Improved rankings and impressions + Lower CTR and clicks

[dipper]

Since early September in Google.com.au, a strange thing has happened to my main website - improved rankings (AWR reporting 25% improvement+ - now a lot more on first page) and impressions (GWT+GA), but at the exact same time our CTR and clicks dropped, making our overall traffic about the same and level. I would have expected with our improved rankings, and our previously (12 months stable CTR) that we would see an increase in traffic.

Traffic shaping? Or?

[aakk9999]

I am assuming you are refering to CTR and Clicks reported in WMT.

As you have more exposure and therefore ranking better for more head tail type of keywords, you have more impressions. One of reasons for failed CTR is that your <title> and meta description are not so relevant to what has been searched for, hence CTR drop. This would not explain click drop though.

Another aspect is that if you get two entries on the SERP page the visitor sees, this will count as 2 impressions. Attracting a visitor to your site from one or another counts as 1 click. So bringing the second entry on the same SERP and having the same number of visitors will result with CTR halving.

It could be traffic shaping too, but this is perhaps better discussed in Zombie Observation thread we have now [webmasterworld.com...]