The CTR or click-through rate is a percentage which indicates how many people click on a link compared to the total number of views. A CTR of 10% means that of one hundred people that see a link, then click through to the underlying web page.
Internet users trust search engines to guide them around the internet. In Belgium, in96.3% of cases, it is Google; in the Netherlands, it is 96.5%. (*)
(*) Figures from the third quarter of 2014.
The CTR for a high position in Google's organic search results
No matter how many Adword-adverts Google places on the page of search results, internet users tend to look at the organic search results for their search task. The link that is in 1st place in the organic search results has a CTR of 32.5%, second place provides a CTR of around 17.6%. The tenth place, the last position on the first page of search results still equates to a CTR of 2.4%.
Research figures from Chitika - 2013
| Position in Google |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
| CTR |
32.5% |
17.6% |
11.4% |
8.1% |
6.1% |
4.4% |
3.5% |
3.1% |
2.6% |
2.4% |
1.0% |
0.8% |
0.7% |
0.6% |
0.4% |
And what about web pages that are not shown on Google's first page or search results?
Well, the sad truth is that a place on the second page delivers very few visitors. And a place on the third or subsequent pages delivers hardly any at all.
Chitika has also researched: Websites that are on the first page of search results in Google account for 91.5% of all visitors that surf to a website via a search engine. Websites on the second page obtain just 4.8% of these visitors; websites on the third page 1.1%.
Conclusions:
- Your web page is better off getting onto the first page of organic search results, the other pages will deliver few visitors.
- The higher your web page is in the top 10, the more visitors it will have.
- Google AdWords adverts deliver fewer visitors than a place in the top 10 of organic search results, but there are practical - and expensive - alternatives to get your web page onto the first page of the search results.
Experience what iPower plc could mean for your website - free of charge
iPower plc has developed a range of tools to increase the position of your website in Google's organic search results. Try two of them for free:
Would you like more info about optimising your website to achieve a higher position in Google's search results? Call us on - +32 (0)3 641 66 81- or mail us on - info@ipower.eu