Recent changes to Google, namely the introduction of AI Overview (AIO), have caused many shakeups in the world of SEO. The biggest consequence of AIO we’ve seen so far is the rise of zero-click searches.
Zero-click searches—or searches where users find answers directly on the first search engine results page (SERP) without clicking through to any websites—are rapidly changing the landscape of digital marketing and SEO. While many businesses view these types of searches as a threat to website traffic, embracing zero-click searches can actually offer unique opportunities to improve brand visibility and strengthen your online presence.
Here are a few reasons why and how your company should embrace zero-click searches and optimize your web content to benefit from them.
What Are Zero-Click Searches?
A zero-click search occurs when a user types a query into a search engine and gets the information they need directly from the search results page without having to click on any external links. Google provides this information via AI Overview, featured snippets, direct answers, knowledge panels, local packs, and other types of enriched results.
For example, simple queries like “What’s the weather today?” or “Nearest coffee shop” often result in quick, accurate answers provided directly by Google, eliminating the need for users to visit a weather site or a specific coffee shop’s site.
Why Are Zero-Click Searches Seen as a Problem?
Zero-click searches are nothing new. For years, users have enjoyed featured snippets and other enriched results, which were the original catalysts for zero-click searches. But the introduction of AIO has caused the number of zero-click searches to skyrocket, naturally causing many website owners’ web performances to plummet.
Zero-click searches can be concerning for businesses that rely heavily on web traffic for lead generation or sales conversions. With fewer users clicking through to their websites, businesses worry about:
- Reduced website traffic and user engagement
- Potentially lower conversion rates
- Less control over their content presentation
These concerns are valid. However, by leaning into zero-click searches, identifying their benefits, and learning how to adjust your SEO strategies to optimize your site’s performance on the SERPs can help you mitigate those concerns and harness the value of AIO and zero-click searches.
The Benefits of Zero-Click Searches
Despite the challenges they present, zero-click searches also provide significant advantages to website owners interested in boosting their site’s performance on the SERPs.
1. Increased Brand Visibility
Being featured prominently in AI Overview, a featured snippet, local pack, or the knowledge panel boosts your brand visibility significantly, even if users don’t click through to your site.
When featured in AI Overview, Google generates a source card with your name, logo icon, and a link to the page on your website where AIO pulled information for the overview.
When you score a featured snippet, Google presents a snippet of your web content at the top of page one with a link to the webpage that your content was pulled from.
When you land in the local pack, Google presents business-specific information from your Google Business Profile (GBP) to the user, along with information for two competing businesses. All three information cards sit next to a map showing each business’s location. There is also a “More places” button that shows more businesses if the user clicks on it.
The local pack is a coveted place to land because it:
- Indicates the user is searching for a product, service, or solution that your company offers
- Increases the likelihood of the user clicking through to your website
- Increases your brand visibility to local users
With the knowledge panel, Google creates a box to the right of the page with a plethora of information presented about the topic searched and links to the source pages where the information came from. Knowledge panels are frequently presented in searches that involve famous or well-known people, but they can also be generated in searches for notable places, events, structures, etc. Wikipedia is a common source for knowledge panels, but Google will pull from other sources that offer applicable information, as well.
AI Overviews, featured snippets, local packs, and knowledge panels all work to help expose your brand to users and attract potential clients or customers to your website. Smart SEO strategies are critical to getting Google’s attention and landing in these coveted positions.
2. Improved Authority and Trust
Appearing in zero-click results positions your brand as a trustworthy source of information. It signals to users that your content is accurate, credible, and valuable.
Unless the information in an AI Overview is grossly inaccurate or nonsensical (like the time it recommended adding glue to pizza to keep the cheese from sliding off), users tend to trust the information that AI Overview has to offer, as well as the sources it pulled from to generate its overview. Being a source in the overview, as well as the source for a featured snippet, local pack, or knowledge panel, greatly increases users’ trust in your company. In turn, this enhances your authority in your industry and allows your site to be seen as a credible source of information to turn to for answers and information.
3. Enhanced User Experience
When your online content allows Google to provide concise, helpful answers in relevant searches immediately, you’re effectively meeting users’ needs. This positive experience can improve your brand’s reputation, keep users returning, and inspire potential clients or customers to become paying clients or customers.
How to Optimize for Zero-Click Searches
To benefit from zero-click searches, you must proactively optimize your digital content and SEO strategy.
There are four primary types of SEO:
- On-page SEO: On-page SEO involves optimizing the content and layout of your website so that it appeals to visitors and algorithms. On-page SEO requires using relevant keywords effectively, providing meta descriptions and page titles, uploading images with alt text, etc.
- Off-page SEO: Off-page SEO means optimizing things other than your website, including your Google Business Profile, social media profiles, digital ads, and more.
- Local SEO: Local SEO involves optimizing your web content for local searches. Incorporating your city or service area into your content, optimizing your GBP, and more count as local SEO strategies.
- Technical SEO: Technical SEO is all about how your website is coded and built on the back end. You want your technical SEO to optimize site indexing, page load speeds, mobile friendliness, site security, etc.
To optimize all types of SEO, here are several key approaches:
1. Optimize Your Web Content for Featured Snippets
Create concise, clear answers to common queries related to your industry. Structure your content in easily digestible formats:
- Bullet-point lists
- Short paragraphs
- Direct question-and-answer formats
One of the most effective ways to produce this kind of content is to maintain an active blog, decked out with well-written, easily digestible, and information-packed articles. By producing SEO-focused blog articles that cover topics relevant to your customers and your industry on a routine basis, you’re more likely to gain the attention of Google’s traditional and local algorithms. This increases your chances of being featured in relevant overviews, snippets, packs, and panels.
