Click-through rate is the percentage of searchers who see your page in results and actually click it. If your page appears 1,000 times in search and gets 50 clicks, your CTR is 5%. Google Search Console shows this metric for every query and page, making it the primary way to measure whether your titles and descriptions are working. CTR varies wildly by position. Position one typically gets 28–35% CTR for informational queries, position two drops to 12–18%, and position five might see 5–8%. Featured snippets can steal clicks even from the top organic result, sometimes dropping position one CTR to 15–20%. Local pack and ads also suppress organic CTR, especially for commercial queries. What kills CTR: boring titles that don't match intent, missing meta descriptions that force Google to generate excerpts, outdated publish dates on time-sensitive topics, and weak branding when competitors have recognizable names. A page ranking fourth with a compelling title can outperform a third-place result with generic copy. CTR improvement directly increases traffic without needing to rank higher. We've seen clients gain 40–60% more visitors by rewriting titles for pages already ranking in positions 3–7. The math is simple: if you rank fifth for a 10,000-volume keyword at 6% CTR, that's 600 visits per month. Boost CTR to 9% and you add 300 visits without moving up at all. Google likely uses CTR as a ranking signal, though they've never confirmed the mechanism. Consistently low CTR compared to your position might signal your result isn't relevant, while high CTR can reinforce rankings. We treat it as both a performance metric and a ranking factor. Check Search Console weekly for pages with high impressions but sub-5% CTR in positions 1–10. Those are your quick wins. Rewrite the title to include the primary keyword closer to the front, add a number or current year if relevant, and make sure the meta description answers the searcher's question in the first 120 characters.