20 Secrets to Boost Your Facebook Organic Reach

Facebook organic reach is down. Way down.

In the past, posting a link on your Facebook or Instagram page could drive hundreds of clicks. Not anymore.

Social media referrals have stagnated at around 5 percent of all traffic for years.

The average Facebook post will reach just over 5 percent of your followers.

The encouraging news is social media reach is still massive. There are more than 3.96 billion active social media users.

A chart showing the amount of active social media users worldwide.

But reaching that massive audience is harder than ever before.

What’s the answer on how to grow a Facebook page? That’s exactly what we’ll cover in this article.  

Let’s get started.

What Exactly Is Organic Reach On Facebook?

Organic reach is the number of people who see your content without paid distribution. It includes people who are shown your posts in their own feed or because their friends have interacted with you.

Paid reach is the people who see your content as a result of paid promotions. It is influenced by your ad targeting options and can also impact how to increase organic reach on Facebook.

But it’s not so simple.

Your content’s reach has a lot to do with engagement — that is how many people like, react, comment, or share your post.

Engagement rates are way up — but organic reach is way down.

And it is still on a rapid decline. So why aren’t our posts being surfaced more often?

Let me explain.

Why Facebook Organic Reach Is Declining

There are two major reasons Facebook organic reach continues to drop:

  1. More content: More content is being published than there is news feed space for it to be shown. Every minute, more than 510,000 comments and 293,000 statuses are posted on Facebook.
  2. Personalized news feeds: Facebook provides the most relevant content to each user. To increase engagement and optimize user experience, content is tailored to each user’s individual interests.

Can businesses keep succeeding with this decline in organic reach? Absolutely.

You can still get tons of traffic from Facebook.

The network’s ad platform has cushioned the damage for those who’ve made the most of it. The advertiser count to date has surpassed 10 million.

Knowing this, should marketers really worry about how to increase organic reach on Facebook?

Wouldn’t we be better off focusing on Facebook ads?

Yes and yes.

Here’s why.

Why You Need To Think About Declining Facebook Organic Reach

Organic reach is important for several reasons. Mainly so you don’t have to pay to play. So, don’t underestimate the importance of how to increase organic reach on Facebook:

Reason 1: Nurture More Leads and Organic Conversions

Many people use social media solely for brand awareness.

That’s fine – but it leaves so much opportunity on the table to drive real results for your business.

Lead generation is one of the missed opportunities. It also happens to be the linchpin of any successful marketing campaign.

You need to attract potential buyers and lead them into your sales funnel. When you do this organically, it won’t cost you anything besides time and effort.

In turn, the price of converting these potential buyers into actual buyers will be less.

That’s because the results of an organic campaign tend to snowball. This means that when more people engage with your content, it adds context to your campaigns.

The more organic reach that you have, the better your lead generation and conversion funnels will work.

Reason 2: Reduce the Cost Per Click of Paid Campaigns

Yes, Facebook’s ad product is one of the most intuitive and impressive that we’ve ever seen.

And yes, the sophistication of the audience targeting options is every marketer’s dream.

AdExpresso analyzed over 636 million dollars of ad spend and determined the average ad cost for the whole of 2021.

Here’s what they found:

A graph showing the average ad cost across all of 2021.

As you can see, the average CPC for ads can be very low if you master the other variables.

But here’s the deal:

You can just as easily spend a fortune on Facebook ads and see no return. This means that to increase the effectiveness of your ads and stretch your advertising dollars, learning how to increase organic reach on Facebook is critical.

Reason 3: There Are Tons of New (Under-Utilized) Facebook Features

In the past, your options on Facebook were pretty much posts, videos, and ads. Now there are tons of new features like Facebook StoriesFacebook Watch, Facebook Groups, and Facebook Live.

Many companies aren’t making the most of these features — which creates an opportunity to drive organic traffic by filling the gap.

With that said, let’s look at how Facebook’s news feed algorithm works to surface content.

Then, we’ll dive into some strategies on how to increase organic reach on Facebook.

Understanding Facebook’s News Feed Algorithm

Facebook’s algorithm has changed drastically in recent years. The introduction of reactions and the “Why am I seeing this post” feature has changed how Facebook decides what posts to show users.

A timeline showing the history of Facebook's algorithm.

Facebook uses hundreds of thousands of factors to decide which posts show in a user’s News Feed.

Who you interact with, the type of media, and the popularity of the post are all used as ranking signals.

According to Mark Zuckerberg,  Facebook now prioritizes posts that spark “meaningful interactions” and posts from friends and family.

There are other detailed data points that come into play:

  • how recently the post was published
  • how frequently the publisher posts content
  • the number of likes, comments, and shares on the post
  • how often the user has interacted with the page posting the update
  • past user interaction with the same post type
  • negative feedback on the post
  • how useful the post is

The list goes on, but these factors give us enough food for thought.

So, with this in mind, what’s Facebook’s ultimate goal for News Feeds?

Like other platforms, Facebook cares the most about its users. It wants to continuously improve their experience with high-quality, relevant content.

Overly promotional content doesn’t fare well with users, so Facebook cracked down on that type of content. In the past, they also cut traffic from publishers in favor of user-generated content.

So, how can you drive traffic from Facebook when these algorithmic changes are decreasing your reach?

Let’s take lessons from BuzzFeed.

What is BuzzFeed doing right? Besides posting engaging content on Facebook, they’re spending millions of dollars on Facebook Ads.

Now, most people don’t have a ton of cash to spend like BuzzFeed.

So, we’ll take the smarter route that doesn’t require a heavy investment for a small business owner.

Before we look at the secrets on how to increase organic reach on Facebook, here are five things you must avoid doing at all costs on your Facebook page.

1. Don’t Automate Everything

Facebook is a social platform and your brand needs to have a human touch. Don’t just schedule your latest blog links and product updates. Post your team photos like Zappos.

A team photo of Zappos employees

Social media marketing should show your funny or creative side, like Nutella.

A Facebook post from Nutella.

Or, share inspirational graphics like me.

An inspirational quote visual from Neil Patel's Facebook page.

2. Don’t Just Promote Products and Services

Facebook is based on interest, not intent. Not every update you send out on your Facebook page should be promotional. Rather, 80% of your updates should be social. Otherwise, users won’t hesitate to click the unlike button on your page (it’s just a click away).

Instead, use Facebook to build a community. Add value and start conversations with your audience.

It’s best to vary your posts to include different types of content:

  • Brand story posts
  • Authority building posts
  • Lead nurture posts
  • Personal posts

3. Don’t Try to Cheat the Facebook Ecosystem

Buying 5,000 likes for $5. Using clickbait headlines. Bombarding your fans with 10 poor-quality updates in an hour.

An ad for buying likes on Facebook.

It’s a sheer waste of time and money.

Facebook seriously cracks down on spammers. Stick with the Facebook code and stay in their good graces.

Not only that, these manipulative tactics add no real value to your business. In fact, they’re likely to hurt you.

AdExpresso conducted a paid like experiment where they posted an identical video on three of their fan pages. They then paid to boost each post.

The result?

The two pages where they bought likes saw zero engagement, even after Facebook had automatically deleted the likes that were paid for.

A graphic from AdExpresso showing the results of their paid like experiment.

4. Don’t Build a Fanbase You Can’t Sustain

The brutal truth about a large fanbase – no matter how targeted – is that your reach will automatically be lower.

An online question someone has about why their Facebook organic reach is being penalized.

This means that you have to put in extra work to create content that is relevant and useful to several different segments of your audience.

Would you rather have a small but hyper-engaged audience or a large and unresponsive one?

It’s a no-brainer.

How To Track and Analyze Your Current Facebook Organic Reach

Now that you know what you shouldn’t do, it’s time to work on how to increase organic reach on Facebook.

The first step is to pinpoint where your shortcomings are. We’ll be gathering some key metrics to measure your performance.

Without this diagnosis, you won’t know where to focus your efforts.

Let’s jump in.

Step 1: Export Insights Data from Facebook

First, click on the “Insights” tab on the left sidebar of your Facebook business page.

The left sidebar of a Facebook business page, with Insights highlighted.

At the top of the insights page, there’s a button that will allow you to export your data both on a page and post level.

The top of the Facebook Business Page insights section.

A window will pop up with three different options for your insights:

Different export insights data options for Facebook.

Select your option and click “Export Data.” Your data will be saved onto an excel file.

Step 2: Delve in Deeper to Post Metrics

In my experience, post level metrics are more insightful than page metrics.

Page metrics give a great panoramic view of your performance. Post metrics provide a more detailed look at how users interact with your content.

And that’s what really makes the difference.

To get a deeper view, go to “Posts” and then “Post Types.”

Post types on the page insights tab of Facebook.

With the data you collect, you can tell:

  • Which posts have the highest organic reach
  • What types of posts that your audience prefer
  • Number of likes on each post

These will give you a good guideline for launching an effective content strategy.

Step 3:  Fine Tune Your Data and Select Only The Metrics You Need

Not all of the data points will be useful.

Sift through them and choose the ones that make sense for you — and that might vary based on your industry and social media goals.

Here’s the data that will tell you the most:

  • Organic reach
  • Engagement
  • Link clicks
  • Number of people who gave negative feedback

Now that you’ve analyzed your organic reach, it’s time to make some improvements.

20 Strategies to Boost Facebook Organic Reach

Remember that every industry and audience is different. I don’t recommend implementing all of these strategies right now. Instead, look at your data and see where you can make the most improvements, then pick a handful of strategies to try.

Keep what works, ditch what doesn’t, then try another strategy. Rinse and repeat.

1. Build Your Presence and Authority

I know what you’re thinking.

If organic reach decreases as the size of your audience increases, where is the value in growing your presence?

Well, there are still several benefits of having a large presence.

  • You get to add social context to your ads, which makes them cheaper and more effective.
  • You’ll have better posts and page insights to tailor your marketing efforts. This includes both demographic and psychographic data.
  • Your perceived influence will increase, which amps up your credibility factor.

Growing your presence is not about increasing your page likes. The number of likes your page has gives no indication of how your content will perform.

What matters is that you build enough authority to command your audience to action. This means that they will engage with your content more favorably.

Here’s what you can do to increase engagement:

Attract the Right Kind of People to Your Facebook Page

Random fans are useless.

They don’t engage and they don’t have a positive influence on your marketing campaigns.

This is why I don’t recommend trying to grow your Facebook page at the expense of building a targeted audience.

You want people who are finely tuned to your business interests.

This way, the content you publish will be more relevant to them. In turn, it will have a greater chance of showing up in their newsfeeds.

What can you do to build a targeted audience?

Have a Strong Brand Presence

If your brand is watered down, chances are your audience will be too.

What you want is a brand image that sticks in the minds and hearts of your audience.

Constantly reinforce your message, post content that is relevant to your business, and always be consistent.