2. Strengthen Your Google Business Profile
As mentioned earlier, Google pulls local business information from your Google Business Profile if your profile is optimized and the search calls for it. That’s why it’s crucial to not only have a Google Business Profile but also to ensure the information presented is correct, the profile is complete, and the content featured is SEO-focused.
Ways to optimize your Google Business Profile for SEO include:
- Ensuring the regular business information (name, phone number, address, hours of operation, etc.) is all completed and accurate
- Adding a bio or about paragraph with relevant keywords included
- Adding a list of your products and/or services
- Adding attributes about your business, like the various payments you offer, whether your location is pet-friendly, whether your location is wheelchair accessible, etc.
- Adding high-quality company photos and videos
- Encouraging reviews from satisfied customers
- Responding to reviews, both positive and negative
- Responding to any questions people ask on your profile
The more complete and accurate your profile is, the more SEO-optimized it is.
3. Target Long-Tail and Conversational Keywords
Users performing zero-click searches often use natural, conversational language. So, rather than searching “chest pain,” their queries feature conversational language like “What could be causing my chest to hurt suddenly?” Today’s search habits are forcing SEO strategies to shift from targeting short, easy-to-incorporate keywords to longer, more natural, and more conversational keywords and keyword phrases.
This means that your content needs to sound as natural as possible to optimize it for the types of searches users are more likely to conduct now. Keywords are often in the form of questions, so let your content answer questions that are relevant to your business with natural-sounding language.
4. Implement Structured Data (Schema Markup)
Structured data helps search engines better understand your content and increases the chance that your information will be featured prominently in SERPs.
Structured data, also called schema markup, is tied to technical SEO and works to tell algorithms exactly what the crawler is crawling. Think of it like a translator for the bots.
For example, if your content includes a list of products your company offers, the crawler has to guess the fact that it’s a product list without schema markup. But if your list is coded with structured data, it immediately informs the crawler that what it’s looking at is a list of products.
Use schema markup to highlight critical details about your business, products, or services.
5. Prioritize Local SEO
We’ve already said it, but we’ll say it again: your Google Business Profile is vital to your local SEO efforts, regardless of your industry, market, vertical, or whatever else. In fact, it can make or break your local SEO performance if you rely on business from local or regional clients and customers. If you don’t have one, create one ASAP, and if it’s not optimized, optimize it ASAP.
Ensure your NAP (Name, Address, Phone number) data is consistent across all platforms. Encourage customers to leave detailed reviews, as positive local citations can help you appear in the local pack results.
Also, optimize all your listing opportunities with proper listing management. There are many listing platforms and directories available, such as Bing Places, Yelp, Yellow Pages, Tripadvisor, and hundreds of others. With business listing management, you can ensure your name and information are on the right platforms to generate even more brand exposure and enhance your likelihood of capturing leads.
6. Enhance E-E-A-T Signals (Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness)
Google prioritizes credible, authoritative content. That means conveying expertise, experience, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T) in your content is more critical than ever.
- Expertise: Writing or producing content with expertise means providing accurate information and facts on a topic or subject closely related to your business. If you’re an allergist, your web content should provide factual info about things allergy patients need to know, like how to know if you’re at risk for anaphylaxis and how immunotherapy works. Ways to signal to Google that your content is written with expertise is to create author cards for blogs and cite reputable sources in your content.
- Experience: Writing from experience shows that you know what you’re talking about in the content you are producing. If you run an ecommerce site, one way you can signal to Google that your content is written from experience is by reviewing the performances of various products you sell or comparing your brand’s products to the products from competing brands.
- Authoritativeness: Writing with authority comes naturally if you also write with expertise and from a place of experience. Having your website cited in other websites’ content is a great indicator of authoritativeness, but signals can also come from positive Google reviews and positive engagement on social media profiles.
- Trustworthiness: Writing factually accurate information is the best way to gain trust from your audience and from Google’s algorithms. Ways to signal trust are to have content that people engage with, ensure your website is secure and safe to visit, and write or produce content with expertise, experience, and authoritativeness.
To strengthen your E-E-A-T signals, it’s important to regularly update your content, cite reputable sources, and clearly demonstrate your expertise.
7. Measure Visibility Beyond Clicks
It may sound crazy to put all this effort into your SEO to boost your performance in zero-click searches since those don’t generate clicks. However, clicks are not the only way to track whether your site is performing well on Google.
You can and should track other metrics like:
- Impressions
- SERP visibility
- keyword rankings
- brand searches
Looking at all the data together, not just clicks, can help you understand your overall search performance.
Zero-Click Searches and M&R Marketing
SEO is ever-evolving and requires numerous pivots to stay relevant and ahead of the competition. Right now, companies have to pivot to start optimizing for zero-click searches for the sake of relevancy.
If zero-click searches still seem like a threat to you, that’s okay. You’re hearing from a team of SEO experts who have embraced the rise in zero-click searches and are shifting our strategies for the sake of our clients so they can gain more visibility at the top of page one of Google.
Ready to Embrace the Zero-Click Search? Talk to M&R Marketing Today: 478-621-4491
Our in-house team of SEO-focused copywriters, designers, web developers, and digital strategists are ready to help your business thrive in the era of AI Overview and zero-click searches so that you can optimize your position in Google’s search results. As a full-service, fully engaged marketing agency, our team cannot wait to help you grow with effective, customized online marketing tactics explicitly designed for the benefit of your business.
For more information, call 478-621-4491 to speak with one of our business development managers today!
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