My Site Has 8 Categories. One Gets 0.72% CTR. Another Gets 0.06%. Here's the Raw Data.

I run a content site with 1,684 pages across 8 categories. Last month I pulled the 28-day Google Search Console data and segmented it by category. What I found made me question everything I thought I knew about content strategy.

The Numbers Don't Lie

Here's the raw breakdown:

Category	Pages	Impressions	Clicks	CTR	Zero-Click %
Crystal	1,516	19,084	96	0.50%	95.0%
Jewelry/Business	75	1,591	1	0.06%	98.7%
Wire Wrapping	42	171	1	0.58%	97.6%
Mala	28	170	1	0.59%	96.4%
DIY/Tutorial	18	139	1	0.72%	94.4%
Resin Art	2	79	0	0.00%	100%
Chakra	3	23	0	0.00%	100%

The first thing that jumps out: DIY/Tutorial has the highest CTR at 0.72%, with only 18 pages. That's 12x better than Jewelry/Business, which has 75 pages and more than 10x the impressions.

The second thing: Jewelry/Business ranks second in impressions (1,591) but got 1 single click in 28 days. One. A 0.06% CTR with 98.7% of pages getting zero clicks.

The 0.06% Category That Broke My Brain

Jewelry/Business is my second-largest category by impressions. It gets searched — people clearly want this content. The top queries include things like "gold vermeil vs plated vs solid gold," "gold plated vs gold filled vs solid gold," "platinum vs white gold vs palladium wedding band comparison." These are high-intent, commercial keywords. People searching for these terms are actively trying to make purchase decisions.

And yet, out of 1,591 impressions, only one person clicked through.

The single click came from an article about "Etsy vs own website for selling jewelry" — and even that only got 3 impressions. It wasn't the content in the category that worked. It was an accidental long-tail hit.

Meanwhile, the actual product comparison articles — the ones targeting the exact queries Google shows us — got zero. Gold vs silver jewelry pros and cons? 109 impressions, zero clicks. Gold plated vs gold filled vs solid gold? 90 impressions, zero clicks. These are pages ranking at position 76-92. Google is showing them, but searchers scroll right past.

Why the Small Category Wins

DIY/Tutorial has 18 pages and gets a 0.72% CTR. The only article that got a click was about "damage from ultrasonic jewelry cleaners" — a specific, practical problem that people urgently need solved.

Think about the search intent difference. Someone searching "ultrasonic jewelry cleaner damage" has a jewelry piece in front of them, it might be ruined, and they need an answer NOW. That's urgency. That's a click.

Someone searching "gold plated vs gold filled vs solid gold" is in research mode. They'll open five tabs, read snippets, compare — and maybe never click through to any single result because Google's featured snippets and People Also Ask boxes already gave them enough.

The category with the clearest problem-solving intent wins, regardless of size.

The Resin Art Mystery

Resin Art is the weirdest data point. Only 2 pages, but 79 impressions with an average position of 13.4. That's better positioning than most of my Crystal pages. And yet, zero clicks.

This is the position trap I keep running into. Google puts you on page 2 of results (position 11-20), shows your page to a trickle of people, and those people have already found their answer from the top 3 results. Being position 13 is worse than being position 50 — because at position 50, Google doesn't bother showing you to anyone. At position 13, you get just enough impressions to make you think you're close, but not enough clicks to matter.

The 95% Rule

Across all 1,684 pages, 95.2% got zero clicks. That's not a typo. One thousand six hundred and four pages, and Google didn't send a single visitor to any of them.

But what's interesting is how this breaks down by category:

• DIY/Tutorial: "only" 94.4% zero-click (best performer)
• Crystal: 95.0% zero-click
• Mala: 96.4% zero-click
• Wire Wrapping: 97.6% zero-click
• Jewelry/Business: 98.7% zero-click (worst performer)
• Resin Art: 100% zero-click
• Chakra: 100% zero-click

The pattern is clear. Categories where searchers have a specific, urgent problem (DIY/Tutorial, Mala, Wire Wrapping) perform 2-3x better than categories where searchers are in browsing/comparison mode (Jewelry/Business).

What I'm Doing Differently Now

This data changed how I think about content investment. I used to measure success by impressions — more pages, more categories, more coverage. But impressions are cheap. I'm getting 21,257 of them and they convert to 100 clicks.

Now I ask three questions before creating content in a category:

1. Is the search intent urgent or browsing? If someone is researching "gold vermeil vs gold plated" they're comparison shopping. If someone is searching "crystals safe for kids" they need an answer right now. The latter converts better.

2. Am I competing against featured snippets? Comparison and informational queries get answered by Google's own snippets. My page becomes the source Google cites, but nobody visits my site.

3. Would I click this result? If I search for the target keyword and the top 3 results already answer my question completely, adding another result at position 40 won't change anything.

The Uncomfortable Takeaway

My biggest category (Crystal, 1,516 pages) generates 89.8% of my impressions but only 0.50% CTR. My smallest active category (DIY/Tutorial, 18 pages) generates 0.7% of impressions but 0.72% CTR.

If I had to start over, I wouldn't build a 1,500-page encyclopedia. I'd build an 80-page site focused entirely on problem-solving content. Fewer pages. Higher intent. Better CTR.

The data says that's the winning move. Whether I have the discipline to actually do it is another question.

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What about your site? Have you ever segmented your GSC data by content category and found a similar CTR gap? I'm curious if the "browsing vs urgent" intent pattern holds across different niches — or if it's specific to my space. What CTR differences are you seeing?