In OK to Make Money Online today, let’s look at why your CTR (click through rate) just dropped to the floor. Maybe a friend, co-worker, or an article you read told you the latest thing was the new social networks, and that these networks could drive loads of traffic to your site. Then it occurred to you — more traffic, more money. But your CTR starting dropping just after you started getting tons of traffic from one of the social networks! Why?
Here’s why: Traffic generated from social networks is interested in socializing, not buying. They want to talk about life, their day, their boss, or whatever. They are not in a buying mood. Oh, they will look at what you have and maybe poke a few buttons, but they will soon get bored and click away and you will not make money. The traffic you want is purchase-driven or wanting the newest thing and ready to buy. They may be doing research or price shopping, so you will help them by directing them to their next purchase.
When you bought into the social network hype, you bought into the producers of social networks’ promotion of their product. What is their product? Socializing! However, is that what you are promoting? If so, great! You can stop reading now and go back to making money. If not, and if your keyword is not targeted on the latest “got to have it” craze, then you don’t belong in a social network. When Google detects your error, they will downgrade your ads until you get it.
If you are a white hat, then you know you have a responsibility to the buyer and the advertiser. You are there as an intermediary to entice the buyer to your site and direct them to a product or service to make money. Why do you think sites like Grizzle and “The Keyword Academy” are so popular? They have great, informative content that you want to go back to again and again. Google knows this and directs good solid traffic from high-ranking SERP(search engine results page) to their sites.
If you have properly tuned your site on a single keyword, have good content and are getting traffic, but your CTR is low, take a look at the traffic you are getting. If the majority of your traffic is from social networks, this is where your problem lies. You need to start directing more traffic from your SERP(search engine results page) placement. This will only occur from writing unique articles and having many good back-links. Don’t replace your article writing with traffic from Twitter. Google will know they are not purchase-oriented buyers and downgrade your ads, and maybe your page ranking. And this is not what you want to do to make money.
Michael
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