Use Audience Insights to Build a Target Persona Specifically for Facebook

Earlier, we walked through the tracking of your page and post insights. This same information can be used to construct your persona.

Gender, age, background, location, and occupation are all black and white data points that you can collect.

You can then flesh it out with more substantive information like:

  • What are their pain points?
  • What are their interests?
  • What are their attitudes and beliefs towards your business or industry?
  • What are their objections and how will you address them?
Target That Demographic When you Boost or Promote Your Posts

You can create a custom audience modeled after your ideal persona. This way, when you boost or promote a post, you’re more likely to reach those people.

Later, I’ll walk you through the best practices for paid campaigns.

Make Sure Your Like Campaigns are Very Targeted

I’m all for more likes – but not if it’s only a vanity metric.

You want quality over quantity.

There are a few ways you can attract the kind of people who care about your brand:

Apart from running like campaigns on your target audience, you can invite people who have liked your individual posts to like your page.

First, plug in your page in the search bar.

A Facebook search bar with Neil Patel's name.

Select one of your posts and click on the group of people who’ve liked it.

A group of names of people that have liked a Facebook post.

This is a goldmine for finding people who already have an affinity for your content.

Browse through to see how many people who’ve liked your posts but have not liked your page.

A list of people who have liked a Facebook post, but not the page it appeared on.

Invite them to do so.

9 out of 10 times, they will.

Add Integrations and Customizations to Your Page

You can integrate your Facebook page with other apps, tools, and platforms. These can increase the usability of your page as well as amplify your marketing efforts.

Here are some of the customizations that you can include:

  • Custom tabs
  • Email capture forms
  • Podcasts
  • Video players
  • Quizzes
  • Polls
  • Landing pages
  • Apps to run contests
  • Appointment schedule apps
  • Blog and RSS feeds
  • E-commerce tabs
Cross-Promote Other Social Media Platforms with Facebook

If you’ve built a sizable following elsewhere, you can use these platforms to grow your Facebook page.

Here’s what you can do:

  • Leave a link to your Facebook page in the bio of your other social accounts
  • Place clickable social icons on your cover photos
  • Broadcast to your other networks about your Facebook page and ask them to engage

2. Drive Facebook Organic Reach By Publishing Evergreen Content

Too many people aren’t strategic with their social media content.

Whatever your goals are for your Facebook page — be it to generate revenue or drive traffic — evergreen content is the most powerful tool at your disposal.

Freshness isn’t just Google’s ranking factor.

The life of a post in Facebook News Feed is also dependent on recency. If you publish timeless content, then it will be useful for your audience for longer periods. They’ll keep engaging with your post.

Be sure to let users know that they can revisit evergreen posts that they’ve liked and engaged with in the past.

This will lead to an increase in engagement and Facebook will ensure that your post gets distributed further and that it appears in feeds for longer periods.

I challenge you to boost post durability with evergreen content.

An example of an evergreen Facebook post.

The above evergreen post appeared 18 hours after being posted.

That’s an extremely long lifespan!

For posts that perform this well, you can repurpose them to ensure that you maximize their reach.

Here’s a simple process for repurposing evergreen content:

  • Select posts that have done exceedingly well and continued to provide value to your audience long after it was published. Take a note of them in a spreadsheet.
  • Approach that piece of content from a different angle. Put a new spin on it or change the context. Keep in mind that video content can outperform the same content in text form and vice versa. The key is to test what resonates best with your audience.
  • Publish your repurposed content at different times. This ensures that some fresh eyes get to see and engage with your newly revamped content.

But what if you don’t want to do the legwork of creating and repurposing your own posts?

Curate Other People’s Evergreen Content

Content curation is not about taking someone else’s work as your own.

It’s about collecting posts from across the internet and sharing them with your network.

But it’s a little more than just stumbling across a post, liking it, and pressing the share button.

Instead, you should treat the curation process just like you would if you were publishing your own content. Spend some time reviewing and analyzing several posts on the same topic and share them with your audience on a consistent publishing schedule.

Prime example: Later tells the stories of brands they’ve impacted successfully through their resource offerings.

A case study post from Later about their work with Unsplash.

While they do this on their blog, you can adopt the same concept for your Facebook page.

Here are some examples of evergreen content using curation-type posts:

  • Video tutorials
  • Recipe posts
  • Testimonials
  • Interviews
  • “How To” posts
  • Q & A’s
  • Thought pieces
  • Lists
  • Checklists
  • Industry-specific stats
  • Weekly roundups
  • Company mentions
  • Industry news

How can you ensure that your audience engages with this content?

Ensure your posts have all the persuasive checks and balances.

Coming up with a content strategy is half the battle.

You still have to ensure that you create the types of posts that make your audience want to share and engage.

Some tips for creating posts that captivate and inspire action:

  • Use solid visuals
  • Don’t be too formal
  • Keep it short and snappy
  • Ask a pertinent question
  • Be human
  • Have a clear call to action (I would be careful with simply asking people to like or comment)

3. Create a Facebook Group for Your Most Engaged Audience Members

Facebook is about building communities. A tightly-knit group is the closest you can get to it on social media.

A whopping 400 billion people use Facebook groups.

You’ve got two community options:

  1. Start your own group.
  2. Join a highly engaged and relevant group that serves your business goals.

We’ll focus on number 1, as it is the best addition to your Facebook marketing arsenal.

You can use it to listen and engage with your brand advocates.

Before we get into the steps for building your group, let’s talk about the reasons you may want to start your own group.

Most people form groups around:

  • Their brand/business
  • Their products/services
  • A specific lifestyle, e.g., a book club or a journaling club
  • Specific topics, e.g., a content marketing group

Of course, these aren’t your only options. As long as you can rally a group of people for a common goal, you’re good to go.

I’ve found that the most valuable groups for business are those that are either brand-specific or product-specific.

Here’s why.

You can use a branded group to build and nurture a community around your business. It also makes for a powerful tool to market your products/services.

Similarly, a product-specific group is geared towards helping customers get the most out of a product or service that you offer.

It’s all about customer success, retention, and loyalty.

You can do live coaching sessions, live Q&As, personal implementation feedback sessions, and accountability systems in your groups, to ensure that customers receive the transformation that they paid for.

Let’s get into the steps for creating a group.

Step 1. Create and Name Your Group

Find the option that says “Create Group” to begin the process.

It’s easy to find from your homepage.

After you click on this tab, you’ll be prompted to name your group.

A Facebook page allowing you to create a group.

Step 2. Create a Description

Write down your value proposition in your group description and lay down clear rules for posting in the group.

A group description and pinned post for a Facebook group.

Pro Tip: Pin your rules post at the top of the group feed. It will guide new members to act appropriately.

Also, set up your group’s privacy settings properly.

facebook organic reach facebook group privacy settings

Step 3.  Invite Engaged Audience Members to Join

Depending on the type of group, you may have to incentivize people to join.

However, with most groups, the promise of community and support is enough to get them on board.

But in case you need some incentives, you can:

  • Have an actual launch for your group. Why not turn it into an event? You can set up an email capture form to get people on a notification list.
  • Offer a welcome gift to new members. It could be a coupon code, an ebook, or anything related to your business.
  • Offer a bonus referral gift to anyone who recruits other members.

Step 4. Ignite Conversations Relevant to Your Industry

Great conversations help boost post engagement. Don’t solely promote or sell your content and products.

Other ways to increase engagement in Facebook groups:

  • Consider giving active members of your groups admin/publisher status so they can help nurture the group.
  • Do live Q&As
  • Create challenges for group members

Step 5. Create a Content Strategy for Your Group

This can include creating content themes and inciting user-generated content campaigns. User-generated content actually drives 6.9x higher engagement than brand-generated content.

For example, you can set a designated topic or engagement theme for each day.

Melyssa Griffin’s group does this very well:

A post in Melyssa Griffin's Facebook group.
A second post in Melyssa Griffin's Facebook group.

Step 6. Moderate Your Posts

Moderate all of the posts in the group and have a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to spam.

You want your group members to have the best possible experience, so weed out the spammers quickly.

An example of spam in Facebook groups.

This is a lot easier when you establish in your group rules what qualifies as spam.

An example of Facebook group rules, including one that clearly defines spam.

So, that’s it for setting up a group.

I want to warn you, though: Groups require a time commitment. You’ve got to show up to welcome new members and encourage discussions.

Also, as groups grow, engagement decreases. At this point, you may want to consider segmenting larger groups into smaller, more focused ones.

Some people completely dismantle groups with tens of thousands of members because of poor engagement.

You don’t want that.

4. Use Organic Post Targeting

Targeting isn’t limited to Facebook Ads.

You can target your organic posts to make sure that they reach the right people.

While it’s been around for a while, the feature has gotten more useful with the decrease in organic reach of quality content. You can serve your post to relevant customers based on their age and location.

Your post has to at least target 20 people. You might get below this threshold if your page only has a few thousand fans.

Here are the steps to get started with targeting.

Step 1: Enable the Targeting Feature on your Page

Head to General settings to enable targeting from your page settings.

A diagram showing how to enable targeting features on Facebook pages.

Step 2: Create Your Post and Customize Targeting Options

Dig into your Facebook Insights for data about your audience and choose targeting parameters based on your goals.

When you create your post, click the “Public” setting under your page name, and you’ll see the option to set a “restricted audience.”

Someone selecting Public on their targeting options on Facebook.

Select “Restricted Audience,” then set the age and location you want to reach. This is especially useful for local businesses or those with multiple target audiences.

Step 3: Run Several Targeted Posts Using Different Parameters

This is so you can test how your content performs for different audiences.

Step 4: Check the Results

Hop on Facebook Insights and check your results. Did the organically targeted post perform better?

Results in Facebook insights compared organically targeted posts to other posts.

Compare these social media marketing results with your average engagment rate. Also, figure out the targeting parameter that’s performing better.

In Social Media Examiner’s Experiment with Organic Targeting, a smaller page performed better than a larger page.

But, results will vary based on your audience.

5. Post When Your Competitors Are Asleep

When is the best time to post on Facebook? There’s no easy answer.

You need to consider:

  • your location and that of your audience
  • your audience profile (age, interests, occupation, etc.)
  • the type of content that you create
  • the scheduling tools that you have at your disposal

CoSchedule reports that the optimal times are 7:00 AM, 3:15 PM or 7:00 PM.

They even broke it down according to each day of the week:

  • Friday at 7:00 AM, 3:15 PM or 7:00 PM Wednesday at 7:00 AM, 3:15 PM or 7:00 PM Monday at 7:00 AM, 3:15 PM or 7:00 PM

For the most shares and clickthroughs, they’ve cited 12:00 PM, 6:00 PM, or 9:00 AM as the optimal times.

Here are a few more studies and optimal times for any media marketer or business owner to best time good content.

