For an exact quantitative description of spectral properties of synchrotron radiation (SR), the concept of effective width of the spectrum is introduced. In the most interesting case, which corresponds to the ultrarelativistic limit of SR, the effective width of the spectrum is calculated for the polarization components, and new physically important quantitative information on the structure of spectral distributions is obtained. For the first time, the spectral distribution for the circular polarization component of the SR for the upper half-space is obtained within classical theory.