What’s a good click-through rate (CTR) for SEO? (original) (raw)
Click-through rate is one of the most important metrics for SEO and digital marketing in general.
A strong rate of users choosing your site to click from the search engine results page (SERP) tells search engines that you have content users want to read. That can mean a big boost for your rankings.
In this comprehensive guide, you’ll learn:
- What click-through rate is
- Why it matters for SEO
- How to calculate click-through rate
- How to optimize click-through rate
What is CTR?
In SEO, click-through rate (CTR) is simply the percentage of users who click on your page after viewing it in the search results. More technically, It’s the ratio of clicks to impressions in the form of a percentage.
Why is this important?
Because CTR directly measures how well users connect with your page as displayed in the SERP. The higher the click-through rate, the better you’ve aimed for your target audience.
CTR applies to both advertisements and organic search results, though the average click-through rate for paid vs. organic varies dramatically.
Why does CTR matter for SEO?
Click-through rate is an important SEO metric because it helps you:
- Understand engagement
- Fine-tune A/B testing
- Inform ranking signals
- Improve rankings and traffic
- Identify optimization opportunities
- Increase conversion rate
Understand engagement
A high CTR tells you if your metadata is working.
The more people who click on the SERP for your page, the better idea you have that the metadata you’ve worked so hard to optimize is reaching the right target audience.
But a high CTR doesn’t guarantee users will stick around. Review bounce rate and time on page to make sure your content matches user expectations.
Fine-tune A/B testing
Click-through rate can be used as a metric when testing different versions of your page to see what resonates best with your audience—and drives the most clicks.
A/B testing tools (like SplitSignal) can make it easier to identify which new version of your page is driving the highest CTR.
SplitSignal makes the setup for A/B testing as simple as ABC. Just choose the pages you want to test, define the changes you’d like to make (like swapping a title tag), and set how long the test should run.
You’ll get your results in an easy-to-read dashboard that shows if your change had a positive, negative, or no change impact, all based on statistical significance.
Inform ranking signals
No, CTR is not a direct ranking factor.
But search engines will still pay attention to high click-through rates to see what content users are choosing. This can mean a potential boost for your rankings as a reward for matching user search intent.
Improve rankings and organic traffic
Like we said above, better CTR can lead to better rankings. And that increased visibility means your page gets more organic traffic.
The key here is to capture organic traffic that’s ready to boost the call to action (CTA) CTR as well (more on that below).
Identify optimization opportunities
CTR data is a great place to find under-performing pages or segments of your site. This opens the door to—you guessed it—A/B testing your way to a better CTR.
To do this properly, you need to understand:
- What industry standards are for CTR
- What your site’s standard CTR is
Review your own historical metrics carefully. We’ll get into CTR industry standards below.
Increase conversion rate
A higher CTR means that people are interested in your page.
And, so long as you’re providing a positive landing page experience once those users land on your site, a better CTR means a better conversion rate.
Impact on overall SEO strategy
Understanding CTR patterns is key to building your SEO strategy.
Say you have high impressions but a low CTR. This means your page is showing up in search results, but your metadata isn’t doing the heavy lifting to get anyone to click. This is a sign that your pages are targeting the wrong keywords.
On the other hand, pages with a high CTR but low impressions are properly targeting the right terms, but those keywords likely just have low search volume.
Identifying these patterns gives you a place to focus on as you improve your SEO strategy and your site.
How to calculate and analyze CTR
Even if math isn’t your favorite subject, calculating click-through rate is actually pretty easy. Just use Google Analytics to:
- Find the number of times users have clicked on a page.
- Find the number of people who have seen that page (impressions).
- Divide the total number of clicks by impressions.
- Multiply that number by 100 to get a percentage.
Here’s that formula for you:
So, say you have a page that received 500 clicks and 500,000 impressions. The math to figure out the CTR for this page would look something like this:
Note: Don’t be alarmed if your CTR seems low at first. A 2% CTR can be competitive. It all depends on your industry, page type, and target keywords.
Here’s what CTRs look like across industries and for organic vs. paid search:
Note: This chart shows the CTR for pages ranking number one organically and pages appearing for paid search.
Keep in mind when comparing these metrics with your own industry standards that:
- CTR varies dramatically by position. For example, a page ranking number one organically in the automotive industry might have a CTR of 40.3%, but 18.6% for position two and 9.9% for position three.
- Informational queries often have different CTR patterns compared to transactional queries.
- The presence of SERP features like featured snippets and knowledge cards impacts CTR typically in a negative way, leading to an increase in zero-click results.
- Mobile and desktop users have different CTRs, so make sure to review which devices your audience uses to visit your site.
- Paid search (PPC) CTR is generally lower than organic and is influenced by different factors like ad position and placement, ad copy and quality score, targeting settings, and bidding strategies.
