Learn how to improve your CTR on Google and get optimization tips for ads & SEO to attract more visitors to your website.
Thomas Haurum
Joke question: “Where is the best place to hide a body?”
Answer: “On page 2 of Google!”
That’s an old classic in the SEO world. Hardly any user clicks on page 2 of Google after a search. The same goes for the lowest positions on page 1. Accordingly, you could also ask how long it would take for someone to find the body if it was hidden at the very bottom of page 1.
In short: all the action is at the very top of the search results.
In this article, you’ll get a sense of how much it matters if you rank on position 1 or position 10 on Google. Both positions are on page 1, but it’s often not enough to just be there—you only really see results when you reach the very top.
Source: Advanced Web Ranking, CTR Study, January 2019. All searches
Above, you see the click-through rate (CTR) per position for all search queries. The numbers are from January 2019 but remain constant throughout the year. The blue line shows desktop CTR, the red line shows mobile CTR. The curves are very similar, only position 1 is even higher for desktop. Reasons for this may be that mobile devices are often used for research before a purchase, but the purchase itself happens via desktop. Also, position 0 (Google My Business, Featured Snippets, etc.) often dominates even more strongly on mobile devices.
Source: Advanced Web Ranking, CTR Study, January 2019. Brand vs. generic queries
The chart above shows the CTR distribution between brand searches (blue) and generic searches (red).
As you can see, brand searches have a significantly higher click rate overall. This is because users in these cases usually already know exactly what they’re looking for. Advanced Web Ranking defines brand searches as those where the keyword is part of the domain name.
Source: Advanced Web Ranking, CTR Study, January 2019. Commercial searches
The chart provides insight into how the CTR is distributed for commercial queries—searches with terms like “buy”, “price”, etc. Here too, the pattern is almost identical: the first three results get the most clicks, especially position 1.
Below you see the average click-through rate for each position on page 1 of Google. The difference between position 1 and position 10 is very clear—and shows how much the number of visitors can change even with seemingly small moves in ranking.
Note: Besides the percentage CTR, also the actual search volume of a keyword counts. Position 1 with 10 queries per month and 35% CTR only gives you 3.5 visits per month. But if you are in position 2 with 100 monthly searches and have 15% CTR, you get 15 visitors. Therefore, position 2 with a strong keyword can be better than position 1 with weak volume.
If you are only in position 10, even with 1,000 searches per month and a CTR of around 1.5% you only get about 15 visitors. If you make it to position 3 (about 10.75% CTR), your traffic is sevenfold. Position 1 and about 30% CTR means twenty times as many visitors.
Of course, the conversion rate is almost never 100%. Clicks aren’t everything—define for yourself what a conversion means. Newsletter sign-ups, for example, are easier to achieve than real purchases.
Here’s a calculation example at 5% conversion rate:
Example for position 10:
Monthly search volume: 1,000
Ø Position: 10
CTR position 10: 1.5 %
Conversion rate: 5 %
That means 15 visitors per month.
Of those, 0.75 convert per month.
Same example for position 1:
Monthly search volume: 1,000
Ø Position: 1
CTR position 1: 30 %
Conversion rate: 5 %
That means 300 visitors per month—and a full 15 conversions.
The difference is dramatic. Instead of one conversion every 40 days, you get a lead from position 1 every other day. With just 100 queries per month, it takes much longer.
The conclusion is clear:
If you’re considering whether you just want to be on page 1 or really want to get to the top: strive for the top positions. It may require more resources, but you get significantly more clicks and conversions at the top than at the bottom.
The tables and charts shown are based on data from Advanced Web Ranking, which measures the impact of positions for millions of keywords across almost 85,000 websites every month. The study is international, so small deviations may occur at the country level.
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