Does Organic CTR from Keyword Explorer show percentage of 1st position clicks? If not, how to calculate?

[elementpaints]

I have two questions about the Organic CTR number from the Moz Keyword Explorer tool. I have read through the description here, but it is not very clear on what I need to know: https://moz.com/community/q/what-is-a-good-keyword-opportunity-score

1. Does it calculate the percent of searchers that are likely to click on ANY of links from page one of the traditional organic search results? Or does it calculate the percent of searchers that are likely to click on the NUMBER 1 position of the traditional organic search results?

I suspect the answer will be that it calculates the percentage of clicks for any of the traditional organic search results from page one. Which leads me to question two...

2. I'm trying to calculate the estimated search traffic from each keyword if there was a number 1 ranking. And if the Organic CTR shows the percentage of clicks going to any of the traditional organic search results I need to add a modifier to my formula which will calculate how many clicks the number 1 ranking receives. So I think the formula would will look something like this: Monthly website traffic from keyword = monthly search traffic * Organic CTR * Number 1 Position CTR. In this case, what would I use for the "Number 1 Position CTR" modifier?

[meghanpahinui]

Hi there!

Thanks so much for the great question!

Organic CTR calculates the relative click-through-rate for organic search results in any given Search Engine Results Page. This means that SERPS with fewer non-traditional features (like images and ads, etc) will have higher organic CTRs. We use anonymized clickstream data to build this particular metric and apply it to what we see in Google SERPs. We have a great page in our help hub that further outlines the Keyword Explorer metrics: https://moz.com/help/guides/keyword-explorer/keyword-metrics and you may also find this page useful: https://moz.com/help/guides/moz-pro-overview/rankings/landing-pages

I hope this helps! If you have follow up questions, please feel free to email us at help@moz.com!

[elementpaints]

Hi Meghan,

Thanks for replying during the holiday period, I didn't expect a response until after christmas!

Sorry to be nit picky, I really appreciate your help, but I'm still not clear on what exactly is calculated or how to solve my problem. Your answer could get interpreted in a few ways so for the sake of clarity (and to satisfy my OCD haha) could you please tell me which statement below is correct... statement 1 or statement 2:

Statement 1: Organic CTR gives a relative click-through-rate for ALL the organic search results on the page.
Statement 2: Organic CTR gives a relative click-through-rate for the #1 position on the search results page.

Also your link regarding landing pages and estimated traffic looks great (https://moz.com/help/guides/moz-pro-overview/rankings/landing-pages) but since I do not already rank for these keywords it won't provide me with the data I need. I need to know the estimate search traffic before I start targeting keywords, not after I rank for them.

So I still need to know what is the CTR for a number 1 position compared to the other organic search results. Do you know what I should be using for this number? Research tell me it can be anything from 40% to 20%... but I am yet to find a definitive answer to this.

Again, thanks for your help!

Thanks,
Ben