I was just checking some rankings and was pleased when a site I have been working on reached page 1 for its main keyword. This keyword has just under 1 million competitors and receives about 30,000 searches per week. Last time I checked this site was ranked 16th. Today it is ranked 4th. This is a national campaign-not a google local campaign-and I realized that most people would stop here and consider this a success.
However, ranked 4th a site will typically have a CTR (Click Through Rate) of roughly 6%. So in a given day if 100 people search for the term only 6 or so will click on this site. If it was third the CTR would more than double to 15%. The CTR for 2nd is just under 25%. And the first site receives just over 50% of all the traffic. Now, you can improve your CTR with some compelling copy in your title tag. Something that makes the visitor wants to click to read more.
This post is just a reminder that unless you are number 1 your work really isn’t done. I have seen clients income double (more than 2x earnings) by moving from 3rd place to 1st place. There can only be 1 champion and it should be you or your client.