In local SEO almost everyone watches the rankings and almost no one translates those rankings into money. And yet that is exactly where the decision to invest in SEO is made: a keyword with a thousand searches a month is not worth the same at position 8 as at position 3, not even close. The difference is not a couple of visits; it is often tripling your traffic with the same customer search effort.
This calculator puts a number on that jump. Adjust your figures above and watch, in real time, how many extra clicks, leads and jobs you would gain by moving from your current position to the one you set.
How to read the results
- Extra revenue per year is the headline figure: what you would earn over twelve months by sitting at the target position instead of your current one.
- Clicks/month now and clicks/month at target show the raw traffic jump, before converting anything.
- Extra leads/month and extra jobs/month translate that traffic into something tangible: how many more contacts and jobs you would book each month.
- Extra revenue/month is that difference in dollars, before it is projected across the year.
- The two bars compare the CTR of your current position against the target, on a scale relative to position 1.
CTR by position is not linear
The key to local SEO sits in one simple, unintuitive idea: the share of clicks each position receives falls off a cliff. The studies from Advanced Web Ranking and Backlinko, measured across millions of searches, always draw the same shape: position 1 takes around 27% of clicks, position 2 about 15%, position 3 close to 10%, and from the fifth we are already below 5%. This is not an opinion: it is the curve shape this tool uses.
Why position 3 is worth far more than position 8
Because of that curve, moving up does not add in a constant way: moving up near the top multiplies. Position 8 receives around 3% of clicks; position 3 around 10%. Moving from 8 to 3, with the same search volume, can triple your clicks. This is why the top 3 is the real battleground of local SEO. Sitting at position 7 or 8 leaves you technically on page one, but practically invisible next to whoever holds the podium.
Local pack and organic are not the same
There is an important nuance the calculator cannot fully capture. On local searches, Google shows the local pack first: the block of three map listings. That block is driven by your Google Business Profile, your reviews and proximity, and it distributes CTR differently from classic organic results. This tool models standard organic CTR, so treat its result as an estimate of organic web traffic. For the local pack, work on your listing in parallel.
What to do with the number
If the annual jump surprised you, the next step is not to obsess over one keyword, but to build the system that lifts you sustainably: well-structured service and city pages, an optimized business listing and trust signals. The visibility pillar explains how it all fits together, and the local SEO for contractors guide walks through the process step by step. When you want to see the number with your real data on the table, talk to us. And you can head back to the tools index to keep sizing up your business.