Click through rate is a term often used when discussing websites, and the traffic that flows through them, in this article we’ll be discussing what click through rate is, and what exactly a good click through rate can look like when dealing with your website.
Click through rate is essentially the number of times an impression you’ve made on your website has resulted in a click, this can be anything from advertisements to actually being on the website itself, and working out what click through rate you have can be an excellent way of understanding how well your website works and where you can improve it.
To put it into an example, if 100 users came through your website and only 1 clicked through on your impression, then you will have a 1% CTR (Click Through Rate)
What’s The Point Of Click Through Rate?
Click through rate is important because it essentially tells you how effective your website is.
Websites with a low click rate will naturally not be doing as well as other websites, and so finding out what your CTR is is a really simple yet important step to finding out how effective certain sections of your website are.
Google Ads and other search marketing platforms offer pricing discounts for ads that offer high relevance. This generally means that users are enjoying your site.
You’ll want to boost your click through rate because :
High click-through rates lead to high Quality Scores.
High Quality Scores allow you to improve or maintain ad position for lower costs, resulting in higher profits overall.
Additionally, if you are advertising on relevant queries, achieving a high click-through rate means that you are driving the highest possible number of people to your website.
Overall, the higher your CTR, the higher number of people that go through your website will perform your desired outcome.
This can be anything from making a purchase, to filling out contact forms. Whatever your desired goal is, the first step in getting there can be by trying to achieve the highest possible CTR available.
What Makes A Good Click Through Rate?
So now that we know what CTR is and the purpose of having it in the first place, we can work out what makes a good CTR.
As you might expect, a good CTR can change depending on what you’re exactly trying to do.
All in all, a good CTR is always going to be dependent on:
The industry you’re working in
The keywords that you’re using
The campaign that you’re going for
Obviously there will be more of these, but it’s good to understand that directly changing only one of these, will dramatically change your CTR, for better or for worse!
Essentially there’s no magic number here, whilst your CTR is a number that can dramatically change the profitability of your website, for some industries it’s not unusual to see extremely high CTR, and in others with broader and non specific keywords, 1% can be excellent.
It’s all extremely dependent on the situation. Let’s take a closer look at specific industries so we can break down exactly what numbers you should be expecting:
Average Click Through Rate Statistics
Dating and personal services- 6.05%
Real Estate- 3.71%
Technology- 2.09%
Health and Medical- 3.27%
Education- 3.78%
Travel and Hospitality- 4.68%
Obviously there’s many more that you can check out, but this is just a short list of some of the most popular industries’ average CTR in order for you to understand exactly what would make a good CTR for your website.
If you’re in any of these industries and surpass the percentage that’s listed then congratulations! You’re above the average percentage of CTR for that industry, which clearly means that your website is doing very well.
When CTR Isn’t Important
In short, whilst CTR is an incredibly important statistic that can allow you to understand how effective your website is, it can also be a statistic that influences your website negatively.
Whilst a high CTR is generally an indication of high profits, this isn’t always necessarily the case. If you title your website ‘Free Laptops!’ then naturally you’ll receive a very high CTR, with little else.
It’s important to understand that a high CTR might be flashy and exciting, but can sometimes mean that very little is going on elsewhere on the website.
For example, many users could be clicking through to your website, and then realizing it’s not what they thought and leaving. CTR is usually a fantastic indication of your website’s traffic, but doesn’t necessarily mean high profits.
Instead, if you have a lower CTR, but users are consistently signing their details up purchasing products or whatever it is you want them to do, then you’re much better off than a website with a high CTR that has nothing else.
Final Thoughts On Click Through Rate
CTR is a fantastic tool for checking where you’re up to with your website. It’s usually quick, comes as a very easy to read statistic, but doesn’t always necessarily mean that your website is profitable.
It’s important to understand the key words that you’re using, and comparing your CTR with that of other websites that use similar keywords, and are in the same industry as yourself.
Yes CTR is interesting, and exciting! But it’s important to keep your eye on what’s important, profitability. As without that, your website is dry and useless to you.
Hi, my name is Justin Shaw, I started my career with a Masters in Computer Science but found writing to be my forte'.
I'm now the Principal Tech writer for GshiftLabs.com as well as a few other well known publications. I help make the complex world of Tech-Jargon easy to understand.
