i really dont think a good click through ratio is important if your trying ppc affiliate marketing. i was reading that winter challenge thread and people had ctr of around 2-3%, while mine have usually been at 1%. but my conversion per click was very good. after reading that i started a new campaign on one of my products just to see if a better ctr would help. wrote some ads in a different style to what i normally would and got a ctr of 3.5%, but the conversions were way down. if your paying per click would you really want a good ctr? wouldnt you only want those who are really interested to click on your ad?
I agree fully. What matters is (total number of clicks)*ctr*(conversion ratio). Straightforward SEO usually just increases the first two of these factors. Your business outcome, however, depends on the quality of the visitors in relation to your product offer. This is why there are roumors that backlinks are taken into account by G! not only according to their number but also by their degree of relatedness to the content of the website linked to. It is, I believe, a quite common observation that you are able to increase traffic to your website considerably, while having real business just coming in by droplets without any change. This means you have succeeded to attract just the wrong visitors. Rgds
the worst part is google takes every opportunity to tell you that a high ctr is good for you, when in actual fact the only person who definately benefits from a high ctr is them.
Attracting lots of visitors to your site from organic listings is good in the long run even if it doesn't really increase your sales in the short term. As long as the visitors are interested in your products they are likely to return and buy something in the future. This means your site doesn't rely as heavily on advertising for ever.