What does WRKNG Digital do?

WRKNG Digital helps Shopify store owners optimize for AI-powered product discovery. We build the structured data, content strategy, and product feed optimizations that get your store recommended by ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, and Perplexity.

Who is WRKNG Digital for?

Shopify store owners and DTC brand operators doing $500K to $10M+ in annual revenue who want to understand how AI is reshaping product discovery — and what to actually do about it.

What is the Free AI Commerce Audit?

A free tool that scores your Shopify store for AI discoverability across ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Copilot, and Perplexity. Identifies gaps in structured data, product feeds, and content extractability. Results delivered in 24 hours.

How does AI change product discovery for Shopify stores?

AI shopping assistants like ChatGPT and Perplexity now recommend products directly in conversation — without sending users to a search results page. Stores that aren't optimized for AI extraction are invisible to these systems, regardless of their Google SEO.

What is a CTR curve in SEO?

A CTR curve maps average click-through rate to search position. Position 1 gets the highest CTR, position 10 the lowest. Most SEOs use industry-average curves (like Sistrix or Advanced Web Ranking benchmarks) to estimate traffic potential. The problem is these averages don't account for your brand strength, query type, or industry.

Why should I build my own CTR curve from Search Console?

Your actual CTR data reflects your specific brand, audience, and query mix. A Shopify store with strong brand recognition will get significantly higher CTR at position 3 than the industry average. Building your own curve means more accurate traffic forecasts, better prioritization, and less wasted effort chasing keywords where your CTR will underperform.

How do I export keyword data from Google Search Console?

In Google Search Console, go to Performance > Search results. Set your date range (90 days gives a reliable sample). Click Export > Download CSV. The file includes query, clicks, impressions, CTR, and average position for each keyword.

What keywords should I prioritize based on a custom CTR curve?

Focus on two groups: keywords where your CTR significantly beats the average for their position (high intent alignment, worth protecting and building on) and keywords in positions 5-15 where a small ranking improvement would yield meaningful traffic based on your actual CTR at those positions.

Can I do this without coding or Google Colab?

Yes. Export the CSV from Search Console and open it in a spreadsheet. Create a pivot table grouping keywords by position bucket and calculate average CTR per bucket. It's manual but takes about 20 minutes and gives you a solid working curve without any code.

Why Your Shopify SEO Strategy Is Based on the Wrong CTR Data (And How to Fix It)

By Steve Merrill | May 21, 2026

Almost every Shopify store using SEO tools to estimate traffic potential is working off borrowed data. The CTR benchmarks baked into tools like Ahrefs, Semrush, and Moz come from averages across thousands of sites. Your site isn't average. This matters more than most people realize.

The fix is straightforward: build your own CTR curve from Google Search Console data. Takes about 20 minutes. Completely changes how you prioritize keywords.

What Is a CTR Curve and Why Does It Matter?

A CTR curve maps average click-through rate to search position. Position 1 earns the highest CTR; position 10 earns the lowest. These curves get baked into SEO tools to forecast how much traffic you'd get if you ranked in a particular position.

The problem: these curves are averages. Sistrix research shows position-1 CTR ranges from 10% to over 50% depending on query type and brand recognition. A branded query for your store might get 60% CTR at position 1. A generic category query might get 8%. When your tool uses one average number, it's wrong for almost every keyword you're actually tracking.

How Do You Build a Custom CTR Curve from Search Console?

Here's the process. No code required for the basic version.

Step 1: Export your data. Open Google Search Console. Go to Performance > Search results. Set your date range to 90 days (enough for a statistically reliable sample). Export as CSV. You'll get a file with query, clicks, impressions, CTR, and average position for every keyword Google has data on.

Step 2: Group by position bucket. In a spreadsheet, create position buckets: 1.0-1.9, 2.0-2.9, and so on. Calculate the average CTR within each bucket. This is your curve.

Step 3: Compare. Pull an industry benchmark curve for your category. Map your curve against it. Where your CTR beats the benchmark — that's brand or intent advantage. Where it underperforms — that's a meta title and description problem, or a query type mismatch.

One Shopify client I worked with had position-3 keywords converting at position-1 rates. They had built genuine brand recognition in a niche, and their CTR reflected it. Standard tool forecasts were underestimating their traffic from positions 2-4 by roughly 30%.

Which Keywords Should You Actually Prioritize?

Two groups.

Group 1 — Overperformers. Keywords where your CTR beats the average for their position. These reflect brand or intent alignment. Don't take them for granted. Support them with internal links, fresh content, and schema markup.

Group 2 — Page 2 candidates with high expected CTR. Keywords sitting in positions 11-20 where your custom curve shows strong CTR at positions 6-10. A two-position improvement on a keyword where you'll get 12% CTR at position 8 is worth a lot more than a one-position improvement on a keyword where you'll get 4%.

Standard tools won't tell you this because they're using generic benchmarks. Your own curve does.

What Should You Do With the Underperformers?

Keywords where your CTR is meaningfully below average for their position usually have one of three problems:

Meta title isn't compelling. Google shows it; nobody clicks. Rewrite it with a clearer value prop or a number.
Search intent mismatch. You're ranking for an informational query with a product page, or vice versa. Fix the page type or deprioritize the keyword.
Branded SERP crowding. Competitor brand names or rich features are pushing down organic CTR. Worth knowing before investing more in that keyword.

This analysis takes less than an hour and gives you a genuinely different set of priorities than what an SEO tool spits out by default. Worth doing once per quarter.

Want to know if your Shopify store is set up for the next wave of AI-powered shopping?
Check Your Store's AI Readiness →