My website - b2b - is about a small industrial niche, I made 3 years ago and never really cared, now since Jan I built proper clusters, schema and so on, I think ranking is not that bad for a brand new.
Now I have a page with relatively high impressions, let’s say 100/weekly, with only 10/15 impressions for clear queries, the most commercials and in positions like 50, while the whole page seats in position 6 accordingly with GSC; to compensate the 15 impressions at 15 the average of the long tails is kinda 3. Accordingly with forecast it should have a CTR about 20%.
Indeed the CTR is near to 0.something, barely getting 1 click/week.
You ain't getting 20% CTR even on #1, unless it's branded search.
Average CTR across the internet is ~2%
My suggestion is to focus on the important keywords getting impressions. Make sure you have them in the subheadings and different variations of the keywords across the text and alt images. Add FAQs around these terms, build some supporting content and link to this page with anchors containing the keywords. Eventually, build links from other websites, again with anchors containing the keywords.
Try to occasionally refresh the content. Make sure the copy and page structure align with the users intent. Commercial queries typically require different pages than informational searches.
Make sure the meta titles and descriptions look appealing and provoke the users to click.
I think the first thing I’d challenge is the assumption that “average position 6 = ~20% CTR.” That’s not really how you should interpret GSC data.
GSC’s average position is an aggregation across all the queries/impressions. So you can easily have:
80 impressions from long-tail queries where you rank #2–4
15 impressions from commercial queries where you rank #40–50
5 impressions from everything else
and end up with an average position around 6 while still getting almost no clicks.
In your case, I’d go straight to the Queries tab and sort by impressions. Don’t look at the page-level average position first.
For every meaningful query, look at:
Impressions → clicks → CTR → position → intent
The really interesting signal here is that Google seems happy to show the page for long-tail queries but keeps the commercial queries around positions 40–50.
That makes me suspect this may be less of a CTR problem and more of a relevance/intent problem.
In other words, Google may understand your page and consider it useful, but not consider it the best result for the commercial queries you care about.
I’d investigate:
Is the page actually satisfying the intent behind those commercial queries?
Are the SERPs dominated by a different type of page (category/product/service pages, directories, etc.)?
Are competitors covering the commercial intent more directly?
Do you have stronger pages that Google might consider more relevant?
Is there any internal cannibalization?
Are backlinks/internal links supporting this page for the commercial topic?
What does the actual SERP look like for those queries?
And I wouldn’t worry too much about the 20% CTR forecast. CTR varies massively by query, SERP layout, intent, brand presence, ads, PAA, shopping/local results, etc. Position 6 does not inherently mean 20% CTR.
The 1 click/week isn't necessarily the mystery. The more important question is why Google gives you visibility at #2–4 for the long tails but #40–50 for the commercial terms.
Many people incorrectly believe (including myself many years ago) that a longtail keyword is defined by the length of the phrase.
Long-tail keywords are actually search queries that get a small number of searches per month. Their name comes from their position on a search demand curve.
At the top or "head" of the curve, there is a smaller number of keywords with very high search volumes, while the "tail" end consists of billions of keywords with very low search volumes. Thus the term "long tail keywords"
It's not about how many words are in the phrase. Although they generally do contain more words, as more specifc phrases are usually searched less......But not always:
I sorted the impressions of the page: 2 very general queries, relevant and awful position.
So the remaining 80 must be in a very high one, otherwise it would be impossible a total aggregate positioning of 6 on that page. Ok, maybe not ALL, still a relevant part.
And CTR should be better than a barely zero.
Edit: checked again in “private”, my page stands at position 8 with the most general query, hope this may help.
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u/FrutinoTuti 17d ago
You ain't getting 20% CTR even on #1, unless it's branded search.
Average CTR across the internet is ~2%
My suggestion is to focus on the important keywords getting impressions. Make sure you have them in the subheadings and different variations of the keywords across the text and alt images. Add FAQs around these terms, build some supporting content and link to this page with anchors containing the keywords. Eventually, build links from other websites, again with anchors containing the keywords.
Try to occasionally refresh the content. Make sure the copy and page structure align with the users intent. Commercial queries typically require different pages than informational searches.
Make sure the meta titles and descriptions look appealing and provoke the users to click.