This is how big the difference in CTR is between position 1 and position 10 in Google!

Question: “What’s the best place to hide a body?”

Answer: “On page 2 of Google!”

This is a classic SEO joke. Very few users go to page 2 on Google after a search. The same actually applies to the bottom results on page 1. So the question could also have been how long it would take for someone to discover it if the body was in one of the lowest results on page 1 instead.

In other words – the action is at the top of the search results.

In this blog post, you get insight into how much it matters to be number 1 or number 10 in Google’s search results. Both positions are on the first page, but it’s not enough just to be present on page 1 – you need to be among the top results to notice the difference in traffic.

Source: Advanced Web Ranking, CTR Study, January 2019. All searches

Above you can see the percentage distribution of clicks (CTR) by position for all searches. The figures are from January 2019 but remain stable throughout the year. The blue graph shows the distribution for desktop searches, while the red shows mobile. The curves are similar, except that position 1 has a higher CTR on desktop. One factor may be that mobile is often used for research before purchasing, with the purchase itself completed on desktop. Additionally, position 0 (Google My Business, Featured Snippets, etc.) often dominates more for mobile searches.

Source: Advanced Web Ranking, CTR Study, January 2019. Brand vs non-brand searches

The graph above shows CTR for branded searches (blue) and non-branded searches (red).

As you can see, CTR is generally higher for branded searches because people more often know what they are looking for. Advanced Web Ranking defines branded searches when the keyword is part of the domain name.

Source: Advanced Web Ranking, CTR Study, January 2019. Commercial searches

This graph gives insight into how CTR is distributed for commercial searches, i.e. searches with words like “buy,” “price,” and similar. The graph resembles the others – it’s primarily the top three results that get the most clicks.

What kind of traffic can you expect?

Below you see how average CTR is distributed across the different positions on page 1 in Google. As you can see, there’s a big difference in CTR for position 1 versus position 10 – and thus how much traffic you get to your website, even if you might think it’s enough just to be on page 1.

It’s also worth noting that CTR is just the percentage for the position – you also have to consider how many searches each phrase has. Ranking number 1 on a keyword with 10 searches per month gives you, with 35% CTR, only 3.5 visits monthly. On the other hand, being number 2 on a keyword with 100 monthly searches gives a CTR of 15% and 15 monthly visits. So, it can be better to be in position 2 for a popular search than in position 1 for a rare one.

If you’re at position 10, you still get limited traffic, even with many searches per month. With 1,000 searches monthly and a CTR of around 1.5% for position 10, you’ll only get 15 monthly visitors. If you climb to position 3, with a CTR around 10.75%, you increase the traffic sevenfold. Reach position 1 (about 30% CTR), your traffic grows twentyfold.

In practice, you’ll rarely have a 100% conversion rate, so clicks aren’t everything. The conversion rate also depends on what you define as a conversion — for example, it’s easier to get newsletter signups than purchases.

Here are some examples of what position can mean if your conversion rate is 5%:

Example, position 10:

Searches per month: 1,000
Avg. position: 10
CTR for position 10: 1.5%
Conversion rate: 5%

From the 1,000 searches, you get 15 monthly visitors.

Of these, you get 0.75 conversions per month.

Same example, position 1:

Searches per month: 1,000
Avg. position: 1
CTR for position 1: 30%
Conversion rate: 5%

Now you get 300 visitors per month.

Of them, you get 15 conversions per month.

The difference is clear. Instead of one conversion every 40 days at position 10, you get one every other day at position 1. Imagine how long between contacts if there are only 100 searches per month in the example.

The conclusion is simple:
If you’re considering whether it pays off to aim for top positions or if you can settle for the bottom of page 1, the answer is yes — go for the top. It may require more resources to reach the top 3, but you’ll get far more clicks and conversions than if you are at the bottom.

About the study

The table and graphs above are based on figures from Advanced Web Ranking. Every month, the effect of keyword positions is measured, with up to 10,000,000 keywords from nearly 85,000 websites. The study is international, and small local differences may occur depending on which country you target your SEO efforts toward.