What percentage of clicks do you get for being number one in Google?

[Seamaster]

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Ok, lets assume the Google Keyword Tool is correct.

What percentage of the number of searches click through to your site from the SERPS?

Can people who have a site at number in Google please post up what percentage of the number of searches lead to a click through to their site?

Here is one of mine (I'm going by week as my site has only been at number one for a week or so):

Local Search Volume (for the month of May): 22,200 / 31 * 7 = 5012 (searches per week)
My website hits that came from Google users searching on the keyword in the last 7 days: 140

140 as a % of 5012 = 3% (rounded up)

Obviously the GKT result is for May and it is now June so there may be some difference there. At the moment there are no PPC ads above the SERPS and the product links are a couple of sites below mine so my site is literally the top site in Google (there is PPC on the right).

3% Can anyone beat that?

edit: another keyword got 5,400 exact for May according to the GKT which is 1,219 in 7 days. This site got 56 visits from Google users searching on that keyword string which is 5% (rounded up).

[Stuart]

Interesting stats, I always thought it was around 40% average (depending on product or niche) but I have never done the math on any of my sites

Br
Stuart

[realfun]

Id agree its not 40% unless the keyword is very small maybe. Ive a couple of niches at number 1 for a good few keywords in that niche, and its certainly not 40%

If someone wants to show traffic stats without giving their site away to confirm its 40% then id happily eat my hat

RF

[darrenb]

I think the 40% CTR for 1st place was a figure taken from some results released by AOL a year or so ago.

I commented on a blog post last year on the subject: No.1 in google = 26% CTR Self Made Minds

I would take the keyword tool results as a guide only, even if you were to run a ppc campaign on the keyword for a day that would always appear on the first page I doubt you would get close to the daily figure based on impressions.

If you are looking at starting a site a PPC campaign on the keyword you are targetting may not be that bad an idea provided you can absorb the cost of any clicks.

I think there are many factors that would affect the CTR for a 1st place site such as:

Title
Description served
Website name
Sites in the top 10 (well known sites etc.)
The other sites title and description

From some of my domains I have checked in the past that are at number one the figure can range from anything like 7% - 27%.

I have played around with meta description on sites before to improve CTR, so if the site is stable at number one it may be worth trying to squeeze a little more traffic by experimenting.

[Seamaster]

I have played around with meta description on sites before to improve CTR, so if the site is stable at number one it may be worth trying to squeeze a little more traffic by experimenting.

Yes I have often thought that. My sites are quite fragile still so might not tinker with it for now but for new sites I will try some new things.

[darrenb]

Yes I have often thought that. My sites are quite fragile still so might not tinker with it for now but for new sites I will try some new things.

It has worked for me in the past, especially if you are pushing a product with some sort of price comparison on your site. By having a cheap price in the description that matches if not beats the other prices on the SERPS page from natural and ppc then it can have a great effect on the CTR.

It's good to work on traffic to your site but how well your site converts when the users have made it that far is what matters more imo.

[mikey_gee]

Great idea for a post, i work for an online company doing some SEO and have always been dubious of the keyword tool figures.

For one of the products we sell we rank number one for the singular (22k searches p/m according to google) and plural (22k aswell p/m) our actual visits work out at 275 (singular) and 550 (plural) that's 1.25% and 2.5% CTR then.

Another product were number one for singular and plural gives 135k and 33k searches p/m according to google. We get actual visits of 805 and 1048 p/m giving a 0.6% and 3.1% CTR.

We have other keywords were number one for giving similar %'s nowhere near 40% however there competitive keywords with 3 ads above. How much do people reckon people doing seo / keyword research cause the monthly searches to be inflated? is this likely?

MG.

[darrenb]

Google does try to answer the question regarding the keyword tool and differences in traffic here: Why don't my account's impression statistics match the Keyword Tool's search volume data? - AdWords Help

This is geared towards the adwords user and refers to impressions but the idea is the same. They say that the keyword tool includes searches across the Google search network so this may have a factor on the searches in your stats as I guess you website stats would be based on the Google search engine only.

Like I said previously if you run an adwords campain as Google explain below you can get a try figure for the number of impressions a keyword makes and compare that to the searches you get for that keyword through your site stats. This would give a more accurate CTR%.

The Keyword Tool's Local Search Volume [Last Available Month] and Global Monthly Search Volume columns show the approximate number of search queries matching your keywords that were performed on Google and the search network. Your account statistics, on the other hand, show how many times your ad appeared for a particular keyword. For these numbers to match, your campaign's daily budget would need to be high enough for your keyword to accrue all possible impressions (i.e. your campaign's daily budget would need to exceed its daily spend consistently).

[Seamaster]

Another of my sites is number two in Google and for the past few days since it got to number two 1% of the searches (according to the GKT) have clicked through to my site. There are no ads above the number one site.

I think anything under 100,000 exact matches is going to be a niche not worth pursuing. What do you think?

[gingersilverfox]

I think the Google KW tool results includes searches from its Search Partners. This means that it will include search returns from the likes of eBay. I discovered that an exact KW I was targeting- which gave a fantastic search return on GKW with Search Partner box checked- gave a terrible search return when I unchecked the box. :cry I also discovered that my KW advert- [blue widgets] was being displayed on eBay under FIND:blue Category: widgets, which is not an exact phrase search!

So in conclusion I think that the Google KW results are very skewed and should only be relied upon once you have run an Adword campaign with the Search Partners box unchecked.

[Seamaster]

So in conclusion I think that the Google KW results are very skewed and should only be relied upon once you have run an Adword campaign with the Search Partners box unchecked.

I am starting to think that you should run an Adwords campaign for a few days and see how many impressions it gets and the use that information before deciding if it is a domain/niche you want to peruse. But even the figures from adword are dubious. On one campign I am running, yesterday the numbers looked like this: 4 clicks, 2,117 impression, 0.19% CTR. Where there really that many impressions? I doubt it judging by the low CTR. My ad is top of the ads on the right.

[kickflip]

I have one site that's top for it's keyword.

GWT exact June 9900
Site got 358 uniques in June
So I think thats about 3.6%

[Seamaster]

So I think thats about 3.6%

Sounds about right.

[jonsp]

So in conclusion I think that the Google KW results are very skewed.

Of course they are. The Google keyword tool isn't provided as a public service to help affiliates decide which niche is going to make money, it's there to increase Google's revenue. Adwords is an auction system - they make most money when many people are bidding for 1 phrase. Their keyword tool will say 1m search for blue widgets so the advertiser might think wow if I could get 1% of that I'll be rich then you start bidding against 20 other people. That's why Google makes so much money

If you type in [7 inch round blue widgets] the keyword tool will say not enough data available - so despite tracking every query they don't know exactly how many people searched for that term last month? Was it 1 or 123 or 56,231 or 0. What the keyword tool tells you is don't bother bidding on that phrase because you'll be the only bidder and we won't make much money.

It doesn't matter what the keyword tool says. Say you want to sell TVs - you know people go to Google and buy TVs as a result of a search, that's common sense. If you know about TVs and can give useful valuable advice to the user looking for a TV you'll probably prosper. If you don't know about TVs but can bid on every model of TV on the market and show the guy were to buy that specific TV for the lowest price you'll probably prosper.

In conclusion - ignore the keyword tool and think were you can add value

[gingersilverfox]

In conclusion - ignore the keyword tool and think were you can add value

Yeah, that's the conclusion I have arrived at as well, although it's probably taken me longer to work that one out. Sometimes it is not that easy to see the elephant in the room.

Off to get my eyes tested