Click-through rate (CTR)
Click-through rate is the share of people who saw your listing and actually clicked it — calculated as clicks divided by impressions.
What it is
CTR is the simplest, most useful ratio in any SEO report. If your page appeared in 1,000 searches (impressions) and 35 people clicked through, that's a 3.5% CTR. In Google Search Console you'll see CTR broken down by query, page, and position. In Google Business Profile you'll see equivalents for "calls", "website clicks", and "directions" relative to profile views.
CTR varies a lot by position. The #1 organic result on Google typically earns 25-30% CTR; positions 2-3 earn 10-15%; position 10 earns 1-3%. Local Pack entries tend to outperform organic at the same visual position because they're closer to the action buttons. There's no single "good" CTR — the only useful comparison is your own page now vs. a month ago.
Why it matters for your business
CTR tells you whether your title, meta description, business name, or profile photo is actually compelling to the people seeing it. High impressions with low CTR means you're getting in front of people but failing to earn the click — usually a title/description problem. Low impressions with healthy CTR means the people seeing you like what they see; you just need more of them. The two diagnoses lead to very different work, which is why CTR matters as a separate number from impressions.
Example
A handyman's "deck repair" page had 1,200 impressions a month at 0.8% CTR. The title was "Deck Repair Services — Acme Handyman." They rewrote it to "Deck Repair in [City] — Free Same-Day Quotes — Acme Handyman" and CTR climbed to 3.2% within a few weeks. Same content, same ranking position, four times the clicks — purely from a sharper, more local, more action-oriented title.
Related
- Related terms: Impressions, Attribution, Branded vs non-branded, How did you find us?