SERP Position and CTR

[IM Ash]

Guyz,

Interesting statistic with one of my Adsense monetized sites:

One of my pages was on the first position for a keyword that I was targeting but after the last Panda roll-out that particular page fell to the 2nd position. I was just comparing the stats and I found that I have a way better CTR on the 2nd position for that particular keyword than the 1st position.

I do realize that there are many factors that influence CTR but I was just curious whether anyone experienced something similar?

[sweetheater]

What about the site ranking no 1....Does it have good meta description ? how trustful the url of that 1st result looks,will you click the result 1 as a normal user(i mean for this particular keyword)..I think all these also affects CTR to some extent

[IM Ash]

Originally Posted by sweetheater

What about the site ranking no 1....Does it have good meta description ? how trustful the url of that 1st result looks,will you click the result 1 as a normal user(i mean for this particular keyword)..I think all these also affects CTR to some extent

Okay, maybe I wasn't clear in my post... my apologies. The stat is in relation to Adsense CTR

[SilentX]

You may be noticing my comments on your threads since I seem to be stalking your threads, but you have some good content.

In any case, I assume the CTR increase is significant (above 1 standard deviation in change) and that this isn't just a 1-2 day fluke. So if that's the case, my best guess would be that along withe Panda changing it's SERP algorithm, it also changed its algorithm for AdSense ad relevancy and thus your particular ads are more targetted and resulting in increased CTR. I have not heard of this particular one way or the other, but thought I'd throw it out there for what it's worth.

[George Curtis]

Hmmm.... SilentX, that is a very interesting theory. I bet you are probably right.

I know that Eleva8 clarified his CTR as being that of Adsense ads on his site (once they got there) but I will say this...

We have found that for certain clients in certain niches... the CTR (for Adwords) was actually better on the RH side about 3 positions down and when we went up higher they dropped. Go figure.

[abbadox]

I have noticed with two websites I work on have been in the top 3 positions for their primary keywords for well over 2 years now and I have found that I get a better ctr in position 2 overall. I am not saying this is always the case but it does happen sometimes that position # 1 is not always the highest earning position. My guess is that the difference in ctr has more to do with the wording used in the description of each site then the actual position.

[George Curtis]

abbadox,

You are right there. Wording in the description is VERY important for click-thrus.

Here is our strategy:
1) Write title tags to get found
2) Write descriptions to get the clicks

I know it can be tempting to write title tags for clicks, but if you don't get found, you can't get the clicks.

Once we have the backlinks built up to where the page ranks highly for the main keyword... then we can alter the title tag a bit to make it more compelling and not so much keyword-speak, but at first your title must closely match your targeted keyword.

That only leaves the description for writing compelling "click me" copy.

Good words/phrases that we find that help on click-thrus are things like:
"complete resource", "most complete selection", "best value", etc. A call to action like "Click here to find out why!" or simply "Visit now" also seems to help "rob" clicks.

More people should try this strategy because more of the 2nd and 3rd place sites could be getting far more clicks if they would work on their descriptions a little more.