What Percentage of the Google Search Traffic Goes to the Top 3 Searches?

When it comes to online presence, all business owners have the same goal – to rank their website at the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs).

Although an uphill task, it’s a goal worth pursuing. After all, a top position in the search results can skyrocket your organic click-through rates.

In fact, a ranking on the first page won’t mean much if your website does not show on the top 3 spots. According to a study by Backlinko, the top 3 results in organic search get 75% of all clicks!

Let’s take a look at some critical findings of this study that throw light on the value of showing up at the top spot:

  • The number 1 result in the organic SERPs receives an average of 31.7% of the traffic.
  • The second position gets 24.71% of traffic and the third position gets an average of 18.59% of all clicks.
  • Organic click-rates for positions 7 through 10 are almost the same.
  • Moving up one spot in the SERPs will increase traffic by 30.8% on average. But that depends on which position you are moving from and to. Moving from #3 to spot #2 will give a remarkable boost in CTR. But moving from #10 to #9 or even #7 won’t make a huge difference to your traffic.
  • The tenth position receives an average of only 2.5% traffic.
  • URLs that feature a keyword receive 45% more clicks compared to those that do not feature a keyword.
  • Title tags with a question receive 14.1% more traffic compared to pages that do not have a question in the title.
  • Title tags that are 15 to 40 characters long receive the highest traffic. Per the study, pages that have a title tag length of 15 to 40 characters see an average of 8.6% more traffic compared to sites that don’t fall in this range.

#1 Ranking – A Long-Term Process

Most business owners want to rank on the first spot of Google SERPs. It’s the ultimate goal! At the same time, it’s important to remember that getting to the first position on Google is not an overnight task.

In fact, a #1 ranking in the SERP is the result of extensive hours and often, many years of time and money.

This holds true especially for extremely competitive keywords with websites that have existed for decades. In such cases, you are up against heavyweights who have been around for years, have unmatched domain authority and a ton of backlinks. They are churning top-quality content and receiving numerous backlinks in turn.

With increasing competition and more content being added than ever, that’s a task that’s extremely difficult to achieve.

In their desire to achieve this pipe dream, many people end up taking their business down. Getting a top spot on Google is a fantastic vision but it might not be worth the price you end up paying.

So instead of wondering how much traffic a top-ranking page gets and chasing a dream that might not prove valuable to you, ask yourself how much time, effort and money you are willing to put in? After all, you get what you put in.

Tips to Improve Your Search Rankings

If you are starting out just now, you can’t hope to rank on the first page anytime soon. But here are some strategies you can consider to improve your rankings in Google.

Optimise Your Website

Google penalises any page that fails its extracting usability and quality standards. So before you begin to build backlinks or add new content to your website, it’s important to optimise your website for usability.

Are there any broken links? Moved images? 404 errors? Fix and update those errors to make your website offers a consistent user experience.

Once you make these essential updates, your website is ready to go up the rankings ladder in Google SERP.

Go Mobile-Friendly

Look up your website on a mobile device. Do you have to squint or zoom-pinch to be able to read the text? Are the links so small that they don’t recognise your clicks?

Now think about your visitors. What kind of impression will they have with such a website? Will this experience annoy them or impress them?

Your answer will inform the next step you need to take. The solution is to invest in a mobile-friendly website that is easy to navigate and use no matter the device it’s accessed on.

Build Backlinks

Backlinks are at the core of improving a website’s search rankings. Search engines look at the anchor text (the text third party websites use when linking back to your website) in a piece of content to assess its relevance to the URL it’s pointing to. If most links use the same anchor text, it can raise suspicion and Google may even penalise you.

Google will also consider the quality of the pages that you’re linking to. They must be relevant to your content, whether they lead to another website or a page on your own site.

Focus on Gaining Authority

Google does not want to compromise the user experience it offers to its searchers. So it won’t rank any website that is not relevant or lacks authority.

Your priority should be to establish your authority as a reliable source of information that your users trust. When Google recognises that, you can expect an improvement in your search rankings.

That’s a long shot that will take a lot of time and effort but it’s well worth it. Begin by publishing high-quality content on a regular basis. Work on increasing engagement with your content by sharing on social media and even publishing guest posts on third-party blogs.

Parting Thoughts

Your site is at the core of your digital presence. If you want to improve your online presence, you must work on improving your search rankings so more people can find you. A Numero, we have years of experience in SEO and can help your site get better search engine rankings in Google.

Get started today! If you are ready to improve your online visibility, contact us today!