I was reconciling some older research on click thru rates by SEO position (a regular activity for SEOs needing to provide market agnositic forecasts or broad estimates for clients or in house work) and meant to share the brief but excellent recap that Optify shared recently.
The results are a bit lower than a corresponding report that was leaked by AOL as reported in Techcrunch back in 2006. And before you ask, no that wasn’t me who leaked that — yes I worked for AOL but this incident had nothing to do with me and predates me by a couple of years there!
The Optify data is interesting in that it’s a bit lower than what my personal research and findings have shown, including older analysis done by firms like Outrider (I’m dating myself now…) but the general approach and observation is the same:
- Page 1 obviously dominates share (insert Captain Obvious comment here…)
- Position #1 powers 33-42% of query CTR
- CTR varies based on head vs. tail terms (head terms have a higher CTR at the top position. Users are more likely to test lower ranking positions on tail terms, hunting for better relevancy)
Other items not referenced in the study in any real detail but worth mentioning include:
- Local Intent Searches – can dramatically impact CTR. #1 just isn’t what it used to be, as Google pimps their local module. I’ve personally observed disruption of #1 rankings (still ranking #1 organically) but shifting down to a net position of #7 due to huge Google Local listings at the top of the page. Expect that to continiue on queries with a geo qualifier, and to expand on inferred local intent queries as Google pops that module higher on the page and featuring more and more listings (example: ‘florist’, etc….)
- Head terms feature more SEM activity, which pushes down Organic positions. This depends on your query however. Definately worth research specifically for your industry. May reinforce the need to coincide SEM with SEO (it depends…)
- Neither study showed much data on comingling SEM with SEO. It’s briefly touched on as far as share of searches, but nothing concrete. I’ve yet to see great research in this area — a lot of conjecture, and it will still depend on your particular niche/industry. Test it, be methodical.
- Neither study showed any case study on the impact on having multiple listings or supplemental listings, let alone newer factors like Google +1 or other potential CTR impacting items. Just sayin…
Using generalized CTR quotes like this can be error prone, but it’s still helpful for guidelines and for use in broad estimates before refinement and testing can be done. I like to model on the conservative side.
Always fun to share market KPIs and estimates though!
