What are reasons for poor (0 to 2%) CTR in spite of top position (number one) in SERPs?

[govi]

My website pages appear for several local keywords like "granite countertops St.Louis" (About 480 impressions) and my site appears as the top most in SERPs. But the CTR is 1 to 2%. It is mentioned that the top positions may get as many as 35% clicks.

What are the reasons? I need help with detailed solutions.

archcitygranite.com

[DJ123]

It all depends on the industry, local factors and search trends.

It may be for your industry/business that that is an epic CTR.  It also may be that people searching for those items are not actually looking for what you think they are looking for.

Do you have any comparables for your top competitors?  There are copious tools out there which can estimate traffic, albeit they can not be very accurate, but still if you compare your traffic to competitor traffic using the same tools, you may get some more insight into what is "normal" for your business.

The bottom line is that every niche has its own numbers and you may be doing everything just fine.

[EGOL]

What are the reasons? I need help with detailed solutions.

If you want carefully considered ideas, please share your domain.  Guesses will be a waste of everyone's time.

[spencerhjustice]

It's http://www.archcitygranite.com/ he linked it as an attachment.

[EGOL]

Thank you, Spencer.

[EGOL]

First, I am surprised that the CTR is so low because of your top ranking.  My goal with that would be to change the title tag and description tag to match the query as closely as possible and to elicit clicks.

If this was my site I would change the title tag to match the query.... and to elicit clicks.

I don't know your business so I am going to guess.

<title>Granite Countertops: Prompt Installation in St. Louis area</title>

They will see the name of your business in your domain.

Then I would change the description tag.   Study the adwords guys.  They have great descriptions...

Over 100 colors,  Fast, expert installation, Affordable countertops and replacements.  Tell them what they are looking for that you can deliver.

[govi]

Hi Everybody,

i mentioned low CTR when I posted my question, and now I understand that CTR is used for the clicks on Adwords campaign. What I really mean is the clicks ratio of ORGANIC search results and not the Adwords campaign. Clicks on organic results and CTR on Adwords behave similarly?

[DougRoberts]

The performance of your snippet on the search result pages can be pretty variable and affected by a whole host of things.

The first big problem is advertising. If your ranking #1 on a SERP that has a high volume of ads then they will be diminishing the visibility of your site.

The ads you're competing with have a big advantage over your organic SERP. It's much easier for the advertiser to put specific language in their ad to entice searchers to click through. Matching the users intent and adding compelling benefits / reasons why they should visit their site. (eg: Prices you can't beat, free estimates, fitted in 1 day etc...)

Your snippet describes your business but it doesn't tell me "what's in it for me?" if I click though on the link. Your first words are "Custom Fabricator" which causes me some friction - This sounds like you might be b2b. Do you sell stuff direct to customers?

EGOL has some great advice about sharpening up your snippet.

You've got some reviews and testimonial - What is it that really matters to your customers? Sometimes it's not always what you think it is, or described in the language you'd use (as you're in the trade).

Another question is how much traffic is there for this search term and how "SEO" aware are your competitors. I've noticed that for some competitive terms the real search volume isn't as high as you think it is. I've come to the conclusion that certain terms can be inflated due to the amount of rank tracking going on!

How are your other keywords performing? Are you getting better results from keywords like "granite counter installation St Louis" for instance? Can you compare the CTR between keywords with a similar intent?

The thing is, you don't know what a good CTR for that particular SERP is. You don't know what you competitors (in ads, organic and local) are getting so it's difficult for you to say if you're earning your fair share.

[EGOL]

Your first words are "Custom Fabricator" which causes me some friction - This sounds like you might be b2b. Do you sell stuff direct to customers?

Thank you, Doug.   This is exactly what bothered me too.  I did think they were b2b from those words.