SERP Position Value Reference

The scenario

A deliberately ordinary mid-market keyword: 10,000 searches a month, a 2% conversion rate, an average order of £80, against £2,000 a month of SEO spend. Nothing is tuned to make a point — the interesting result falls out of the CTR curve on its own.

Positions 1–10 at 10,000 monthly searches. Rows shaded green cover the £2,000 monthly spend; red rows do not.
Position	Organic CTR	Clicks / mo	vs position 10	Clicks gained at #1	Conversions	Revenue	ROI	ROAS
#1	31.7%	3,170	13.21×	—	63.4	£5,072	153.6%	2.54×
#2	24.7%	2,470	10.29×	+700	49.4	£3,952	97.6%	1.98×
#3	18.7%	1,870	7.79×	+1,300	37.4	£2,992	49.6%	1.5×
#4	13.6%	1,360	5.67×	+1,810	27.2	£2,176	8.8%	1.09×
#5	9.5%	950	3.96×	+2,220	19	£1,520	-24%	0.76×
#6	6.3%	630	2.63×	+2,540	12.6	£1,008	-49.6%	0.5×
#7	4.3%	430	1.79×	+2,740	8.6	£688	-65.6%	0.34×
#8	3.1%	310	1.29×	+2,860	6.2	£496	-75.2%	0.25×
#9	2.6%	260	1.08×	+2,910	5.2	£416	-79.2%	0.21×
#10	2.4%	240	1×	+2,930	4.8	£384	-80.8%	0.19×

What the table says

Break-even sits at position 4. On this scenario a keyword ranked 4th still covers its £2,000 of monthly spend; one position lower it does not, and the same work now runs at a loss. That line is not a rule of thumb — it is where £80 orders, a 2% conversion rate and the CTR curve happen to cross for this budget. Change any of the three in the ROI calculator and the line moves.

The top of page one is worth far more than page one itself. Position one draws 13.21× the clicks of position 10— a bigger multiple than most teams assume, and the reason “we made page one” is a weak success criterion. The drop from position 1 to position 2 alone costs 700 clicks a month here.

The cheapest wins are near the top, not at the bottom.Read the “clicks gained at #1” column downward: moving from position 2 to position 1 adds 700 clicks, while moving from position 9 to position 1 adds 2,910. The absolute gain is larger from far down the page, but the effort to climb nine places is not nine times the effort to climb one — which is why a keyword already sitting at 2 or 3 is usually the better place to spend the next hour.

Every number above is a planning estimate built on an aggregated CTR curve. Your own Search Console impressions and clicks beat any generic curve — use this to size an opportunity before you have that data, and to sanity-check a forecast after you do.

❓ Frequently Asked Questions

Where do the numbers in this table come from?

They are not typed in. The page calls the same two functions the site's interactive tools call — the SERP CTR Estimator for clicks and the SEO ROI Calculator for conversions, revenue, ROI and ROAS — and prints what they return. A test in the repository asserts every row still equals a fresh call to those functions, so the table cannot drift away from the tools.

Why does the same keyword lose money at position five?

Because organic CTR collapses far faster than most plans assume. Position one takes roughly 31.7% of clicks and position 5 roughly 9.5% — under a third as many. Hold the spend steady and that difference decides whether the keyword pays for itself. On the scenario below, the break-even line falls at position 4.

Are these CTR percentages accurate for my site?

Treat them as a planning curve, not a measurement. They are an aggregate of published SERP CTR studies, and real click-through rates move with query intent, brand recognition, and which SERP features appear above you. Your own Search Console impression and click data always beats a generic curve — use this to size an opportunity before you have that data.

What does the 'vs position 10' column mean?

It is how many times more clicks a position draws than the last result on page one, at the same search volume. Position one earns 13.21 times the clicks of position 10 — which is the single most useful number here, because it shows that the gap between the top of page one and the bottom is far wider than the gap between page one and page two.