I have worked very hard for my website. We update it every two days. The site's impressions are good but the click through rate is like 0. Its been 6 months but it has not performed well in searches. Can anyone advice what should be the strategy in such a condition? Should I consider changing the keywords I want to rank for? enter image description here

  • Is this chart from AdWords? – Dave Jul 20 '12 at 7:45
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    @DaveRook: Thats from webmaster tools. – user2930 Jul 20 '12 at 7:45

This is really hard to answer. There is no reason why what you have is or isn't desireable, but it depends on the ROI / conversion rate etc.

However, I assume the reason it's not doing well is for a few reasons which include;

1) Poor use of the title tag - why put your company name in the title - it's on the website and is not important to searches (if some one searches by your company name they already know you and will find you). Make the title tag longer and relevant about each page. If you can't, then maybe break down each page into smaller pages so the title becomes relevant to the content.

2) You only use H2 tags - at one point, this 'was' the most popular tag to use, not any more. Set your H tags like a news paper (my results suggest this works effectively). Heading (H1) at the top, 2 or 3 max second headings (h2) and even a few smaller headings after (5 max H3).

3) You could improve the URL pages - for example, if I click on your site menu's 'IPHONE' the URL is uncategorized! That doesn't seem like a sensible decision.

There a few things to get going.


The keyword quality will influence impression numbers: if the keyword is good and you rank high, you will get impressions.

CTR is determined by other factors: as mentioned by Dave Rook, title is one of them (although it also influences keywords you want to rank for). Other factors are:

  • Position in the page: if you rank #10 in each page, CTR it is thought to be naturally around 1-3%.

  • Meta description: if you have a good catchy snippet, more people will click through

  • Rich Snippets: Author Thumb, app thumb, stars of reviews, etc will increase your CTR

There are probably more factors, but I could only think about the ones mentioned above right now.

However, it might be that your keyword are targeting the wrong audience (for example, you want to rank for apple pies, and a lot people interested in Apple products are finding you in their searches, therefore they wont click on your links). If this is the case, I'd suggest to target different keywords (less generic). Otherwise you could "just" improve your CTR


What is your exact ranking for that keyword? you are # in serp?

Besides what has been suggested (inviting tittle, good description, wrong audience), it could be that you are simply not ranked high enough for this keyword. Notice that first 1-4 results of the search page receive most of the total traffic/impressions of the keyword.

90K is impressions of the first page on google, if you are #1 you get around 50% of this traffic, if you are #2 you get 20% and so on. I just made up the numbers but you get the idea...

From your CTR, I would say your exact position is around #7-8.

  • How do I find my exact ranking for a keyword? – user2930 Jul 20 '12 at 10:42
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    Sign out of your google account, and go to google.com write your keyword and see position of your website in the list. You sign out because recently google introduced "personal results" switch, which rigs the result page in favor of your friends websites. – user11237 Jul 20 '12 at 10:44
  • Few years ago a document leaked from AOL showing some CTR data from google SERP. redcardinal.ie/google/12-08-2006/… . However nowadays this should be changed quite a lot, since we have local results, news,search your world and much more mixing with the original SERP. 1% CTR sounds more close to pos 10 but it all depends on the niche as well. As for tracking, what Sandro Dzneladze said is correct, but unfeasible for large amount of keywords. Can build your own tool or use some automated rank tracker tool. – milo5b Jul 20 '12 at 10:51
  • @SandroDzneladze: I dont have a single keyword. There is a keyword for everypage. – user2930 Jul 20 '12 at 11:20
  • @StartupCrazy well I don't know what you expected, but you have to analyze each keyword, its placement, and traffic CTR and in General ROI for each keyword. That's why some SEO consultants are paid huge amount of money... cause this is tedious work. – user11237 Jul 20 '12 at 11:42

I would recommend a three step strategy here:

  1. Check your site's position for these keywords. If it is less than 10, then move to step 2. If not, improve your on-page and off-page optimization factors to get it under 10. Always remember. The higher your position, the better the CTR.

  2. See the results that are listed before you for that keyword. Some results such as those from Wikipedia has got this natural tendency of attracting clicks. If you have got any such blocking results, I would recommend you to try changing your strategy and keywords.

  3. If there are no blocking results, then edit the description meta tag to something a bit more interesting. Keep it simple and clean but striking and compelling at the same time. This will increase the click through rates.


Best to keep content original and high quality. If your website is for web hosting then make your content around web hosting and web site developers. Making your content relevant and different to everyone is key but only part of the efforts.

  • How does this answer the question? They ask "Should I consider changing the keywords?" I don't see how your post tries to answer that. – Stephen Ostermiller Feb 15 '19 at 10:19

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