CTR (click-through rate)

What is CTR (click-through rate)?

CTR (click-through rate) is the percentage of people who click a result or ad out of everyone who saw it. You calculate it by dividing the number of clicks by the number of impressions. In Google Search Console you can see the CTR of your pages in search results.

Why is CTR important?

• More traffic without a higher ranking: a more appealing result earns more clicks in the same position.
• A check on your snippet: a low CTR at a high position often points to a weak title or description.
• Easy to compare: you can see which pages underperform.

Examples of CTR

• 50 clicks on 1,000 impressions is a CTR of 5 percent.
• One page in position 3 gets 8 percent, while another page in position 3 with a weak title gets only 2 percent.
• An ad with a clear offer scores better than a generic one.

How do you improve CTR?

In Search Console, look for pages with many impressions and a low CTR. Rewrite the title and meta description to include the keyword, a clear benefit and an invitation to click. Read more about this in our on-page SEO service.