Scratching your head already, aren’t you? Don’t blindly post at any of these optimal times.

Dig into your Facebook Insights. Find out when your fans are online.

Facebook insights comparing post successes at different times of day.

Then, conduct your own test.

Post in the off-peak hours (6 PM – 8 AM) with the maximum possible fans online. Your chances of appearing in the feed increase since other Facebook pages aren’t posting during this period.

Here are the results when Track Maven tested with this social media marketing strategy.

TrackMaven's results when testing different times of day to post social media.

Jon Loomer also tried posting links at off-peak hours and had positive results with his organic reach.

Results showing Jon Loomer's results when attempting to test posts on social media at different times of day.

The reasons why this strategy is effective (besides less competition) are:

  • If you have an international audience, you’ll reach out to fans in a different time zone.
  • As your post receives higher engagement, Facebook will distribute the post to more of your fans.

It might even boost post views over the newer content published during peak hours.

Note: You can monitor the social media marketing posting strategies of your industry competitors using Fan Page Karma.

A screenshot of the Fan Page Karma interface.

6. Post the Content Your Users Like

Links have worked better for driving traffic. Sometimes.

Fred Alberti found that pure links generated 82% more page views than posts with photos and links in the caption.

Fred Alberti's results when testing pure links versus posts with photos and text in the captions.

Photos have become an unpopular post type with users, and hence, with marketers.

My recommendation is to post all types of updates that add value for your fans, be it links, images, polls, Facebook Lives, Facebook Stories, or even Facebook Watch videos.

Don’t stick with one content form into another just because a certain type of post is (currently) performing better on Facebook. Just like Google Facebook updates its algorithm regularly.

Instead, analyze your data from Facebook Insights to find the type of posts that resonate with your audience.

If you can, try serving value in the types of content that your audience likes.

You can also ask your audience what they prefer and respect their choice.

Simply create a poll on your Facebook page:

A screenshot showing the create poll button on Facebook.

Post your question.

A screenshot of the poll creation function of Facebook.

You might be surprised by the results! Don’t forget to test new features when they come out.

Facebook Watch, for example, drove tons of traffic when it was first released, and a lot of marketers are still not using it!

7. Publish Videos Natively on Facebook

In recent years, there has been a shift to video content.

Facebook Watch views top 1.25 billion monthly users.

Facebook tends to favor video updates, causing media marketers to use more video blog post content.

Native videos are one of the strongest performers in the news feed.

The video plays silently until a user clicks on it. It’s important that your video is high quality from the first frame. It also needs to capture attention, even without sound.

Here are some tips on getting started with Facebook Videos.

To further engage the video viewers, you can add a call-to-action (CTA) to visit your website or a destination of your choice. This can be included in the final frame, or you can boost the video and use Facebook’s Ad CTA buttons.

AdExpresso found that “Learn More,” “Shop Now,” and “Sign Up” are more popular.

Adexpresso data showing the most popular CTAs.

You also get rich video insights, so you can find out what is working with your audience.

Rich video insights on Facebook.

If you want, you can pin a video to the top of your videos tab on your Facebook page. Just click on “Feature this Video.”

BuzzFeed got 1.7 million views for a featured video.

Data for a Facebook video from Buzzfeed.

The featured video also appears prominently below your About section. Social Media Examiner used it to promote their upcoming event.

A featured video on a Facebook page.

You can also embed the video in a blog post. It’ll make for a good multimedia experience for your blog audience and it can also increase the engagement on the Facebook post.

But, can you embed videos from YouTube or should you upload them directly on Facebook?

Naturally, Facebook favors native uploads over embedded videos from YouTube or any other third party. A business owner should not be intimidated by this media marketing strategy.

An infographic from Search Engine Journal showing the value of native videos on Facebook.

This SEJ study was performed for two weeks on three Facebook pages – Search Engine Journal, Stunning and Interesting Facts, and Did You Know.

Here is a detailed breakdown of the numbers.

An infographic from Search Engine Journal comparing native video performance on Facebook versus YouTube videos.

Native videos also offer a better user experience and are usually cheaper to promote.

You can use native videos for Q&As, product launches, and co-creating with other targeted users.

8. Test Your Posting Frequency

How often should you post on Facebook? Well, it depends.

Massive websites like Huffington Post, Telegraph, and The New York Times publish a huge amount of content every day. They also push their content aggressively on Facebook.

For the average brand, this isn’t realistic.

Don’t be tempted to post 20 times a day.

Engagement actually decreases when you post too often.

The rule of thumb is to keep it between 1-3 posts/day, depending on your following.

An infographic showing how often to make posts on Facebook.

Here are a few takeaways on the frequency of posting for social media marketing on Facebook:

  • Avoid posting more than the recommended one to three times a day. It can overwhelm your audience.
  • You can post more often at widely different times if you’ve got an international audience. That’ll help you reach out to different segments of your audience (who live in a different time zone or log in to Facebook occasionally).
  • Always post high-quality content. Engage your audience with humor, inspirational, and educational content.
  • You can be successful, even with a higher posting frequency, by providing great content variety. Mix your posting schedule and post types.
  • Test your page frequency. Only your data can reveal your audience’s exact response.

9. Partner with Other Facebook Pages in Your Niche

A while ago, I shared a case study on how I used Instagram to earn $332,640 in 3 months. I struck deals with Instagram influencers (having a huge following) to post links to my landing pages.

You can use a similar strategy on Facebook.

I reached out to Facebook Pages having less than 30,000 likes for my Nutrition Secrets project. I offered a shoutout for shoutout deal to Facebook pages in my niche (about 1 in 10 pages accept such requests).

This helped me to increase the number of likes on the Nutrition Secrets Facebook Page. Any business owner will appreciate the simplicity of this media marketing strategy.

Similarly, have a look at the Facebook pages of media websites like Huffington Post and Elite Daily. They both have millions of Facebook fans and a similar audience (for certain types of content that they publish).

They share each other’s blog posts on Facebook regularly. This boosts post views for both parties while providing good content they didn’t need to create. This is simply smart media marketing.

Here is an example of a Huffington Post blog post shared by Elite Daily’s Facebook page.

A Huffington Post blog post shared on the Elite Daily Facebook page.

And, here’s an Elite Daily blog post shared by Huffington Post.

An example of Facebook organic cross promotion from Elite Daily.

Wired and Refinery29 also seem to have a similar partnership.

An example of organic Facebook cross promotion between Wired and Refinery29.

To achieve good results from this strategy, you’ll need to strike deals with pages that have tens of thousands of likes.

This means you need to have a solid influencer outreach strategy.

Here’s what you need to consider:

  • Is your target influencer the right fit, contextually? Your brand needs to resonate with its audience. Promoting your brand to a misaligned audience won’t have an impact.
  • How much reach do they have? Your influencer doesn’t need millions of followers. They just need a solid enough reach to make a difference.
  • How much authority do they have? It’s critical that your influencer has enough influence to inspire action among their audience.
  • What’s your leverage? If you’re targeting someone with a massive following and authority, you need to have something just as valuable to offer.

10. Use Word-of-Mouth Marketing to Grow Your Brand

There’s no better way to generate buzz for your brand than to turn your customers, employees, and fans into advocates.

Word-of-mouth marketing is the practice of leveraging devout fans to spread the word about your business.

Think about brands like Apple, Microsoft, and Nike.

They are known for their die-hard fans who constantly promote their products and content.

The best part?

Most do it without any paid incentive.

You, too, can leverage word-of-mouth marketing.

Here are some ideas:

  1. Reach out to the right people. Engaging your employees is one of the most effective ways of cultivating a culture of advocacy. Give them a reason to rave about your business!
  2. Offer rewards and loyalty points to customers.
  3. Give referral bonuses for recruiting more people into the network.
  4. Have top-notch customer service. You can use Facebook Messenger bots to communicate and provide value to customers.
  5. Create special brand content that your advocates can share with their networks in real-time.
  6. Always measure the effectiveness of your advocacy program. You can track sales from referral links, engagement on branded content, and the overall performance of your advocates.

11. Put Your Email List to Work

Do you ever wonder how I receive hundreds of shares and comments on every blog post I write?

It’s triggered by my email subscribers.

I simply email them, informing them about my new post. They kick off the interaction and sharing on every post.

Jay Baer shows us the similarities between an email list and Facebook fans.

A comparison from Jay Baer between email lists and Facebook fans.

So, how can you inspire social actions from email?

Simple social media marketing suggests starting by adding Facebook share buttons to your email newsletters. Some email platforms, like Mailchimp, make this easy.

Otherwise, you will need to create an HTML version of your email and create custom code for the share buttons.

Here’s how:

Instructions on creating custom HTML share buttons for emails.

Convince and Convert further recommends sending out your popular and interesting status updates to your email list on the same day.

This increases reactions and comments on the post and drives engagement on your Facebook page.

You can also combine this email list with the Facebook group strategy.

Ask your subscribers to join exciting conversations on your exclusive Facebook group.

Killer Strategy to Increase Facebook Shares

Say you already have a few hundred social media shares on your post. How would you like to increase the number of shares to a thousand?

You need to plan a strategic email outreach campaign to influencers, transitioning from just a good content strategy to boosting post views.

Identify the overlap in social media trends to your email campaigns for opportunities.

Combining the content messaging just makes sense.

The relationship between the two builds your brand engagement showing they can successfully go hand-in-hand.

12. Run Contests to Drive Facebook Organic Reach

Facebook contests are a simple way to increase your presence quickly.

But it’s a little more than just luring fans with a free gift.

Here’s what it entails:

Step #1: Set a Goal For Your Contest

Do you want to increase engagement? Grow your fan base? Generate more leads?

Whatever you decide, ensure that it is specific and measurable.

Step #2: Select What Type of Contest You’ll Run

If your goal is to generate leads, then your entry method should include a mechanism to capture those leads, for example, an email grab.

If your goal is to grow your Facebook fan base, you can require participants to follow and like your page to enter the contest.

Do you see how your method of entry should be tailored to your goal?

Step #3: Determine the Rules of Entry

Before you do so, be sure to check out Facebook’s guidelines for running contests and challenges.

Facebook's rules for running contests on the platform.

You’ll still be required to set your own rules for the contest.

Simply write up a brief letting participants know how the winner will be chosen, who’s eligible to enter, and the details of the prize.

Step #4: Decide How to Select Winners

With most contests, the winner is usually chosen randomly.

If your promotion is a challenge, then you will need someone or a group of people to judge the entries. Alternatively, you can have a voting system to pick a winner.

Step #5: Choose a Prize and Develop a Promotion Strategy

This is where most brands fail miserably.

If you don’t pick your prize carefully and promote your contest, there’s a good chance it will flop.

Always pick a prize that is relevant to your business so you avoid attracting people who are in it just for the freebie.

