SEO case study · 12 September 2025 to 21 April 2026
A regional news site went from near-zero search clicks to 20.1K
The site ranked near the top and still drew almost no clicks, because its search titles carried no headline. Fixing the title rule, the page speed and the copied content changed that.
3.5M
impressions
0.6%
click-through rate
4.6
average position
Measured over
12 September 2025 to 21 April 2026
What to notice
The top row reads 20.1K clicks, 3.5M impressions, 0.6% click-through rate and position 4.6. Clicks are flat under the label, then climb through winter to a peak in February and March.
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Who the business is
A regional news and current affairs site. It is not named here, so it is described by its trade and by what the screenshot shows.
Why marketing mattered
A news site earns from readers arriving. Being shown without being clicked is the same as not being shown.
- Service
- SEO
- Sector
- Regional news site, SEO
- Period measured
- 12 September 2025 to 21 April 2026
- Figures from
- A Search Console performance screenshot for the account
What was not working
The problem
A regional news site that Google showed millions of times and almost nobody clicked. Its search titles were the site name and a date, with no headline.
- Search titles were generated as the site name plus the date, with no headline.
- Wire stories were republished with nothing original added, so Google favoured the source.
- Pages loaded too slowly on phones.
Where things stood before the work began
From 12 September to early November 2025 the impressions line shows the site being seen while the clicks line lies along the bottom of the chart.
What we found, and why we started there
The thinking
A site at position 4.6 should be clicked many times more often than this one was. That pointed away from the reporting and toward how each result looked in search: a title with no headline gives nobody a reason to click.
How we did it, step by step
- 1
Title rule rebuilt
The rule that generated titles was replaced with one that uses the article headline.
- 2
A local angle on every wire story
Each syndicated article now carries at least 150 words of original local analysis from the editorial team.
- 3
Mobile load time fixed
Lead images were compressed, non-essential scripts deferred and images below the fold lazy-loaded.
What the numbers show
The result
20.1K
organic clicks in seven months
20.1K clicks from 3.5M impressions between 12 September 2025 and 21 April 2026, at an average position of 4.6. Clicks sit near zero until early November, then rise to between 100 and 300 a day.
From the work to the outcome
- Headlines in search titles
- A reason to click
- 3.5M impressions
- 20.1K clicks
How to read this, and what it does not prove
About seven months of Search Console totals. The totals include two months before the work, when clicks were close to zero.
A 0.6% click-through rate at position 4.6 is still very low, so most of the opportunity is unclaimed. The label and arrows on the chart were added to the screenshot. Clicks tail off slightly in the final weeks. The client is not named, so a reader cannot check the screenshot against the account. It is one account with no control group: it shows what happened alongside the work, and it cannot show how much of that the work caused.
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What you can take from this
Look at your own result in Google
Search for one of your pages and read the title as a stranger would. If it does not say what the page is, fix that first.
Add something of your own to copied content
Google ranks the original. Give it a reason to treat yours as different.
A good position with no clicks is a presentation problem
The ranking is there. The title and description are not doing their job.