You might be wondering why ranking in the top three results on Google matters so much. The reason is simple: clicks aren't shared evenly. Position one gets far more weight than positions two and three, and it drops off sharply from there.
Position one takes roughly a third of all the clicks. Take a search like "flower delivery Auckland" that gets around 5,400 searches a month. If you're number one, that's roughly 1,800 clicks a month from a single keyword.
Number two earns noticeably less, somewhere around 17 percent, so about 900 clicks. Number three sits around 11 percent, so maybe 550 to 600. From there it falls away fast: roughly 8 percent for position four, 7 percent for five, 5 percent for six, and it keeps sliding. By position ten you're looking at under 3 percent.
How many organic results even appear depends on how many ads are on the page. If there are seven organic spots and you're sitting at number seven, you might be picking up just 4 to 5 percent of the traffic. That's a lot of demand you never see.
Why the top spot wins
Number one is everything because it takes the most clicks, and it's not just the classic blue links anymore. A search returns ads, the local map pack with its top three businesses, the organic results, and now AI overviews that summarise the best answers. Ranking in the top three, and ideally at number one, is how you stay in front of people through all of it.
Local visibility doubles your presence
If you've optimised your Google Business Profile, you also show up in the map section, complete with your reviews and star rating. That builds social proof and shows people where you are, so you appear twice on the same page.
If you're not there, you're quietly losing hundreds to thousands of dollars a month simply because you aren't visible. That's why it's critical to appear in the top three for both local and organic results.