress or any other content management system out there to manage your website, is probably going to have a spot on the individual page that we’re editing, which is another part of this, right? Maybe this is your homepage that’s linking. Maybe this is a particular landing page that this would be linking to that’s ranking for this page.

We’re talking about making sure to modify the exact page that is showing up here, for this rank. On that page, find the spot where it has meta-description and that’s going to be a small snippet or a small paragraph that you have the ability to type in. This is often but not always, what is shown when we look at the Google search engine results page. We’re all familiar with having that page title like the blue or purple bluish text if you’ve clicked on it, that has a link to your website. And then right under that, you’re going to have that small little snippet of text. That is your meta-description. So what you want to do is take a look at that. What does it say? If in this example here, pallet rack, Colorado Springs, CO. And CO being Colorado, of course. Is that meta-description talking about pallet racking? Is it talking about Colorado Springs? Is it saying things like new, used, buy now, in stock?

This is where you have to put on your hat that’s a little bit more sales and marketing and not explicitly SEO. What kind of phraseology, what kind of keywords? You have a finite amount of space. What keywords, what offers, what’s going to be attractive that you can put in that space that’s going to cause somebody to give attention to your listing and then hopefully click on your link and get traffic to your website? So take some time, take a look at that meta-description and see if you can craft something that’s a little bit better. Pay attention to your SEO keywords that are in that. You don’t want to necessarily remove those. Whatever you’ve done to the page so far, in this example here, was ranked 4.2. There’s been some things that have been done right to that page. You don’t want to undo any of that.

So don’t get rid of key phrases and keywords that are in there. Keep those in, but find a way to make this more attractive, make it a little sexier so somebody wants to click on it. Now, there is an asterisk here, as we talked meta-description. Years ago, you could put your meta-description and that’s what Google would show in that little snippet. Now we are at the mercy of Google, deciding on if our meta-description is good enough and if not, they may pull some other texts off of the page, maybe out of a paragraph, right, or something else. And they can rewrite your meta-description for you if they think it matched the intent of what the person was searching for better.

That can be good. Can also be bad because if you have a certain pitch or some verbiage that you’ve crafted that you want to be shown on that search engine results page to get these clicks. If Google overrides you 50%, 60%, or even 80% of the time, whatever it is, then it’s all for not. Your changes aren’t going to make a difference. Now, there is one trick that a lot of people have been using recently to try to force Google to use your meta-description and put your meta-description like you usually would. And then try to use that same paragraph, that same snippet up towards the top of your page. If it can be the first paragraph on your site, great. If it’s near the top, after a title or two, try to work it in towards the top of the page and your odds are going to be a lot better, that Google will then pull that.

Not only because it is towards the top of the page, but it’s also because it was your meta-description. And it seems like using those in concert forces Google more often than not to use that exact meta-description. Now the other thing that you can modify to try to make an impact here is your page title. This is something that should be handled with kid gloves. It’s a little bit more fragile because it is a bigger factor for your SEO. This is something that you don’t want to break. Again, if you have certain keywords in there, a certain phraseology that has helped you obtain your current rankings, you want to be careful not to undo any of that.

Now this is something that you modify again, if it’s WordPress or whatever your CMS is. There’s a spot which is the title of your page. This is exactly what we’re going to be modifying here. Same thing as your meta description, think about what this says and what can be more attractive. And for both of these, just to kind of take a sidestep for a quick second, you should be doing a search in this case, pallet rack, Colorado Springs, CO, you should be doing a search for what it is you’re showing up for. And look at the other people that are outranking you. What message can you craft and put out there that will stand out on that page, right? You’re not on an island by yourself. They’re not just reading your thing, deciding if they want to click on it or not. They’re comparing what you’re saying against these other two, three, or four that are above you, or they may not even be comparing it if the other one is so compelling their eye just gravitates towards it and they click on it. They don’t even give the time to other listings.

That’s the battle you’re up against, right? So don’t just make these changes that we’re talking about here. You’re going to want to go look at the real page yourself and see what it is that’s being put out there by your competitors, because that is the battle you’re fighting. Okay. Step back the other direction. We’re talking about that page title. Think about those key action phrases. You have, depending on the length of your words, you only have a few words to play with. Could be five, could be seven words. Don’t mess up your SEO. Don’t take your keywords out of there, but think about, maybe my keywords are front. If it’s pallet racking, Colorado Springs dash, in stock available now, right?

Given the current situation, here we are late July 2021, still dealing with a lot of supply chain issues from COVID-19 global pandemic in the pallet racking and material handling industry right now as is with a lot of durable goods. Things are in short supply. There’s an issue with supply and demand. So in that case, with that context, something about in stock available now is something people are going to be looking for and gravitating towards, not even know certainly lowest price. If I need it today, I’m willing to pay 10, 20% more if you’ve got it in stock instead of having to wait 12 weeks.

