CASE STUDY · SEO GROWTH
Lifting CTR 43% With Emojis in Meta Titles and Descriptions
A large Indian travel and forex company lifted organic click-through rate by 43% and traffic by 12% on tour-package pages that already ranked in the top 5. Themed emojis were added to the meta titles and descriptions of 15+ URLs, A/B tested and rolled out in phases.
- Client
- A large Indian travel and forex company
- Industry
- Travel
- Market
- India
- Project
- SEO growth
- My role
- Led the SEO strategy; delivered with my team at the time
OUTCOMES
The results
Direct commercial and organic search impact delivered during the engagement.
+43%
Click-through rate on the optimised pages (Google Search Console).
+12%
Traffic to the optimised pages.
15+
URLs optimised.
BACKGROUND
The challenge
I led this experiment in a previous agency leadership role. Several tour-package pages ranked in the top 5 with high impressions, but too few searchers were clicking through.
When a page already ranks well, the search snippet is often the cheapest lever left: a more eye-catching title and description can win clicks without the page moving a position.
Client and agency not named for confidentiality. I led the strategy; the work was delivered with my team at the time.
EXECUTION
What we did
Audit of top-5 pages
Audited high-impression pages ranking in the top 5 across the tour-package sections.
High impressions, low CTR
Prioritised the URLs with high impressions but low click-through rates.
Baseline first
Recorded pre-implementation metrics so the effect could be measured.
Themed emojis
Added travel-themed emojis, such as planes, mountains, beaches and luggage, to meta titles and descriptions.
A/B testing
A/B tested the change to confirm its impact on performance.
Phased rollout
Rolled the change out in phases and tracked it in Google Search Console.
STRATEGIC LESSON
The takeaway
Before chasing higher rankings, check CTR on the pages that already rank — a small, tested change to the snippet can lift clicks without moving a position.
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