SEO metrics: how to read clicks, impressions, CTR and average position

Opening Google Search Console for the first time can be intimidating: charts, four colors and thousands of rows. But the SEO metrics that matter are few, and they read better together than separately. In this guide we explain what each one measures according to Google's official help, how to interpret them and what to do when they change.

27.6%

Average CTR of the first result

10 times the tenth

32.3%

Moving up one spot increases CTR by

relative average

0.63%

Clicks on the second page

of people

Source: Backlinko, 4 million results

View the data as a table

Average CTR of the first result	27.6% | 10 times the tenth
Moving up one spot increases CTR by	32.3% | relative average
Clicks on the second page	0.63% | of people

The four SEO metrics in Search Console

The Search Console Performance report shows four metrics. These are their official definitions, in plain words:

Metric	What it measures	How to read it
Clicks	How many times someone clicked through to your site from Google results	The traffic that actually arrived
Impressions	How many times your site appeared in results	Measures visibility, even if no one clicks
CTR	Clicks divided by impressions	How appealing your result is
Average position	The average of the topmost position your site reached	Where you appear, on average

An example: if a page had 2,000 impressions and 50 clicks in a month, its CTR is 50 ÷ 2,000 = 2.5%.

Be careful with average position: it is not "the spot where you always appear". For each query, Google takes your best position and then averages, according to its explanation of how the data is calculated. If you appear in position 2 for one query and position 8 for another, your average position is 5, even though you were never in that spot.

How to read SEO metrics together

A single number says little. What's useful is looking at combinations:

• Many impressions and low CTR: you appear, but your result doesn't convince. Improve the title and description, and check how they look with the SERP simulator.
• Position between 5 and 15 with many impressions: you're close to the top spots. These are the most profitable pages to improve, because moving up a single spot increases CTR by 32.3% on average, according to Backlinko.
• Impressions rising but clicks not: you may be appearing in new searches but in low positions, or an AI summary may be answering before the links. We explain it in AI Overviews in figures.
• Sudden drop in clicks and impressions: check whether the page is still indexed and run it through the SEO Checker to detect errors such as a misplaced canonical or a noindex tag.

Other SEO metrics worth checking

Besides performance, there are technical metrics that explain why numbers go up or down:

• Indexed pages: the Search Console indexing report shows how many pages Google can show and why it excludes others.
• Core Web Vitals: according to web.dev, a good experience means loading the main content in 2.5 seconds or less (LCP), responding to a click in 200 milliseconds or less (INP) and a visual stability of 0.1 or less (CLS). web.dev recommends measuring them at 75% of visits, with mobile and desktop separately.
• On-page errors: duplicate titles, missing H1s or images without alt text don't show up in a chart, but they hurt. The SEO Checker detects them page by page.

If you measure campaigns, tag your links with the UTM generator to separate organic from paid traffic in Google Analytics.

How often to check SEO metrics

A monthly review is enough for most sites. Always compare equal periods, for example the last 28 days against the previous 28, and separate mobile from desktop. For a step-by-step guide to finding your position on Google, read our guide to check website ranking.