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Stop reporting average position
A flat average across thousands of keywords hides everything that matters. Use click-weighted share of voice instead.
Average position is the most reported and least useful number in SEO. It moves for reasons unrelated to performance and stays still when performance changes.
Why it misleads
Consider two months. In the first you rank 3rd for a term with fifty thousand searches and 40th for nine terms nobody searches. In the second you slip to 5th on the big term and climb to 20th on the nine small ones.
Your average position improved. Your traffic fell by a third.
The average treats every keyword as equally important and every position as equally valuable, and neither is true. The gap between 1st and 3rd is worth far more than the gap between 30th and 20th.
What to use instead
Click-weighted share of voice. For a defined keyword set:
- Estimate the clicks available at each position, using a click curve.
- Multiply by search volume per term.
- Sum what you capture; divide by the total available.
The result answers the question executives actually ask: of the attention available in our category, how much is ours?
It moves when something meaningful happens and stays still when it does not.
Three things to get right
- Define the keyword set once and hold it. A set that grows every month produces a number that cannot be compared to last month's.
- Use a click curve that fits your SERPs. A category dominated by generated answers has a flatter curve than one that is still ten blue links.
- Segment it. One number for the whole site is nearly as blunt as an average. Report by category, market and brand.
The conversation it enables
Average position invites "why did it go up 0.4". Share of voice invites "we own 22% of this category and the leader owns 31% — here is what closing that is worth".
The second conversation gets budget.