Here are some ideas for promoting your contest:

Tips for content promotion on Facebook.

13. Share Posts From Your Facebook Page on Your Facebook Profile

This strategy is for avid Facebook users. You should have at least 1,000+ friends on your personal Facebook profile to drive significant results.

You have the content. Now, let’s boost post views.

You first share a post on your Facebook page. Then, you share it from the page on your personal Facebook profile.

A Facebook page, pointing out how to share a post.

WPChronicles increased its reach from 5 people to 134, by using this strategy.

Keep in mind, this strategy isn’t scalable and you might annoy your friends if you do it to much.

However, you can use it occasionally for posts that add value to your Facebook friends.

Pro Tip: If you just started your Facebook page, you can quickly build your first 100 fans and get social proof. Just use the “Invite Friends” feature.

Instructions on how to invite Friends to like a page on Facebook.

This feature can also be used to grow your Facebook page from your email list. It isn’t available to all Facebook pages, though.

Using it is simple. Upload your contacts from MailChimp, Constant Contact, or any other email services. Facebook will find them and ‘suggest’ that they like your page.

14. Drive Organic Facebook Traffic With Hashtags (Used Carefully)

We’re all familiar with hashtags and how they work.

But what’s the deal with them on Facebook?

Do they have impact on a post’s reach?

Let’s see.

BuzzSumo analyzed more than 1 billion Facebook posts from over 30 million pages.

Their study seems to agree with the general consensus that Facebook users are prone to hashtag fatigue.

Posts with hashtags performed worse than those without.

A chart from Buzzsumo comparing success of posts with and without hashtags.

Does that mean that marketers shouldn’t use hashtags on Facebook at all? Not exactly.

There’s a lot of utility in Facebook hashtags.

It’s a matter of experimenting with relevant ones to see what works in your industry and for your audience.

They should also be used in moderation — one to two hashtags maximum.

Why so little?

Post Planner reported interactions are highest when one to two hashtags are used.

Information from Post Planner on success for posts with different amounts of hashtags.

While the consensus is that you shouldn’t hashtag everything, Facebook is still built to accommodate their use.

This means that you can get quite a bit of functionality out of them without adding hashtags to all your posts.

Here’s how.

Create Your Own Hashtags

There’s no special protocol for creating hashtags.

Anyone can do it.

I recommend making your hashtags unique to your brand, so it doesn’t get confused with anyone else’s. It’s also smart to use the same branding style hashtags on all social media platforms, so there’s familiarity across channels.

Pro tip: Use your branded hashtags as a metric to track your brand equity on Facebook. Their popularity will give you a good indication of how many people are buzzing about your business at a given time.

You can also point your audience to the URLs of specific hashtags so they can participate in the relevant conversations.

Use Hashtags to Make Your Facebook Group Easier to Navigate

Facebook creates a unique URL for each hashtag used. This means that you can use them to search for content.

This is particularly useful in groups when you don’t want evergreen content to be buried. Simply hashtag them so users can continue to refer to these content pieces by conducting a quick hashtag search.

For example: If you create content themes like I’ve recommended, your users can find all published content for each theme by searching for the unique URL.

Take Advantage of Facebook Trending Topics

Ever heard of newsjacking?

It’s when someone piggybacks on a trend to gain exposure for their brand.

We’ve seen it is best to use hashtags sparingly.

But if there’s ever a prime time to use them, it’s when they link to a trending topic. This way, you tap into the traffic and increase your exposure.

I must warn you: This strategy requires caution. You don’t want to be hopping on a trend that may do you more harm than good.

15. Go Against the Grain to Stand Out

Listen:

A big piece of the organic reach puzzle is competition.

You have to fight for the attention of your audience.

Want to know the best way to always be ahead of your competitors?

Find your differentiating factor and flaunt it.

Both your visual and written content should stand out.

Some pro tips for your visual content:

  • Avoid blues and grays at all costs. These colors are dominant in Facebook’s theme which means you’ll morph into a user’s news feed. You want to use colors that will stop someone in their tracks. Red, yellow, and orange are great options.
  • Create multiple visuals per post and A/B test to see which one performs better. After you’ve conducted several tests for your posts, you’ll begin to see a pattern emerge. Your audience likely responds to a few designs better than the rest.
  • Add call-to-action buttons on the actual image. This is because you want as many visual cues as possible to let users know that they should “Click Here.”
  • Don’t use stock photos. Transparency and authenticity matter on Facebook. Create your own images to humanize your brand and share visuals your audience can connect with.
  • Capture and keep attention with short captions on your visuals. Posts with 80 characters or less receive 66% higher engagement.
A chart comparing the success of different posts based on their character count, over 80 versus lower than 80.
  • Ask questions. Posts with a question have higher engagement than those without.
A chart comparing the success of posts that ask questions versus those that do not.

16. Take Advantage of New Facebook Features

Facebook’s constant app updates are no secret.

The changes come fast and frequently.

But here’s the thing:

They may fly under your radar if you don’t make it a priority to stay informed. That’s because new features are almost always released in different segments of the platform at different times.

You can take advantage of these updates.

When you get in on them early, you get the early mover’s advantage. This means that you can master it faster than anyone else and tap into the new capabilities for the benefit of your business.

Some recent updates that provide golden opportunities:

  • Feeds: Facebook has added a new dedicated Feeds tab, making it easier for users to keep track of posts from friends, family, and the different Groups they are a part of.
  • Multiple Profiles: Facebook is currently testing a feature that would let users have different profiles on the same account, potentially having distinct profiles for different people they want to interact with.
  • Facebook Reels: Facebook is now giving users the ability to create Reels from their existing videos using Creator Studio, and is also introducing API access for third-party developers. 
  • Marketing Messenger New Features: A new option was recently announced that will allow users to send promotional messages to any customers that opt into the feature.
  • Political, social, and electoral ad transparency: In the wake of recent controversy around the platform, Facebook has rolled out a set of transparency tools. These can show targeting details like demographics and ad budget dedicated to said demographics.

17. Create an Effective Facebook Paid Marketing Strategy

You must be wondering, “I thought this was about organic traffic?”

Here’s the thing:

Paid reach can funnel into your organic reach and extend the lifecycle of your posts.

This means it will be shown to more people and users will be able to interact with your content for a longer period of time.

How is this possible?

It’s simple.

People can still see your post even though they weren’t targeted through paid distribution.

The audience that you pay for may decide to share and engage with the post. In that case, it will gain an organic reach when their audience also engages.

Now let’s get into how to run effective paid promotions for your posts.

Step #1: Install the Facebook Tracking Pixel on Your Site

The Facebook pixel allows you to track the specific actions taken on your website and other landing pages.

Better yet, it allows you to build custom audiences so you can retarget people who’ve visited your website.

If you haven’t installed it yet, go to your “Ads Manager” or “Power Editor.”

A screenshot showing how to install a Facebook Tracking Pixel.

You’ll be prompted to create a Pixel if you don’t have an active one.

After you’ve created your Pixel, you’ll receive a tracking code that you have to copy and paste into the header of your website.

To easily place the Pixel on your website, you can do one of two things:

  1. Use Google Tag Manager to place the code in your title tags without messing around with your website’s HTML files.
  2. Use a WordPress plugin called PixelYourSite. After it’s installed, get your Pixel ID from your Ads Manager and simply copy it into the settings of the plugin. There’ll be no need to play with codes and title tags.

And that’s it!

Do this once, and you’re good.

Step #2: Gain Traction Organically Before Paying

We’ve seen how organic and paid reach work hand in hand.

This is an effective way to ensure that your ads reach more people at a cheaper cost.

Some tips for organic promotion:

  • Share your post multiple times on Facebook. Make sure you vary the format as well as the time that you publish.
  • Reach out to influencers to share your content with their networks.
  • Post to other Facebook pages and groups where you’re allowed to.

Step #3: Create Your Ad or Boost Your Post

You can either run an official Facebook ad or a boosted post campaign.

At first glance, they appear the same.

So what’s the difference?

A few things.

  • Ads are created using your Ad Manager while boosted posts can be run directly from your business page.
  • You must first publish a post on your page to boost it whereas an ad does not need to be on your page.

This means the strategy of promoting posts organically first, is best suited to boosted posts.

Let’s get into the details.

How to Boost a Post on Facebook

First, find the “Boost Post” button under your post.

A screenshot showing the boost post function on Facebook.

Select a goal:

A screenshot showing how to set ad goals on Facebook.

Narrow down your audience.

You can opt for:

  • People who like your page
  • People who like your page and their friends
  • People who you choose through targeting
The choose your audience function of Facebook Ads

Set your budget and duration of your campaign.

Facebook's functionality to choose ad budget and duration for a campaign.

Finally, ensure that your Tracking Pixel is turned on.

A screenshot showing the Facebook pixel being turned on.

So that’s it for boosted posts.

What about actual Facebook ads? The concept is not much different.

Put these steps into action.

Step #4: Create your Ad using Ads Manager

Head to Meta Ads Manager.

Select an objective for your campaign.

You have way more options than a boosted post.

A screenshot of Meta Ads Manager.

But you can only select one objective.

An objective chosen for an ad campaign.

Step #5: Define Your Targeting Options

You can either:

  • Create a custom audience: To reach people who’ve already engaged with your business. For example, you can import your email list to form a custom audience.
  • Create a lookalike audience: To reach new people who are similar to an audience you already have elsewhere.
  • Use a saved audience: If you’ve run ads in the past, you can use the same audience.

Select your ad placement.

A screenshot setting ad location on Facebook.

Set your budget and schedule.

A screenshot setting ad location and budget.

Format your ad, write a click-worthy caption, and add an eye-catching image.

After you’ve finalized the creative elements, you can place your ad order, and you’re set to go.

Pro tip: Read this post on how to make your Facebook ads better.

Step #6: Use Retargeting

Have you ever visited a website, and ten seconds later, been shown a Facebook Ad from that very website?

Chances are you have.

When marketers abuse it, this could get annoying for a consumer.

Imagine continuously being shown ads for a product you already bought or a website you were never really interested in.

In any event, this is still one of the most powerful tools in a marketer’s toolbox.

It’s where you’ll experience the full capability of the Facebook Pixel.

If you implemented Step 1, yours should be fired up and ready to go.

So, how does retargeting work?

It allows you to target your ads to people who’ve demonstrated an interest in your business.

Here’s a visual representation of the process:

An infographic showing how ad retargeting works on Facebook.

As you see, this is brilliant for recapturing lost leads.

The whole premise is that it’s easier to convert someone who’s already engaged with your business rather than a total stranger.

Now:

Your retargeting ads are set up with the same steps that I detailed above for a normal ad campaign.

Your targeting is the only variant.

A screenshot showing how to create custom audiences on Facebook.

