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What 88 Days of Search Console Data Shows About Ranking a New Consultancy Site
We pulled 88 days of our own Search Console data: 870 queries, 10,575 impressions, 126 clicks. Here is where the clicks actually come from, by position.
Most advice on search ranking is based on large studies of big sites. We wanted to see what it looks like for a small, new consultancy site, so we pulled our own numbers. This is the Search Console data for coffeeandcandle.com from 1 August to 27 October 2026, 88 days. Nothing has been estimated or rounded in our favour.
In this article
The headline numbers
- 126 clicks from 10,575 impressions over the 88 days, a click rate of about 1.2%.
- 870 distinct queries the site appeared for.
A click rate that low on the surface suggests a title problem. The breakdown by position shows that is mostly not the cause.
Where the clicks come from, by average position
We grouped every query by the average position the site held for it. Impressions and clicks below are for the queries Search Console reports individually, which is most but not all of the traffic, because Google hides very rare queries.
| Average position | Queries | Impressions | Clicks | Click rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 to 3 | 27 | 31 | 0 | 0% |
| 4 to 10 | 177 | 1,006 | 10 | 0.99% |
| 11 to 20 | 159 | 1,158 | 23 | 1.99% |
| 21 to 50 | 300 | 2,532 | 7 | 0.28% |
| 51 and below | 207 | 2,170 | 0 | 0% |
What this shows
Most of our visibility is on page three or lower. Of the roughly 6,900 impressions above, about 4,700 (68%) are at position 21 or lower, and those produced 7 clicks. A page that appears but sits that far down is seen by almost nobody.
The best click rate is on page two, not page one. Queries at positions 11 to 20 clicked at 1.99%, higher than positions 4 to 10 at 0.99%. The likely reason is the kind of query. Our page-one positions are mostly broad topics where searchers are browsing, and page-two queries are narrower, where someone is looking for a specific answer. We can’t prove that from this data alone.
The queries ranked 1 to 3 got almost no impressions. 27 queries ranked in the top three, with 31 impressions between them. A top-three position on a query nobody searches is worth very little.
What we are doing about it
- Moving the 159 queries on page two onto page one. They already get the best click rate. The work is better content depth, internal links and links from other sites.
- Not chasing the 207 queries below position 50. They get no clicks and are the least likely to move.
- Expanding the guides that attract the most impressions with worked examples, comparison tables and checklists.
Caveats
This is one site for 88 days. A new site is still being evaluated by Google and positions move. Click rate depends on the query, the device and what else is on the results page. We have grouped by average position, which hides how a page moves during the period. Treat these numbers as a snapshot of one small site, not a benchmark.
If you want help working out which of your own queries are close to page one, talk to us about performance marketing.
