Do you feel there is a huge difference in traffic in being #1 instead of #2 or #3?

Yes. Position 1 gets roughly 3 times as many clicks as position 2. The numbers are subjective, but basically you get substantially more by going for number one. A big exception would be where an information site like Wikipedia pops at number one for a keyword that someone is typing in to buy something. For instance, if you did a search for LCD television to make a purchase. If wiki popped at number one and a shopping site popped at number 2, there would not be a big difference. All and all, however, making the effort to bump up to number 1 is always advisable.

the stats are all there, number 1 is about 39% of clicks, 2 is about 19% and 3 is around 10% so the traffic to number 1 is the place to be

How do the stats work with adwords?

In some niches, you can get as much as 60% of the traffic if you are in spot 1. On an average, it is about 40% like others have said.

Another thing that should motivate you to get to number 1 is that both bounce rate and advertisement CTR% improve when you get to #1 (Bounce rate will generally decrease and your rate of earnings will increase). The increase can be substantial enough to multiply your earnings metrics like RPM three fold or even more in some cases. This happens because people have a tendency to click on an ad when they first see it. If you are down the list in the results, they would have become sort of ad blind as they might have already checked out the advertiser in the number 1 result.

This is particularly true if all the pages in the SERP's have similar advertisers like AdSense or a very popular CPA offer.

Originally Posted by Nosence

How do the stats work with adwords?

stats I posted above are for organic search, pretty sure there must be some stats around re adwords too

Check out this pic. It shows just how much better #1 is than #2 and #3 combined.

Code:

seolinkmonsterreviewx.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/top-10-serp-ctr.png

Like someone said in the thred, it can vary depending on what site takes up the #1 2 and 3 spot but the pic gives a good idea of what to expect

http://searchenginewatch.com/article...f-Clicks-Study

You can improve your clickthroughs using clickbait titles. Also, it depends on your keyword -- some keywords the searcher only wants #1 (brand keywords). Others, they're shopping for an exact product, and they will check out 1, 2 or 3 and buy. And then others, they don't know what they want so they will check out all the top 10 and perhaps top 20, etc (this would be for a general category type search and not an exact search).

position 1 gets 44percent of clicks. thats huge

I guess we all agree #1 can be huge for traffic/rev compared to all other positions... well better get to work LOL!

I've read on blogs that jumping from #3 to #2 or from #2 to #1 will give you about a +40% increase in organic search traffic.

I can't say that I can confirm that this is true, though.

For one client its the difference between earning 50k or 12k in a month on a single competitive keyword