What is CTR (click-through rate) in SEO?

CTR (click-through rate) is the share of people who clicked your result after seeing it: clicks divided by impressions. In Google Search Console, a page with 1,000 impressions and 30 clicks has a CTR of 3%.

What is a good CTR?

There is no single good number. CTR depends mostly on position (the top result gets far more clicks than the eighth), and also on what else is on the results page: ads, an AI Overview, a map pack or a featured snippet all take clicks. Branded searches have much higher CTR than generic ones. Compare a page with itself over time, or with other pages on your site at the same position, rather than with an industry average.

Why is my CTR low?

• The page ranks low: at average position 15, low CTR is expected.
• The title and description don’t match what the searcher wants, or are cut off.
• The answer is shown on the results page itself (see zero-click search).
• Competing results have rich results (stars, prices, images) and yours does not.

How do you improve CTR?

• Rewrite the title to lead with the words searchers use, plus a concrete reason to click.
• Write a meta description that answers or promises something specific. Google may rewrite it, but often uses it.
• Add valid structured data for rich results where eligible.

Preview how your title and description look with the SERP snippet preview.

Example

A page ranks at position 3 for “emergency plumber denver” with a CTR of 2%, while your other position-3 pages average 9%. The title “Services | Acme” says nothing; “24/7 Emergency Plumber in Denver, There in 60 Minutes” gives a reason to click. SEO Rank Fixer flags pages whose CTR is low for their position and writes new titles for them.