Something to keep in mind: Retargeting campaigns take some time to gain traction. Set a goal, decide on a time frame, and commit to running your ads for the duration of that time frame.

Step #7: Determine the ROI of your Facebook Ads

Let’s talk about results.

Facebook campaigns aren’t difficult to set in motion.

Yet, many marketers don’t see the results that they hoped for.

But here’s the brutal truth:

Unless you track your ads, how much they cost, and the return you’re getting, there’s no way you can keep optimizing your performance.

So which metrics should you be tracking?

  • Conversion rates
  • Number of times an ad has been served to a user
  • Return on dollar investment
  • Click Through Rate (CTR)
  • Cost per Click (CPC)

These are all available in your Power Editor with Facebook’s Ad reporting function.

Analyze your results and work towards improving them.

18. Harness the Power of Facebook “Dark Posts”

Facebook “dark posts” have been around for a while.

Yet, they’re one of the most underutilized marketing tools.

Is the concept as sinister and shadowy as the name sounds?  A bit.

“Dark posts,” otherwise called unpublished posts, are news feed style ads that don’t get published to your news feed. This means that they won’t be found on your timeline or in your fans’ feed.

So what’s the point?

You can:

  • Create as many ads as you want without turning off your audience
  • Split test several elements of your ads to select the highest-performing variations
  • Decide to expose only the high-impact ads to your organic audience and be confident that they’ll perform
  • Stay in Facebook’s good graces. Your page will be less promotional which is what Facebook’s algorithm favors
  • Personalize your ad copy for different segments of your audience

Now that you know the benefits, here’s how you can put unpublished “dark posts” to work for your business.

Head to Ads Manager, then follow these steps from Facebook.

Instructions on how to create a page post in Facebook Ads Manager.

You’ve created an unpublished post, aka a Dark Post.

19. Grab Attention and Inspire Action with Persuasive Copy

If you’ve had any success on Facebook, you already know that the creative elements are the variables that matter.

What does this mean for your Facebook strategy?

You need to test different aspects of the creative. This includes split testing your copywriting and visual elements to find the highest performing combinations.

It will serve you well for both paid promotions and your organic reach.

We’ve already been through the visual elements.

So let’s talk about copy.

The purpose of persuasive copy is to:

1. Improve Your Click Through Rate (CTR)

CTR refers to the number of people who click through to your website after they’ve been served your ad.

If it’s low, that’s a pretty good indication that your ad copy and visuals need work.

CTR is not a metric that will make or break your media marketing performance, but you also don’t want to get it wrong.

That would mean leaving a better result on the table.

2. Lower your Cost per Action (CPA)

An action will depend on what your conversion goal is.

It could be:

  • Video views
  • App installs
  • E-commerce store visits
  • Page visits
  • Shares, comments, and likes

Any action that you want users to take when served your content comes into play here.

The less it costs you to drive these actions, the higher your conversion rates.

So, what does persuasive copy have to do with CPA?

Well, users will only move on a solid call to action (CTA).

In turn, the strength of your CTAs depend on your copy.

How to Craft Compelling Facebook Call-Actions That Convert

  • Always tailor your CTA to your conversion goal. Generic, one-size-fits-all copy won’t cut it.
  • Use exclusivity to amp up perceived value. This goes hand in hand with urgency. In fact, words used to convey exclusivity can also be used to drive urgency.
  • Create urgency to give users an extra push. Think of relevant words and phrases that evoke a sense of now. The fear of missing out (FOMO) will kick in, and users will have a greater chance of taking action.
  • Eliminate weak verbs like download, save, learn, and find out. These lack the energy and punch to get people excited. If you must use them, add urgency words to modify. For example, CTAs with “Now” at the end always convert better than those without.
  • Don’t get caught up in the rules. Yes, the tips above have been proven time and time again to generate results. But your audience and what they respond to is what matters. The other elements in your content also factor in, so don’t look at calls to actions in isolation.

20. Focus on Value and Don’t Worry About Reach

As a marketer, everything comes down to conversions and ROI, right?

The organic reach of your posts on Facebook is like a secondary metric.

Jon Loomer puts it perfectly.

A quote from Jon Loomer on the value of Facebook organic reach.

If you go after reach rather than valuable content, you’ll be trying to game Facebook’s algorithm.

Deja vu?

Remember Google cracking down on black hat SEOs trying to game their search results?

Every platform wants to improve the experience of its users and increase engagement.

So, don’t go around chasing Facebook’s organic reach.

Instead, share every post with an objective.

  • With links, you want to get clicks and drive traffic to your website.
  • Status updates should be focused on engaging with your audience and getting comments.
  • Share graphics to inspire your audience and get engagement.
  • Share videos to primarily get video views. The CTA in the video can be used to drive traffic to your website.

The organic reach of your page is not the best performance indicator.

So while you may want to amp up your game, you need to consider how much reach is enough to justify the time and effort it takes to build your Facebook assets.

Write down the goals you want to achieve through your Facebook page.

Consider :

  • The size of your business
  • The scale of your operations
  • Your objectives
  • Your audience
  • The ROI of increasing Facebook reach

Only then should you devise a Facebook marketing strategy around these goals.

Choose the metrics you’ll use to measure your results.

Don’t let algorithmic changes dictate your marketing strategy.

FAQs

What does organic reach on Facebook mean?

The number of people who see your content without paying for it is referred to as organic reach. People who see your posts in their own feeds or because their friends have interacted with you are included.

What is a good organic reach?

Since reach is based on unique views of your content, it can be assessed across your entire page or from post to post. Organic, non-sponsored reach is the hardest to gain, but viral reach and ad reach are also options when targeting your audience. 

Is Facebook organic reach dead?

Organic reach on Facebook may be down, but it’s not dead. If your reach is close to 3%, you’re at a scalable target. You can also use a paid strategy to boost your numbers if you need to.

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Conclusion

Facebook is a brilliant marketing tool.

There’s no doubt about that.

The number of businesses that actively use the platform continues to increase by millions, year over year.

But Facebook is not without its challenges.

The influx of published content has led to a downward spiral in organic reach, and the competition for news feed space is fierce.

Things that were once done on autopilot, now require significantly more effort and due diligence.

Will organic reach continue to plummet?

Or will it improve?

Nobody really knows what the future holds for organic reach on Facebook.

Either way, our task remains the same.

We have to get creative in our social media marketing and provide the highest quality content to our audience.

If you implement the strategies that I share in this post, you’ll be well on your way to improving how to increase organic reach on Facebook.

You’ll also be more skilled at navigating Facebook’s ever-changing platform.

What is your Facebook page’s average organic reach? What strategies are you using to combat organic reach decline on Facebook?

18 Ways to Improve Your Organic Click-Through Rate (CTR)

Many times, marketers focus their SEO efforts entirely on discoverability.

They want to tick that careful balance between keyword optimized and “keyword stuffed,” but here’s a secret: being on the first page of search engine results pages (SERPs) won’t do you any good if searchers aren’t interested in your content.

Instead of focusing all your efforts on creating local SEO content to bag that top spot, you need to understand what turns searchers into readers, and readers into customers, through first improving your organic click-through rate (CTR).

Why Should You Care About Your Organic CTR?

Organic click-through rate refers to the percentage of users who click on a search engine result. In this case, that result would be your URL. While it’s primarily dependent on ranking position (the more people that see your content, the higher chance they’ll click), it is also influenced by a variety of other factors.

If you focus your efforts on improving organic CTR, you can also improve your Google ranking. When URLs are being frequently visited, the search engine algorithm will consider your page to be valuable and relevant to future queries containing your content keywords.

18 Ways to Improve Your Organic CTR

Now that you know what organic CTR is and why it’s important, let’s dive into how you can improve yours.

1. Use Long-Tail Keywords

One of the first ways you can boost your organic CTR is by using long-tail keywords—especially in your headings and title tags. Long-tail keywords are highly descriptive and, as a result, they match your content to search intent.

When users see a descriptive long-tail keyword relevant to what they’re looking for, they’re motivated to click on your URL as they’re confident your post will contain the information they’re looking for.

How do you find long-tail keywords that meet user intent?

Using keyword research tools like Ubersuggest will help. Simply plug in your seed keyword in the search bar and click “search.” Next, click on the “Keyword Ideas” in the left sidebar.

Use tools like Ubersuggest to find long-tail keywords that help boost your organic CTR.

All that’s left is to select the keywords that are relevant to your post, and include them in your new content.

2. Write Effective Meta Descriptions

Another strategic way of improving your organic CTR is to write effective meta descriptions. These are the snippets of text that appear below your title tag in the SERPs. An effective meta description informs users what your page is about and also compels them to click through to your post.

Again, your keywords will come in handy here. Use them to show users that your article solves a problem they’re needing answers for. Other ways of optimizing your meta description include:

  • Answering questions: If you can answer your users’ questions in the meta description, you’ve won half the battle driving your organic click-through rate up.
  • Make it specific and relevant: You only have 160 characters to craft a meta description. That’s why you must make yours as specific and relevant as possible.
  • Powerful language: Use persuasive and powerful language, such as emotionally charged words to elicit strong responses associated with your post to improve your CTR.

Meta descriptions shouldn’t just be a product feature—turn it into an elevator pitch to convince users you have the content and solution for them. If possible, you can also add a CTA (such as “learn more” and “find out how.”)

3. Implement Structured Data

Implementing structured data is a great way to “speak” to search engine algorithms. You can do this by using Schema.org to change your content into code that search engines can easily process. This will help them display rich, interactive search results. These are commonly called rich snippets (which we’ll talk more on later).

Of course, this type of search result attracts more clicks because:

  • They appear at the top of the SERPs.
  • They are more attractive than plain URLs.
  • They give more information about the content at a glance.

Implementing structured data will boost your organic CTR rates as people love interactive content.

4. Create Posts With Images

Using images in your posts is a common practice, but did you know it can improve your organic CTR? Images in your content are a powerful way to boost engagement. They are an essential ingredient to your content appearing in the featured snippets and other infoboxes on the SERPs.

Using images is a great way to boost your organic CTR.

Not only that, but it also improves the chances of your URL being clicked on when users look for search results in the images section. For this to work, you must implement image SEO best practices like naming your images properly and adding alt text.

5. Use Descriptive URLs

Your page URL is one of the main pieces of information shown on SERPs. As such, you must optimize it to help you improve your organic CTR.

One way you can do that is by making it as descriptive as possible.

Using descriptive URLs helps improve your organic CTR.

Try to naturally include your keyword in your URL. This will reinforce the core topic your post is about, thereby showing users that your content is relevant.

Another tip for optimizing your URL is to keep it short. This makes it easier on the eye as well as more attractive. As a result, more people will click on it.

If you’re a WordPress user, you can change your URL in your permalink settings.

6. Simplify Your Title Format

Your title tag is another part of the information displayed on the SERPs, and you must take your time to format it properly. The best way to do so is to keep it simple.

