Click-through rate (CTR)

Click-through rate (CTR) is the percentage of impressions that turn into clicks: clicks divided by impressions. It measures how compelling and relevant your listing is at a given position, and it is the lever you pull to earn more traffic without moving up in rank.

How it works

CTR falls sharply as position drops, so it must always be read relative to ranking — a 5% CTR is strong at position eight and weak at position one. Compare a page’s actual CTR to the expected CTR for its position to find opportunities: an underperforming listing usually has a weak title tag or meta description, or sits below a SERP feature (a snippet, AI Overview, or ad block) that siphons the click. Improving titles, descriptions, and structured data (for rich results) lifts CTR at the same rank. Note that zero-click features increasingly cap CTR for informational queries, which is a SERP reality, not a page failure.

Where it applies

• Ecommerce — where title and price-rich snippets sway the click among many similar listings.
• Publishing — where headline and description testing directly moves traffic.
• Any page ranking on page one — the cheapest traffic gains come from CTR, not rank.

What matters from each seat

• In-house — audit CTR against expected-by-position to surface fixable listings.
• Editorial — the title and description are ad copy; write them to earn the click, not just describe the page.
• Agency and consulting — CTR optimization delivers quick wins on pages already ranking well.