CTR isn’t just for SEO
If you look at other marketing verticals, you’ll find that the average CTR might look very different. All marketing efforts are not created equal.
Take display ad networks. The average CTR is around 0.5%.
Email marketing, on the other hand, is around 3%.
Make sure that you’re tracking against the right marketing vertical average when you’re doing the match to calculate the CTR for your organic landing pages.
Tools to measure CTR
Obviously, doing the math to determine the click-through rate for every single page on your site is more effort than it’s worth, but there are tools that can do it for you.
The Position Tracking tool is perfect for monitoring and analyzing click-through rate across your site and for specific pages. You can use it to capture all of this with one dashboard:
- Track daily CTR changes with the “Visibility” button
- Keep tabs on your top performing keywords
- Monitor changes in competitor strategy
Google Analytics 4 lets you combine number of impressions, clicks, and CTR data from GSC with other on-site metrics like time on page and conversion rate. It’s the best tool for analyzing real-time SERP performance.
Bing Webmaster Tools are not a thing of the past. Use them for breaking down CTR data by query and page. You’ll find these tools especially useful if you’re relying more on search engines outside of Google.
Review these tools regularly. Changes in Google’s algorithm, audience behavior, and competitors means that a high-performing page could tip off the deep end in a matter of days—or hours if you’re especially unlucky.
Set up alerts and get in the habit of continuously monitoring your pages to prevent surprises.
Now that you understand what exactly CTR is, let’s take a look at some proven strategies you should test to bring up your numbers.
Pick the right keywords
When picking your target keywords, think about how they align with your audience’s search intent. Carefully review the SERP. Really think about what the user is looking for and tailor your messaging accordingly.
A page selling hats for men, for example, would do poorly targeting “best types of hats” because the users searching for the latter aren’t ready to convert.
You should also keep an eye out for long-tail variations of your target terms. Don’t let a lower search volume dissuade you.
Say you’re selling voice API services, but you’re especially interested in targeting healthcare industries with online advertising.
You’re much better off building a page focused on “voice API for healthcare companies” than “voice API” because you’re offering a more custom experience for your target users.
Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool makes finding keywords with high potential CTR easy. Look for keywords where:
The keyword’s search intent aligns with your on-page content.
Do this by picking a broad keyword related to your content. The Keyword Magic Tool will give you keyword suggestions. Pick your terms based on search intent.
If you’re building out a blog explaining “how to improve CTR” then you want information keywords, not keywords like “SEO agency that improves CTR.”
There’s reasonable competition and keyword difficulty.
Look for keywords that aren’t too competitive. Review both keyword difficulty and the top ranking pages. Do you have comparable backlinks? Similar levels of authority in your industry?
If the competition is too high, it’ll be hard for you to rank. Start small so you can grow faster.
You find a keyword with notable search volume for your niche.
Depending on your niche, “notable” could be anywhere from 5,000 to 500 monthly searches. Consider terms that people are using when they want to find something like your website. Review similar long-tail options to inform future content strategy, too.
Look for keywords that have fewer SERP features.
This may be a bit unintuitive, but you’re likely to get a higher CTR in a SERP that has fewer AI Overviews, People Also Ask (PAA) boxes, and other features.
Review the Keyword Magic Tool for keywords that have fewer distractions that might waylay traffic meant for your site.
Test CTAs
On the other hand, a strong on-page CTA doesn’t affect your search CTR directly, but it makes all the difference after you’ve earned that click. Review any buttons and anchor text you have on your target page. These are all opportunities to improve your conversion rate, not just CTR.
If you’re a B2B business pushing a whitepaper, you should test out different language for the button prompting users to download.
“Get started today” might work, but “Download our free guide” is better.
Sometimes, it might make sense to use pay-per-click (PPC) ads to rapidly test what performs with a particular demographic before you hard launch it on your site. Social media can also be a good testing ground for new CTAs or other copy. With these platforms, you have a bit more potential to control who sees your ads, ensuring you’re not testing the wrong audience.
Craft click-worthy headlines
Throw generic headlines away. Focus instead on audience-specific headlines. Try to target pain points and include clear value props.
Think about it.
Would you rather read “Click-Through Rate Guide” or “2025’s Complete Click-Through Rate Guide for SEO Experts”?
One doesn’t speak directly to you.
The other does—and includes the year, too, so you know the data is all relevant.
Consider where this headline will appear. Sure, you might be writing for a web page first, but will this messaging carry over into an email marketing campaign, PPC ads, or even social media?
Optimize your meta titles and descriptions
A/B test the CTAs you use in your metadata to find what resonates best with your audience.
Expand beyond the standard “learn more” nudge in your meta description. If you offer a free demo, be sure to advertise that. You can also add an air of competition with “see if you qualify.”