Remember, people usually skim through the search results looking for the most relevant result. If your title is simple and clearly explains what the post is about, you’ll drive more clicks.

Another title tag tip that will optimize your organic CTR is to leverage your corporate or personal branding. Here’s how I do it:

Improve organic CTR by paying attention to your title tag.

This tip will work especially well if you’re already an authority in your niche. Recognizing that the post is from a respected and trusted source will give users the confidence to click on your URL. Make sure you:

  • Don’t frontload your brand: I used to put my name at the front of the title but then I noticed it caused my rankings to drop.
  • Make sure your title is clear: notice that the title in the above screenshot is cut-off, but the topic has already been covered.

Use tools such as Avid Demand to preview what your content will look like on the SERPs.

7. Localize Your Content

Mobile has rapidly overtaken desktop for internet traffic sources. Most mobiles have locations turned on, for map functions, allowing Google to read their location and provide local solutions. Creating localized content is great for SMEs who only operate in certain areas and in-person service businesses.

Increase your organic CTR by localizing your content. Local content is what most mobile users search for.

Through localized content, you can target your audience efficiently—and receive high-intent customers as a result, who are already looking online for something you sell or offer.

One way of localizing your content is to add your location in your content, meta description, and title tag. Another tip is to list your business on Google My Business (GMB). This literally puts you on the map. When local searches are made, your location and other business info will appear in the search results alongside competitors.

Remember, to drive clicks, you must offer relevant information. For local searches, it doesn’t get more relevant than seeing your location in your metadata.

8. Use the Listicle Format

People love lists.

Why? Listicles require minimum cognitive effort to digest.

Include them in your content strategy to improve organic clicks. To do that, make sure to include numbers in your headline and title tag. This will make it clear to users that beyond the click is an easy-to-read listicle.

Another organic CTR boosting reason to use listicles is that they increase your chances of appearing in featured snippets.

Listicles are a great content type that helps boost organic CTR.

Notice how the headline doesn’t include a number, yet Google shows users that the post is a listicle in the featured snippet? Google’s SERP knows what content types are most useful to its audiences, and using listicles is bound to boost your organic CTR.

9. A/B Test Headlines on Social Media

Your headline is your first chance to compel users to click on your article. As it plays such an important role, you must make sure it resonates with your target audience.

One way to do that is by testing it on social media.

Once you’ve optimized your headline with tools like CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer, test out your headline by sharing your article on your favorite social media platforms.

Give it a few days and then change the title of your headline and re-publish your post. Share the new article on social media and wait for the same number of days as you gave the first post then check the engagement rates for both.

The headline that drives the most engagement wins and should be the headline to use. This A/B test works best if you have a large audience on social media.

10. Use Yoast Preview (in WordPress)

For WordPress users, Yoast is another SEO tool you can use to improve your organic CTR. Before you publish your post, preview your snippet as it will appear on SERPs. You can then make changes according to the recommendations given.

This will help you see if any keywords are cut off, or even if your snippet makes sense. It also works for mobile, too, so no need to worry about cross-platform searches.

11. Use Google Ads to Preview (Other CDN)

Google AdWords Preview Tool is an alternative to Yoast SEO that also has an extra feature: it allows you to preview Ads.

Ad previews can also be optimized for organic CTR on both mobile and desktop, with alternative titles provided. This is a great way to see how different ideas would work while possibly generating new ideas for content.

12. Identify CTR Winners and Losers

One essential step to improving your organic CTR is to calculate the winners and losers of your current pages. This will show you which pages, titles, and content types are performing well as well as which are performing poorly.

You can easily use Google Analytics for this information.

First, go to “Acquisition,” then “Search Console,” then “Queries” and learn which Google searches lead to your current pages.

Google Analytics shows you the  current organic CTR of your pages.

The report will show you valuable information like the clicks, impressions, CTR, and average SERP position of your pages. It also shows bounce rates, sessions, conversions, and other valuable data.

Next, in the same menu, you can also check your landing pages.

Using these two reports, you can see what works and what doesn’t. You can then revisit old pages and web content to optimize them for more organic click-throughs.

13. Optimize Site Speed

With Google prioritizing Page Experience and Web Core Vitals as ranking factors, site speed has never been more important.

If your website isn’t optimized for speed, people may click on your link but will quickly bounce off, negatively affecting your organic CTR. To put it in perspective, on mobile devices, a leap from one to three seconds in site speed increases bounce rates by 32 percent.

A 3 second lag in page load speed can cost you as much as 32% of your traffic. Your organic CTR will take a hit.

Again, this is where a tool like Ubersuggest comes in handy. To check your site speed, enter your URL into the search bar and click “Search.” Next, head to the left side of the sidebar and click “Site audit.” Scroll down to “Site Speed” and you’ll be shown the loading time for mobile and desktop. In addition to loading time, it also tests:

  • First Contentful Paint
  • Speed Index
  • Time to Interactive
  • First Meaningful Paint
  • First CPU Idle
  • Est. Input Latency

Ubersuggest will outline where you can make site improvements. Take its guidance into consideration, make the necessary changes, and then test your site speed again.

14. Utilize Rich Snippets

As we touched on earlier, rich snippets are another way you can drive clicks to your website. These are search results with data displayed alongside. Here’s an example:

Rich snippets are an excellent way to increase your organic CTR.

The only ways to show those reviews and ratings in search results are either (A) activating a rich snippet plugin or (B) coding it manually. The extra information (like ratings, for example), helps users decide whether to click on your URL or not.

15. Activate Breadcrumb Navigation

Breadcrumb navigation” is coined after the trail of bread crumbs left by Hansel and Gretel to find their way back home. Just like in the fairy tale, its secondary navigation helps you easily trace your steps back on a website.

The primary purpose of bread crumb navigation is to provide users with a positive user experience. This has a snowball effect that results in your website ranking higher and thus results in higher organic CTR.

Activating bread crumb navigation on your website is not an option. It’s vital to your success, and must be a deliberate part of your strategy. Here are detailed instructions on how you can do just that.

16. Leverage Google Analytics Reports

Have you been keeping an eye on your Google Analytics reports? These actually deliver the information you need to improve organic search performance and your landing page conversion rates. This will result in better calls-to-action and, ultimately, a higher quality score.

If you know what to look for, your Analytics Dashboard can tell you exactly how Google’s AI and your users perceive your site’s pages. You can then tailor them to be optimized to rank and for engagement.

17. Build High Converting Landing Pages

Landing pages are an essential element of your digital marketing strategy.

After all, designed well, they are an excellent source of traffic. To ensure your landing pages succeed in doing that you should:

  • Understand landing page anatomy—elements such as a clear and concise headline, high-quality images, well-produced videos, persuasive copy, and calls-to-action should be done right.
  • Optimize for UX—give users a positive experience by ensuring the landing page loads fast and is easy to read.

Doing this will likely increase your conversions and improve your click-through rates.

18. Use Heatmaps to Improve Site Clicks

A smart way to get the most out of your site users is to understand the areas of your web page where they click the most. It’s also an excellent idea to check where most users drop off. This is essential as it will help you know which parts of your website to improve.

Why is this important?

When people spend more time on your website and engage with it by clicking through to other pages, search engines take it as a signal that your content is valuable. On the other hand, if your bounce rate is high, your website will be ranked lower as search engines see that as a sign that your content is unhelpful.

Organic CTR Frequently Asked Questions

What Is a Good Organic CTR?

The average organic CTR is between 3-5 percent. However, a good organic CTR is not benchmarked against industry standards but against your own CTR curve.

What Is the Significance of the Organic CTR ?

Organic CTR is an important metric to track as it impacts your rankings and the amount of traffic that comes to your website.

What Are Some Common Reasons for a Low CTR?

Common reasons for low CTR include metadata that’s not compelling enough. It could also be because of not utilizing rich snippets among other things.

Is a High CTR Good or Bad?

Having a high CTR is good for business as it means more traffic to your website. It also means better brand awareness as your rankings will improve.

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Organic Click-Through Rate (CTR) Conclusion

Your organic CTR plays a crucial role in the success of your digital marketing campaigns.

It’s “free” customers coming in to browse your business, brand, products, and services.

Therefore, optimizing your content must be a priority.

With so many options for improving CTRs, it’s no longer a hassle for website and business owners. Plus, the results are certainly worth the effort and speak for themselves.

What strategies do you use to improve your organic CTR?

How to Claim Knowledge Panels in Google For More Organic Visibility

If something is written about your brand online, you want to know about it, right?

That’s even more true if it’s an authoritative source speaking about your brand and giving information to the public about what you sell, where you’re located, your hours, your website, and more.

When Google shares information about your brand in what is called Google Knowledge Panels, you don’t want to just know about it—you want to claim it.

Why do you want to claim knowledge panels? You get to control the narrative. When you tell Google you’re the owner of that brand, you can make sure the information is accurate and up to date.

This is a critical step when you’re using SEO to build your brand.

To claim knowledge panels for your brand is relatively simple and something you want to get on top of to keep customers coming through your doors or to your website with consistency, arming them with the right information.

What Are Google Knowledge Panels?

You don’t have to use too much imagination. Remember the last time you googled anything? The information you were looking for just popped up, towards the top of the screen, with relevant data all in one place.

Enter Google Knowledge Panels. You don’t have to know what they’re called to know what they are. They are the boxes of information you see near the top of a Google search for anything from a person to a brand.

Knowledge panels can include:

  • a brand or entity name
  • descriptions
  • details about the person or brand
  • history
  • contact information
  • featured images

According to Google, it uses different factors to decide what goes in that panel. As you start to look around, you’ll start to notice some information seems gathered from other sources, such as Wikipedia or other online websites.

In addition, Google uses its data involving keyword searches and questions people tend to ask regarding that particular entity or item, and it pulls those questions and answers in.

It’s all based on Google’s Knowledge Graph. Google uses all that data to build the knowledge panels you see when you search for something. These aren’t necessarily generated by the person who has claimed their Google knowledge panel.

Now, let’s look at a couple of examples.

claim knowledge panel watermelon example

This one is about watermelons. It’s not specifically owned by anyone in particular and therefore not claimable.

claim knowledge panel - queen Elizabeth

Here is an example of a knowledge panel associated with a person. She could go in and claim it using the button on the bottom left.

We’ll discuss more about how this works.

Why Should You Claim Knowledge Panels in Google?

Is it worth taking the time to claim knowledge panels in Google? If you’re the owner of a brand with a knowledge panel, you can verify your relationship to that entity and at least influence some of the information provided in the panel.