So this could change, if this is something that you look at from quarter to quarter. Given certain market conditions or seasonality, depending on your product or service, I would just make sure I’m not changing some of the key SEO words that are in that phrase, right? Because it’s all for not. If you change it to make it look sexier, but you dropped down to 30th on the page and your impressions go from seven or 800 down to 12, then it doesn’t matter how good your phrase is. Nobody’s even seeing you.

So there’s a balance there. But at the end of the day, those are the two things that you can leverage to be more attractive in the Google search engine results page, is modifying your meta-description and then trying to force that meta-description if necessary, to be shown up and then modifying your page title. I would not change these things on a daily or weekly basis. What you’re going to want to do is make these changes then go back into Google, search console and go into the coverage tab. I had my screen shared earlier. We were up in the performance area on the left-hand menu of Google search console. Once you make your changes, go in and go to your coverage area, and you’re going to want to resubmit that page for indexing.

What you’re going to be doing there is telling Google, hey, I know you’re aware of this page, but I want you to take a closer look at this page and rescan it, right? I made some changes. And then they will do that. And then they will accept those changes, for lack of a better term coming to mind here. And those can be reflected then in Google search sooner than later. Whether that takes a couple hours or a couple of days or even a week or more right now, it’s kind of a crap shoot, depending on when you happen to engage with Google and what else is going on. Again, given the timestamp that we put on this here, Google’s resources are being stretched in multiple directions on any given day. So this was a little more predictable to get reindexed. right now, it’s still a little bit of a crap shoot on timeline, but for sure, I would make those changes. I would go force Google to be aware by doing your requests for indexing. If you don’t do that, Google will still pick up your changes, right?

This page has been indexed. It’s in the Google search system, which is why it’s being served up. They’re going to crawl it again. They’re going to discover your changes. It just may take a little longer if you don’t go in and submit it. After you do that, I would at some point, verify that you see these changes yourself, and then I would give it probably even a couple of weeks or a month or more to see if that makes an impact in how many clicks you’re getting to that page. Go back to Google search console later, check the last 28 days, check the last seven days, whatever you want to do, compare before and after to see if you made a difference on that. If you didn’t make any difference, just start over, go back to the drawing board and try again.

So hope that helps you out. You should have pages on your website. If you go into Google search console, you should have some pages on your website. They’re going to be right for this kind of approach, right? You’re going to be looking for pages that have high impressions, high ranking, but lower clicks. Maybe you have one page. Maybe you have 15 page. Who knows. And this doesn’t just apply towards your pages that have the highest impressions, right? You may have 15 pages that get a lot of impressions, maybe your 15 most popular pages without getting clicks. Everything’s good. You just want to find the one with that mix of highest impressions, lowest clicks, or low clicks, but is also ranking high.

Final disclaimer, this really doesn’t apply to a page that’s ranking 8, 9, 10, 12, 30, right? Because you’re not getting exposure. We’re talking about this tactic applying when you’re somewhere in that top five, right? Where people are going to be looking at the results on the page and deciding if they should click on you or not. If your number one, you’re probably getting those clicks. If not, for sure employ these tactics. But this is even more powerful if you’re second, third, or fourth, because over time what’s going to happen is if you become desirable, people are skipping over the number one to click on you, Google will see that. And with that behavior, they’re going to start to bump your rankings. So not only will you start to get the clicks we’re looking for, which is the topic here today in an indirect way, it’ll start to bump your rankings up as well. All right. I think that does it for the topic there.

Let’s jump on over to our five star review. And this week I’ve got a great five-star review here from Roman Warmke. I hope I said your last name, correct there Roman. Roman says, I love the podcast, Local SEO Tactics, and never miss an episode. Jesse Dolan has a great speaking style and an amazing understanding of small business SEO needs. I have tried a ton of SEO products, and this is my absolute favorite. I’m sorry. I misspoke there. He says, I have tried a ton of SEO podcasts, and this is my absolute favorite. Keep up the good work. And I appreciate you guys and your podcasts very much. Thanks Roman. I think that’s the first compliment I’ve had in my speaking style. Not sure if my family would agree with that or not, but I appreciate the kind words. And I don’t know, maybe you haven’t listened to some of our first episodes.

I think the style was probably not nearly as good back then as it is now. We’re a lot more comfortable with it, but nonetheless really appreciate the five-star review Roman. I’m glad you’re getting value out of the podcast. Everybody else, if you’re getting value too, if you’re liking what we’re sharing, if this is helping your business, we’d like to hear from you and just return the favor. Go on out to localseotactics.com, scroll down the button, scroll down to the bottom, excuse me, click the button for reviews. And we make it easy to link to Google podcasts, Apple podcasts, Facebook, Google My Business, wherever you have a profile, would love to get a review from you. And if you do give us a good review, we’ll give you a shout on the show, which is like we just did to Roman right there so. All right. I think that wraps it up. Hopefully that helps you guys and gals out. And we’ll catch you on the next episode. Take care.