Is being on page one of Google enough? No — on our own eight sites, positions 4 to 10 earned 9 clicks from 3,228 impressions

The honest version of this question is not whether page one matters — it does; page two is where our 3,680 unclicked impressions live — but whether being anywhere on it is worth what an agency is asking. That needs a click curve, and every click curve on the internet belongs to somebody else’s data. Ours is small and it is ours, so this page publishes it whole: eight sites, 1,170 queries, 8,452 impressions, 15 clicks, with the method and the file, and then reads what it means for a Grand Rapids business that has been promised page one.

The measurement: eight sites, 1,170 queries, 90 days

On 16 September 2026 I read every query row Google Search Console holds for the eight properties Kerr & Company owns — this site, the studio’s products and two smaller sites — for the 90 days ending 14 September 2026 (the console lags two to three days), by the Search Analytics API with the query dimension and a 5,000-row limit. Each row is one query with its clicks, impressions and average position. Rows were then grouped by that average position. The raw pull is in the receipts.

Average position (90 days to 14 Sep 2026)	Queries	Impressions	Clicks	Click rate
1 to 3	33	47	0	0.0% (too few impressions to read)
4 to 10 — the rest of page one	185	3,228	9	0.3%
11 to 20	109	306	4	1.3%
21 to 50	224	1,191	2	0.2%
51 and beyond	619	3,680	0	0.0%
All queries	1,170	8,452	15	0.2%

Three things in that table. First, 218 queries averaged inside page one, with 3,275 impressions between them, and they produced nine clicks. Second, the queries that did click at page-one positions were mostly people looking for us by name — “kerr and company” at position 4.8 took 2 clicks from 8 impressions, a product’s download query at 8.1 took 1 from 173 — while the non-brand queries with the most page-one impressions took none: one at an average position of 7.0 with 375 impressions, three related ones at 8.9 to 9.8 with 413 to 452 impressions each, all zero. Third, positions 11 to 20 out-clicked positions 4 to 10 on rate, which on 306 impressions is noise, and is the point: the difference between the bottom of page one and the top of page two is not the cliff the pitch implies. The cliff is between the top three and everything else, and on our data the top three barely exists yet.

Property (90 days to 14 Sep 2026)	Queries	Impressions	Clicks	Queries averaging inside page one
outlier.host	526	3,904	10	183
docketseo.app	124	1,307	0	3
bookbreaker.bet	170	1,137	1	13
kerrandcompanyholdings.com	173	1,034	2	7
builtbykerr.com (this site)	112	742	0	0
crispvideo.app	22	163	2	9
adplaybook.app	42	162	0	3
matthewkerr.dev	1	3	0	0

This site is the worked example of the wrong side of the curve. Over the window it was shown 742 times and clicked never; its money queries — “web design grand rapids”, 84 impressions; “website design grand rapids”, 55 — sat at average positions of 99 and 94. That is not page one and it is not page two; it is page ten, where an impression is a technicality. It is also exactly what a new site in a market of agencies and directories looks like, and the reason the work on it is the Business Profile and the pages, not a promise about a page number.

What “position” and “page one” mean, in Google’s words

Search Console’s own definitions, read on 16 September 2026 (support.google.com/webmasters/answer/7042828):

• Position “is typically calculated from top to bottom on the primary side of the page, then top to bottom on the secondary side”, and the number shown “is the topmost position occupied by a link to your property or page in search results, averaged across all queries.”
• An impression “is counted whenever an item appears in the current page of results, whether or not the item is scrolled into view, as long as the user need not click to see more results.”
• Every element counts. Google’s own illustration: “Position 6 is occupied by a knowledge panel (a compound element). All links in the panel have position 6.”

Put those together and “we got you to position 8” means: on average, across whatever queries were counted, the first link to your site was the eighth thing on the page, which may have been below a map pack, a question box, an image row and four competitors, and which was credited with an impression even when nobody scrolled to it. An average of 8 can also be position 3 on Tuesday and 13 on Thursday. None of that is dishonest; it is what the number is. It is why the number, on its own, does not predict a phone call.

Being on the page is not being seen. Being seen is not being chosen.

For a Grand Rapids business, the page one that matters is the map

When someone searches for a plumber or a roofer near them, Google says “they’ll find local results on Google Maps and Search”, ranked on three things — relevance (“how well a Business Profile matches what someone is searching for”), distance, and prominence (“how well-known a business is”) — and, in the same document, “There’s no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on Google” (support.google.com/business/answer/7091, read 16 September 2026). Those local results are the three businesses in the map pack, and they are what a “page one” promise quietly leaves out: a site can hold an organic position on page one and still sit under three competitors’ phone numbers.

The map pack is built from things you can check yourself. On 15 September 2026 the twelve top-three spots for four Grand Rapids trades held between 22 and 12,142 reviews, and three of the twelve had under 60 (the reviews reading). 40 of 40 top-ranked trades had a website, 30 of 39 linked a page per service, and 32 of 39 had a tap-to-call link. That is the checklist that decides whether the local results include you, and not one item on it is a page number.

What to ask instead of “will we be on page one?”

What you are told	Ask	What a good answer looks like
“We’ll get you on page one”	For which queries, at what position, and what does Google show above that position today?	A named list of queries, a target of the top three or the map pack, and a screenshot of the page as it is now
“You’re already on page one”	How many impressions and clicks did that query bring last month, in my own Search Console?	Numbers from your account, not a rank tracker; on our data, position 7 with 375 impressions brought nothing
“Rankings up 200%”	Clicks and calls, up by how many?	Clicks in Search Console and calls in the Business Profile, month over month
“Page one in 30 days, guaranteed”	Nothing — Google says to find someone else	“If they guarantee you that their changes will give you first place in search results, find someone else” (Google Search Central, read 16 September 2026)
“We don’t do the map, just the website”	Then who is doing the profile, the reviews and the listings?	For a local trade, the profile is the work; a site alone competes for the organic links under the map

What this reading does not prove

• Fifteen clicks is a small number. These are new sites in narrow niches; the rates are indicative, and a busier site’s curve will be steeper at the top. What the data does show, cleanly, is that thousands of page-one impressions can produce almost nothing.
• Average position is an average. A query at 8.0 may never have been at 8. The buckets are read as bands, not ranks.
• Brand queries inflate page-one clicks. Most of the nine clicks at positions 4 to 10 were people searching for a product by name. Strip those and the non-brand rate on page one is lower still.
• One engine, one window. Google only, 90 days, read once on 16 September 2026; Bing and AI answers are not in it.
• Nothing here measures the map pack’s own click rate. Search Console reports links to your site; calls and direction requests from the profile are reported inside the profile, not here.

How we do it

The terms are on the SEO page: Local SEO from $750 a month for a single-location business, built on the Business Profile, reviews, citations and local landing pages, with a live dashboard showing rankings, traffic and calls rather than a monthly PDF; a three-month initial commitment, then month to month; and you own every page, profile and asset we build, even if you leave. The page also says what the clock looks like — technical fixes and profile work can move local rankings and calls in four to eight weeks, competitive keyword rankings usually take four to six months — and that anyone promising page one in 30 days is selling you something. Profile management on its own starts at $500 a month per location; what everyone else charges for it, how long it takes and what to ask before you sign are the next three questions.

---

Common questions