There are several reasons why you should consider taking the time to claim knowledge panels:

  • increase control over what’s being highlighted about your brand
  • ensure accurate and up-to-date information
  • keep social media profile links up to date
  • choose which featured images are used
  • have a more engaged relationship with what Google is showing about your brand

While you don’t have direct access to the panel to make changes, by claiming your knowledge panel, you have Google’s ear, so to speak. You can send in a suggestion or request an update with your Google account associated with that knowledge panel so when Google receives your request, it knows it’s coming from an authoritative source.

Steps to Claim Knowledge Panels in Google

ow you’re ready to claim knowledge panels that relate to you, your brand, or entities that you represent in Google. Here are some steps to get you started:

1. Sign in to Your Google Account

You need to have a Google account to be able to claim knowledge panels. If you have a Gmail address or other Google product where you’ve set up an account, then you are good to go. If not, go ahead and set one up. To continue, you’ll need to be logged in. 

Now log in to your preferred Google account. If you use a specific account for your brand or your related business needs, sign in to that one. 

2. Search for the Knowledge Panel Topic

Once you’re logged in, use Google to search for yourself, your brand, your entity, or your organization. It may seem self-explanatory, but you need to actually type in the entity for which knowledge panel you’re looking for. 

The goal here is to pull up the knowledge panel like any other searcher on the internet would see it. There is no back-end way to see the knowledge panel, like the development or content end of your website. 

The nice thing about this is you’ll be able to see what users see. Maybe since you’re sitting down to work on this anyway, you may think of related topics you want to check out. You can do that from here by performing a search for that knowledge panel. 

Now that you’ve searched for it, you should see the brand or other name at the top of the knowledge panel. If not, search again. Many brands or organizations have similar or even identical names, so make sure you see yours before continuing. You don’t want to accidentally claim someone else’s—or get stuck not being able to claim your own. 

3. Click the Claim Knowledge Panels Link

Look for the link on the bottom that says, “Claim This Knowledge Panel.”

The button is located at the bottom of the box surrounding the knowledge panel. The size may vary, but all are surrounded by a thin line.

Go ahead and click the link. If you don’t see it, the knowledge panel may already be claimed by another entity. Make sure you’re looking at the right panel. 

Here you will be able to review the available features. As we mentioned above, knowledge panels are not created by those who claim or verify them. Google uses various algorithms and machine knowledge to pull what it deems to be relevant information into these panels. 

4. Look for Profiles You Can Use to Claim Knowledge Panels

Google uses a number of different connections on other web platforms that you can sign into to prove your identity or relation to the knowledge panel you want to claim. You can choose from YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and more. Once you sign in to one of these, you’ve claimed your knowledge panel and can make updates or changes as available. 

5. Give Others Access 

Once you’ve gone through all the work to claim your knowledge panel, you may want to make sure other people on your team have access to your brand’s knowledge panels as well. 

To do this, you need to be logged in to the same Google account you used to claim the panel. Go to Google’s Manage User page. 

Click to add people and then add the email addresses of those you want to give access to your knowledge panels. Choose which levels of permission you want to give them. Every level has the option to go in and suggest changes to your knowledge panel, which we will discuss in more detail below. However, an owner or manager can add or delete others from access.

7 Steps to Update Your Google Knowledge Panel

Now that you have verified yourself and have claimed your knowledge panel, you can begin the work of actually managing it.

This won’t eat up all your time or require constant maintenance, but you may want to check in every once in a while. If you do see an error in your Google knowledge panel or if one has been reported to you, you can take certain steps to make necessary updates. It’s at Google’s discretion, however, so it may take some time and patience.

  1. Sign In

    Make sure you’re logged in to the Google account you used to claim your knowledge panel, or the one someone used to gain you access to the knowledge panel. Otherwise, Google won’t recognize you as someone related to that account.

    In addition, you need to turn on “Web and App Activities” under Google’s Activity Controls in your Google account. Essentially, this helps track your steps as you are moving around your searches and helps Google ensure you have access to the knowledge panel.

  2. Search for the Knowledge Panel

    Just as when you claimed your knowledge panel, you need to use Google Search to look for the entity whose knowledge panel you want to update. Googling your brand’s name is probably the best and easiest way to get there, but remember to look carefully at the knowledge panel and make sure it’s referencing the entity you intended. If not, keep searching until you find the right one.

  3. Click Suggest Edits

    If you are logged in to the correct Google account and are looking at the associated knowledge panel, you should see a link at the top of the knowledge panel that says “Suggest Edits” or a similar iteration. If you don’t see it, verify you are signed in correctly and are looking at the right knowledge panel.

    When you are, go ahead and click it. This is your portal for suggesting updates.

  4. Choose What You Want to Update

    Click the area you want to update. You will be doing each one separately, so if you have more than one change you would like to see, just start with one, and you can continue with more changes later.

    Areas you want to update might include images, descriptions or titles, social media profile links, and more.

    Here is an example using Boden’s knowledge panel. You can see how each bit of information is broken into different options. You can choose which section you want to suggest an update for.
    claim knowledge panels

  5. Write Out Your Suggested Updates

    Because this is Google’s product and not one you can directly control yourself, you can’t just go in and make updates on the areas you would like.

    You can, however, ask Google to go in and review your suggestions.

    When you click on the area you want to update, a small text box will open where you can enter your suggested update.

    Be as specific as possible and provide as much background as you can. This helps the reviewer on Google’s end have as much context as possible to understand the logic behind the suggested change. You can also provide links to any websites or pages to verify your requested change.

  6. Wait

    This isn’t the easy part, but you will have to wait for your review to be accepted. Google will manually review your suggestion and check for verifiable information online to back up your update for accuracy. That’s why providing the specifics and URLs as mentioned above is important.

    When Google accepts your updates, you will be contacted via email.

  7. Create More Suggestions

    You should send each update as a separate request. In other words, if you want to see the image updated as well as social media profile links, you should do these separately.

    This keeps the review process clean and easy to follow. It also allows you to be specific and detailed without muddling your requests.

    Get in there and make suggestions for updates whenever you deem necessary.

Conclusion

Knowing what people are learning about you and your brand is key to understanding how the public perceives you. If the information at the top of a Google search isn’t accurate or isn’t reflective of what you want to project, you need to claim knowledge panels and request those updates are made.

Claiming knowledge panels can give you at least a little more control over how your brand appears in a Google search, but it’s not the end. In fact, it’s just one step in building an online brand and SEO. There’s so much you can do to improve your SEO and stay in front of your customer base with the knowledge they need to interact with your brand well.

Have you claimed your brand’s Google knowledge panel yet?

9 Ways to Improve Organic Reach and Beat the YouTube Algorithm

As the most-viewed site globally, YouTube is a must-visit destination for marketers and content creators looking to increase audience reach.

While it is possible to optimize YouTube SEO to score top results, without an understanding of the YouTube algorithm, SEO alone won’t manifest videos on a potential viewer’s suggested video list.

YouTube’s product chief underlined the reality of the impact of suggested-to-watch videos in an interview, noting 70% of a user’s time spent on the platform was dictated by the company’s suggested video algorithm.

70%. That number is huge.

To truly execute a successful YouTube marketing strategy, improve organic reach, and take advantage of that massive percentage, you need in-depth familiarity with the unique YouTube algorithm. Here are nine ways to increase your organic reach on YouTube.

The YouTube Algorithm’s Evolution

What began as a venture capital-funded technology startup in 2006 is now our go-to spot for all things video.

Although YouTube itself has undergone significant changes over the past fifteen years, its algorithm has, by far, been its most dynamic feature.

Before 2012, YouTube charted video success by the number of views alone, regardless of the length of viewing. This singular YouTube algorithm led to a profusion of clickbait videos that relied upon misrepresentative headlines and thumbnails to earn views, with most audience members jumping ship immediately.

Later the same year, YouTube began measuring success through view duration, a metric that rewarded longer-viewed videos with increased search promotion.

Today, we still see the roots of the platform’s infancy in the current YouTube algorithm, which draws heavily on view duration as a component of a video’s ranking.

How Does the YouTube Algorithm Work?

While YouTube’s stated mission is to give everyone a voice and a window to explore the world, one of YouTube’s lower-ranking goals is to engage viewers for extended amounts of time, maximizing the number of advertisement interactions.

Why does this secondary goal matter? Because YouTube suggests videos that satisfy this goal of increased exposure to advertiser content.

YouTube uses an algorithm based on three main qualifiers: relevance, engagement, and quality.

To benchmark relevance, YouTube explores the pairing of title, description, tags, and content with an individualized search query.

Engagement aggregates the number of responses from users, including watch time, engagement, and frequency.

Quality rating is determined by a channel’s ability to demonstrate trustable authority.

In addition to these three qualifiers, YouTube’s algorithm also draws on a user’s historical views and a video-specific assigned score, one that weighs both novelty and frequency of channel uploads, among other attributes.

This combination of statistics allows YouTube to recommend videos that speak directly to a viewer’s interests, continuing a narratively static viewing material chain.

These videos will appear in six different locations on the YouTube platform:

  1. Search results
  2.  Recommended Streams (as shown in the screenshot on the right side in the below screenshot)
  3. Notifications
  4. Channel Subscriptions
  5. Trending Streams
  6. YouTube Home Page
9 Ways to Improve Organic Reach via the YouTube Algorithm

Much like any search algorithm, YouTube’s ranking system is in constant flux, evolving and adapting in an ongoing attempt to better define and satisfy user engagement.

How do I Improve my Organic Reach on YouTube?

Armed with a concrete understanding of how the YouTube algorithm works, it’s time to break down how you can harness your newfound knowledge to increase your organic reach.

1. Keywords and Metadata

YouTube made it explicitly clear in their algorithm explanation that content-relevant keywords, descriptions, captions, and tags all matter when you’re optimizing videos for search. Make sure you do your keyword researching using a tool like Ubersuggest to make sure you’re mentioning terms users are looking for.

By writing compelling, keyword-rich titles and descriptions, you increase your chances of attracting audience members’ attention and increasing your video’s search visibility.

Check out this post if you need to brush up on SEO basics.

2. Optimized Description

The quote “you never get a second chance to make a first impression” is true of YouTube just as much as life.

Ensure audience engagement by crafting attention-getting copy that not only attracts your potential audience but also harnesses your keywords’ power.

9 Ways to Improve Organic Reach via the YouTube Algorithm -- video description optimization

YouTube slants toward the verbose, advocating long descriptions, so don’t be afraid to go the extra wordy mile with them.

Although your prospective viewer will only interact with the first few lines of the description unless they select the “show more” option, those few short lines are valuable real estate when it comes to attracting your audience.

3. Video Transcription

Closed captions not only help those with accessibility needs, but allows users to watch videos in silence.

To make the most of closed captions, upload self-created subtitles. By uploading these yourself, you ensure that, when these captions are indexed for search, they are more accurate than automatically-generated ones, in many cases.

4. Whole-Video Views

Because YouTube ranks videos by engagement, longer watch times mean more opportunities to earn the coveted suggested video inclusion.

