CTR in Google organic results in 2023

Everyone who uses Google Ads and SEO in their digital marketing strategy should be highly interested in average click-through rates in this search engine, especially concerning organic results that typically get the highest CTR. The reason is obvious – your website’s high click-through rate directly translates to more clicks and more traffic flowing through it. In this blog post, we will look at average CTRs in Google search results.

It’s no secret that a good click-through rate is essential to increasing ogranic traffic from Google. Page with a high CTR gets more views and is more visible, and that can have a significant impact on its conversion rate. In other words – you can reach more users searching for products or services similar to yours. What do you need to know about CTR Google?

What is a click-through rate (CTR)?

CTR is a percentage value showing how many users click a given result in the search engine. Suppose you want to rank high for the keyword “SEO service,” and you get 1,000 clicks with a 12,000 volume. This means that your CTR is 8.3%. That’s a very good result, but to know that, you need to know the average CTR in your niche. We’ll talk about that in a minute.

Why is CTR so important?

There are two reasons for that. We’ve already mentioned the first one – websites with the highest CTR get more clicks, so they get more leads and potentially more customers or users. Secondly, a high average CTR can give your website a boost in organic (free) results. Take a look at this chart below. It shows a clear correlation between CTR and organic search position:

It’s all interconnected, and pages with a higher-than-average CTR often get a ranking boost. So it is in your best interest to get higher click-through rates for your website. Later in this post, we’ll show you how you can do that and optimize CTR both in organic and paid search. What’s great, these techniques work in different industries. First, though, let’s have a look at the current results concerning Google CTR.

2023 click-through rates (CTR) by ranking position on Google

As you can see, the highest CTRs get websites in the top 3 search positions. Then, these results go down significantly. It’s also worth noting that average CTR for organic results even in the bottom of the SERP is at least the same as the Search Ads (or even higher, if ad placement is not at the top of the page). Search ad viewers tend to get ad blindness (which is just like banner blindness that is pestering marketers trying to get that convertions from Google Display Network).

2023 click-through rates (CTR) by search element on Google

Today, people are actively searching for quick and simple answers to their problems and questions. And that’s exactly what rich snippets offer. These specific search results provide information even without clicking the link. However, as the table above shows, people are still clicking them (even more willingly than the #1 organic search result – which, by the way, killed Wikipedia’s organic traffic) to find out more information. If you can publish snippets (there is a specific HTML code for them), your CTRs will go up.

2023 click-through rates (CTR) by type of the listing in Google My Business

Having a GMB profile is beneficial on more than one level. With such a profile, you can streamline your local SEO efforts and get to people nearby who are willing to visit your brick-and-mortar store or service point. Google My Business offers different types of results. Let’s have a look at their CTR benchmarks:

Is Google’s average click-through rate going down?

There are voices saying that Google is trying to limit CTR for organic search results. Some time ago, the AdvancedWebRanking.com conducted a research where they compared clickthrough rate in Q2 2022 with CTR in Q1 2022 (globally). What were the results of their analysis?

• Changes affected only mobile queries, which for #1 rank registered a 1.45 pp decrease in CTR.
• Pages that ranked in the first position experienced a 1.27 pp decline in CTR for branded queries.
• For unbranded searches, the drop in CTR equaled 1.56 pp (mobile searches).
• For pages that ranked first in the SERPs, there was a decline for longer queries: For 2-word searches, the loss equaled 1.37 pp, for 3-word queries, the registered loss accounted for 1.42 pp, and for searches containing four or more keywords, the decline was 1.67 pp.

These are just three conclusions from the mentioned research. Go to the linked website to see the full picture of how CTR in organic search has been changing lately. You will also see the results for different niches and market sectors, including legal services, real estate, shopping, sports, and healthcare.

What’s especially interesting, the majority of the mentioned changes affected mobile devices, which is surprising concerning the fact that Google actively promotes the mobile-friendliness of all suppages that are indexed in this search engine.

How can you improve your CTR?

As you already know, the higher your CTR, the more traffic you get, so you should be vitally interested in measuring and optimizing your CTR results.

The first thing you should do is to verify how they look at this moment. You can use Google Search Console for that purpose. If you want to know more, take a look at this manual on GSC reports. Analyze which results get the highest CTR and use that knowledge to optimize other subpages and posts on your site.

Of course, the “good CTR” term is not definite, a lot depends on your industry average, but still, you should do whatever you can to get as many clicks for any individual keyword as possible. That’s especially important because websites with a low CTR won’t be able to rank high on Google. For Google, it can be a sign that your result isn’t interesting to their users; therefore, there’s no point in promoting you in the SERP. Of course, Google won’t openly say that low CTR prevents you from reaching high positions on Google, but that surely doesn’t help.

Here’s what you can do to improve your CTRs. We listed six of the most effective and straightforward techniques:

Add numbers to your titles

It has to be something specific. Instead of writing „the best suggestions on how to increase CTR” write „10 suggestions on how to improve CTR”. Numbers are specific, and they indicate that your article/post/subpage is valuable for the reader. Numbers can also be used to communicate sales and promotions. You can also add brackets: (25% off!).

The bigger the number, the better, but don’t go overboard or deceive your customers. You can’t promise readers to get 10 suggestions when, in fact, you only have 4.

Shorten and make your URLs transparent

Short URL addresses seem „cleaner” and more transparent. If you use WordPress or any other CMS system, you can easily adjust your URL addresses and even add a keyword phrase to them. People use URL addresses to assess what the given site is about. So, the address

https://domain.com/how-to-increase-CTR

looks better than

https://domain.com/blog/data230/2345538.

Work on your titles and descriptions

Here, you’ll need some copywriting skills. Is your metadata encouraging others to visit your site? Make sure every meta title and meta description is tailored not just to Google bots but also to your readers. Write them from the reader’s perspective – what upper hand does your site have over competitor’s? What will your readers learn? How will it help them in their life or work? Include answers to these questions in your titles and descriptions. The same rule applies to your display ads (regardless of the ad format), every marketing campaign, as well as other types of short-form communication.

If you need help with optimizing your headlines, use this headline analyzer.

Make your results up to date

That’s what we did in this article. We added „2023” on purpose – that’s what makes our post up to date. If your posts are updated, people will be more interested in reading them because they know you offer current knowledge and data, not „news” from several years ago. The world is changing dynamically; only updated information makes sense, is relevant, and can rank high on Google.

Avoid clickbait

Although it can be tempting, clickbaits are short-sighted. Of course, they can be effective, but on the other hand, they can also increase your bounce rate (the share of users who leave your website without taking any action), and that’s surely not good for your website’s SEO.

Use rich snippets (structured data)

As we showed you earlier, rich snippets can offer some impressive performance, no matter the industry. If you want to add rich snippets to your site, you need a specific HTML code. Take a look at this Google document to find out more.

Track your progress

In this case, Google Search Console or any monitoring tool will help you to keep track of how’s your conversion rate is performing. SEO industry experts use such tools, as Ahrefs, Semrush, SISTRIX and many more.

Summary

There are many factors affecting your CTR. You have to be aware of them and constantly work on your results. This way, you will be able to improve your visibility on Google and attract more and more potential customers. If you find it difficult to improve CTR on your own, you can use our help.

At Rank Higher Agency, we help our clients achieve good visibility on Google, and we use diverse techniques to provide such a result. Optimizing CTRs is one of our main methods of giving your website a boost. Reach out today to find out more!