Just make sure to stick to these best practices as you test:
- Keep your title tags between 50-65 characters to make the best use of space without getting truncated.
- Don’t let your meta descriptions get longer than 160 characters—again, to avoid getting cut off.
- Front-load your metadata with your target keyword.
- Avoid keyword stuffing by only using your target keyword 1-2 times at most.
You should always, always, always A/B test your metadata.
Metadata is most user’s first impression of your site, so putting your best keyword forward is the only way to go. But when you have 65 to 160 characters, you’ll find there are a lot of variations to test.
You can use an A/B testing framework to find what meta descriptions most appeal to your audience.
Leverage structured data for rich snippets
Structured data is a piece of code you add to a page.
This code isn’t visible to users, but it is to search engines. It helps search engines better understand the content of your page. That makes it easier for your page to appear for SERP features like featured snippets or star ratings.
A recipe would use recipe schema on a page about how to cook chocolate chip cookies.
That recipe schema makes it so Google can easily pull information on cook time, ingredients, calories—which makes it easier for that page to appear in recipe page featured snippets.
You can use Semrush’s Structured Data Items report to find pieces of content on your site best suited for structured data enhancements.
Use the Site Audit tool to look at pages already using structured data.
Review performance for pages with and without structured data. Add similar structured data to patching in similar subfolders.
Analyze competitors
Your competitors have already done the hard work of testing what works for you.
Use tools like Semrush to look at their metadata and schema usage.
Ask yourself:
- Are my competitors showing up for their target snippets?
- What are my competitors showing up for that I’m not?
- How can I surpass their strategy?
Look carefully for competitor patterns and opportunities to add to your strategy.
Appeal to human emotions
Be mindful of the language you use for your metadata and on-page copy. The right emotional triggers can dramatically improve your CTR.
Try incorporating these emotional elements:
- Trust (e.g., “Research-backed strategies” or “Trusted by over 1,000 enterprises”)
- Urgency (e.g., “Limited time offer” or “Act now before stock runs out”)
- Competitiveness (e.g., “See if you qualify” or “Don’t let your competition win”)
- Empathy (e.g., “We can help” or “Struggling with low traffic? We’ve been there”)
Remember that what works for a B2B company selling software is likely dramatically different from what works for a B2C company selling car parts.
A/B test what emotional approach best resonates with your audience.
Common mistakes to avoid when trying to boost CTR
Let’s look at common pitfalls you’ll likely encounter as you start optimizing for CTR.
Beware clickbait
As tempting as it is to tweak language to the point of just barely missing the truth, you never want to mislead your audience.
Overpromising is a guaranteed fast-track to high bounce rates—and that will hurt your rankings long-term.
Focusing only on CTR won’t fix conversion problems
Don’t let yourself get tunnel vision with CTR. A/B testing CTR until the cows come home isn’t a guarantee that you’ll see conversion rates go up, especially when bounce rate starts to spike.
Make sure you’re capturing the right audience with those rising CTR numbers. Pay attention to increasing time on page, decreasing bounce rate, more conversions, and better conversion quality to confirm you’re targeting the right group.
And remember: there’s plenty of other things to optimize for when it comes to organic search.
Neglecting user experience is a no-no
No point in honing the perfect metadata to capture users if your on-page experience isn’t there.
Make sure your page load times are on the same level as your competitors. Use free tools like PageSpeed Insights to look at things on a page level, or review accessibility so all users will be able to navigate your site.
Here’s an example of PageSpeed Insight’s report for Search Engine Land’s SEO page:
Don’t forget that SERPs change
Search engines are always evolving. Lately, this looks like the addition of new SERP features that mean an increase in zero-click searches and drops in CTR.
Be prepared to work around:
- Google’s AI Overviews: We’ve all seen the increase in Google’s AI Overviews. Make sure to optimize your content to make it as easy as possible for Google to cite your page. Yes, appearing in AI Overviews means you’ll likely see a drop in CTR, but the visibility can be great for your brand.
- Video snippets: If you have video content, make sure to include keyword-rich transcripts to increase your chances of appearing for this SERP feature.
- People Also Ask (PAA): Research questions related to your content using the Topic Research tool. Address those questions directly in your content to increase PAA visibility.
Advanced tips for maximizing CTR
Ready to level up your CTR optimization game? Here are advanced tips that SEO professionals use:
- Track and optimize for the ever-changing SEO SERP.
- Monitor seasonal/industry-specific trends and update metadata and headers accordingly.
- Always A/B test.
Organic Traffic Insights helps you identify CTR SERP features like featured snippets to People Also Ask boxes. You can also combine your GSC and GA4 data so you can pull everything in one place.
Track seasonal trends so you can be ready with updated metadata and headlines. Or get started with A/B testing so you can figure out what your audience is looking for.
Start testing and increasing your click-through rate with on-page SEO tools.
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