If you’re struggling with viewer attrition rates, you’re going to want to tighten focus on your videos’ first few seconds and ensure you:

  • match the description with the first few seconds of video content, and
  • snag a viewer with an impossible-to-ignore hook.  

Don’t forget to study your audience retention graphs and pay attention to what those metrics are telling you.

These quick fixes help you further engage your audience, extending watch time, and earning your video a higher score via the YouTube algorithm.

5. Conversational Conclusions

Rather than simply ending your video, use various tactics to influence your audience’s next view.

By directing viewers to another video on your channel, you increase interaction and likelihood that they’ll return to interact with future content, both of which satisfy the YouTube algorithm’s engagement portion.

To direct your audience, use watermarks, end screens, and cards, all of which can be clicked and linked to your next video, ensuring continued viewing of your channel and content.   

6. Subscriptions

When viewers subscribe to your channel, you automatically increase your organic reach. To increase your number of subscribers, consistently create great content, videos viewers are dying to see.

While consistently creating great content may be easier said than done, it’s essential to building your channel. Create a channel trailer, reach out to influencers, and engage with all comments left on your videos.

If you’re looking for additional strategies to increase your subscribers, check out our YouTube Marketing Guide.

7. Serial Viewers

By crafting videos that continue a conversation, viewers are helpless to resist watching the next in the series.

To keep viewers on your channel, you can create playlists of videos with similar content: these are collections that will attract and sustain viewership.

8. Cross-Promote Content

Social channels are free advertising for your YouTube channel. Promote your videos on all your social accounts, website, and in your email marketing—anywhere you have an audience.

9 Ways to Improve Organic Reach via the YouTube Algorithm
An example of a recent YouTube video shared on this blog.

 You can also publish a blog post with the video and a summary or transcription.

9. Actionable Analytics

These numbers don’t just exist to make you feel good; they tell you what’s working well and when, and to identify who is watching what and when.

Conversely, these numbers also tell you what isn’t working, which is inarguably the more influential insight. By identifying what isn’t working, you can try new strategies and content, attempting to delight your audience and improve your reach through different approaches.

By digging deep into YouTube analytics, you can unearth realities about your videos and your audience, allowing you to tailor your creation process to suit the needs of the audience you’re trying to reach.

Conclusion

With over one billion hours of video watched per day on YouTube, it’s undeniable content creators and marketers need to take advantage of the platform to curate and grow their audiences.

By understanding how YouTube suggests videos, content creators and marketers can make their videos work harder and use its nuances to your benefit.

How you changed how you upload videos to satisfy the YouTube algorithm? 

The post 9 Ways to Improve Organic Reach and Beat the YouTube Algorithm appeared first on Neil Patel.

How to Get More Organic Traffic Without Doing Any SEO (Seriously)

You
all know SEO is a long-term game… at least when it comes to Google.

And yes, who doesn’t want to be at the top of Google for some of the most competitive terms? But the reality is, we don’t all have the budget or time.

So
then, what should you do?

Well, what if I told you there were simple ways to get more organic traffic and, best of all, you don’t have to do one bit of SEO?

Seriously.

So,
what is it? And how can you get more organic traffic?

Well,
this story will help explain it…

The
old days

When
I first started my journey as an SEO, I got really good at one thing.

Getting
rankings!

Now to be fair, this was back in 2003 when it wasn’t that hard to rank on Google (or any other search engine for that matter).

Stuff some keywords into your page, your meta tags, and build some spammy rich anchor text links and you were good to go.

You
could literally see results in less than a month.

SEO wasn’t too complicated back then. So much so, that I even started an SEO agency and created a handful of sites.

I was starting to rank my sites at the top of Google but they didn’t make a dollar. Literally, not a single dollar.

In fact, I was actually losing money on them because I had to pay for the domain registration expenses and hosting.

So, one day I decided that I was tired of losing money and I was going to do something about it. I took the keywords that I was ranking for and started to type them into Google to see who was paying for ads for those terms.

I hit up each of those sites and tried to get a hold of the owner or the person in charge of marketing.

I asked them how much they were paying for ads and offered them the same exact traffic for a much lower price. I was able to do this because I already had sites that ranked for those keywords.

In other words, I offered to rent out my website for a monthly fee that was a fraction of what they were paying for paid ads.

Next thing you know I was collecting 5 figures in monthly checks and my “renters” were ecstatic because they were generating sales at a fraction of the costs compared to what they were spending on paid ads.

So, what’s the strategy?

Well, it’s simple. Back in the day, I used to rent out my websites… the whole site.

These
days I’ve learned how to monetize my own site, so I don’t rent them out.

But you know what, most of the sites that rank on Google are content-based sites. Over 56% of a website’s organic traffic is typically going to their blog or articles.

So why not rent a page on someone else’s site? From there, modify that page a bit to promote your products or services?

I
know this sounds crazy, but it works. I have one person that just reaches out
to site owners asking if we can rent out a page on their site. We do this for
all industries and verticals… and when I look at how much we are spending
versus how much income we are generating, it’s crazy.

Here are the stats for the last month:

Rental
fees: $24,592

Outreach costs: $3,000

Legal
costs: $580

Copywriting
and monetization costs: $1,500

Total
monthly cost: $29,672 

Now
guess what my monthly income was?

It
was $79,283.58.

Not
too bad.

Now
your cost on this model won’t be as high as mine because you can do your own
outreach, monetize the page you are renting on your own, and you probably don’t
need a lawyer.

And don’t be afraid of how much I am spending in rental fees as you can get away with spending $0 in the first 30 days as I will show you exactly what to do.

Remember, it’s also not what you are spending, it’s about profit and what you are making. If it won’t cost you any money in the first 30 days and you can generate income, your risk is little to none.

Here
are the exact steps you need to follow:

Step
#1: Find the terms you want to rank for

If
you already know the terms you want to rank for, great, you can skip this step.

If you don’t, I want you to head to Ubersuggest and type in a few of your competitors’ URLs.

Head
over to the top pages report and look at their top pages.

Now
click on “view all” under the estimated visits column to see a list of
keywords that each page ranks for.

I want you to create a list of all of the keywords that contain a high search volume and have a high CPC. Keywords with a high CPC usually mean that they convert well.

Keywords
with a low CPC usually mean they don’t convert as well.

When
you are making a list of keywords, you’ll need to make sure that you have a
product or service that is related to each keyword. If you don’t then you won’t
be able to monetize the traffic.

Step
#2: Search for the term

It’s
time to do some Google searches.

Look
for all of the pages that rank in the top 10 for the term you ideally want to
rank for.

Don’t
waste your time with page 2.

What
I want you to look for is:

  • Someone who isn’t your competitor. Your competition isn’t likely to rent out a page on their site to you.
  • A page that isn’t monetized. Not selling a product or service. (If the page has ads, don’t worry.)
  • A site owned by a smaller company… a publicly-traded company isn’t likely to do a deal. A venture-funded company isn’t likely to do a deal either (Crunchbase will tell you if they are venture-funded).

Step
#3: Hit up the website

Typically, through their contact page, they should have their email addresses or phone number listed. If they have a contact form, you can get in touch that way as well.

If
you can’t find their details, you can do a whois
lookup
to see if you can find their phone number.

What’ll
you want to do is get them on the phone. DO NOT MAKE YOUR PITCH OVER EMAIL.

It
just doesn’t work well over email.

If
you can’t find their phone number, email them with a message that goes
something like this…

Subject: [their website name]

Hey [insert first name],

Do you have time for a quick call this week?

We’ve been researching your business and we would like to potentially make you an offer.

Let me know what works for you.

Cheers,

[insert your name]

[insert your company]

[insert your phone number]

You
want to keep the email short as I have found that it tends to generate more
calls.

Once you get them on the phone, you can tell them a little bit about yourself. Once you do that, tell them that you noticed they have a page or multiple pages on their website that interest you.

Point
out the URL and tell them how you are interested in giving them money each
month to rent out the page and you wouldn’t change much of it… but you need
some more information before you can make your offer.

At this point, you’ll want to find out how much traffic that page generates and the keywords it ranks for. They should have an idea by just looking at their Google Analytics (you’ll find most of these sites don’t use Google Search Console).

Once
you have that, let them know that you will get in touch with them in the next
few days after you run some numbers.

Go back, try to figure out what each click is worth based on a conservative conversion rate of .5%. In other words, .if 5% of that traffic converted into a customer, what would the traffic be worth to you after all expenses?

You’ll
want to use a conservative number because you can’t modify the page too
heavily or else you may lose rankings.

Once
you have a rough idea of what the page is worth, get back on the phone with
them and say you want to run tests for 30 days to get a more solid number on
what you can pay them as you want to give them a fair offer.

Typically,
most people don’t have an issue because they aren’t making money from the page
in the first place.

Step
#4: Monetize the page

If
you are selling a product, the easiest way to monetize is to add links to the
products you are selling.

For
example, if you are selling a kitchen appliance like a toaster, you can add
links from the article to your site.

Just
like this article
.

The easiest way to monetize a blog post is to add links to products or services you are selling.

Don’t delete a lot of the content on the page you are modifying… adding isn’t too much of an issue but when you delete content sometimes you will lose rankings.

As
for a service-based business, linking out to pages on your site where people
can fill out their lead information is great.

Or you can just add lead capturing to the page you are renting out. Kind of like how HubSpot adds lead forms on their site.

I’ve actually found that they convert better than just linking out to your site.

When monetizing the page you are renting, keep in mind that you will need disclaimers to let people know that you are collecting their information for privacy purposes. You also should disclose you are renting out the page and nofollow the links.

Once you are monetizing the page for a bit, you’ll have a rough idea of what it is worth and you can make an offer on what you’ll page.

I recommend doing a 12-month contract in which you can opt-out
with a 30-day notice.

The reason you want a 12-month agreement is that you don’t want to have to keep renegotiating. I also include the 30-day opt-out notice in case they lose their rankings, you can opt-out.

And to clarify on the op-out clause, I have it so only I can opt-out and they are stuck in the agreement for a year.

Conclusion

SEO isn’t the only way you can get more organic traffic.

Being creative, such as renting pages that already rank is an easy solution. Best of all, you can get results instantly and it’s probably cheaper than doing SEO in the long run.

The only issue with this model is that it is really hard to
scale.

If I were you, I would do both. I, of course, do SEO on my own site because it provides a big ROI. And, of course, if you can rent out the pages of everyone else who ranks for the terms you want to rank for, it can provide multiple streams of income from SEO.

The beauty of this is model is that you can take up more than one listing on page 1. In theory, you can take up all 10 if you can convince everyone to let you rent their ranking page.

So, what do you think of the idea? Are you going to try it out?

The post How to Get More Organic Traffic Without Doing Any SEO (Seriously) appeared first on Neil Patel.