In short
CTR is the share of impressions that turn into clicks. A hundred impressions and three clicks is three percent. It measures one thing only: whether what people see makes them click — not whether anything good sits behind it. A high CTR followed by an immediate bounce is a bad result, not a good one.
Why there is no useful benchmark
Because CTR is driven almost entirely by position. The same listing gets a multiple of the click rate at position one that it gets at position eight, with no change to the wording at all.
Comparing against industry averages is therefore mostly worthless. The only comparison that helps is the same page at the same position before the change.
Where it does tell you something
In Search Console, per query. A page with plenty of impressions, a decent position and conspicuously few clicks is saying one thing: the title or description misses the intent.
That is the cheapest optimisation available — five minutes of editing, position unchanged, effect measurable within two weeks.
What it does not measure
Whether anybody buys. A sensational headline lifts CTR and depresses everything after it. Optimise CTR in isolation and you are optimising for disappointment.
It is only useful as a pair: CTR and what happens after the click. If one rises while the other falls, the change was a step backwards.
How we handle it
We read CTR per query out of Search Console and rewrite titles and descriptions where impressions exist and clicks do not. On an existing page that is regularly the fastest measurable improvement available.
How we work: SEO. The same principle applies to paid ads, there with a direct cost per click — see SEA.
Related terms
A term in your quote that nobody explained?
In a strategy call we translate the offer in front of you — even when it did not come from us.