Digital Marketing from the Trenches Live at the Hive

Digital Marketing from the Trenches Live at the Hive


Turning Zero Click Google Searches Into Opportunities For Your Business

July 03, 2020

Hey everyone! This week we're digging into the hot topic of Zero Click Google Searches.

Google owns not only the largest search engine, but also the second-largest search engine (YouTube), the most-used operating system (Android) and the most-used browser (Chrome).

So, how do you compete against a company that basically owns the internet?

Check out the video or podcast above where Dan and the bees share some interesting insights to alleviate the frustration of trying to rank against Google and how you can actually use zero-click Google searches as opportunities for your business.

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What's new?
Zero click searches have been a growing trend in recent years, and a topic of controversy for many small businesses trying to rank in search results. Why is that? Well...
What is a Zero Click Search?
Zero click searches are searches that result in no clicks from the search results page, due to Google supplying answers on the search results page itself in a Featured Snippet, removing the need to click through to a website or landing page to find what you are looking for.

Let's take a look at a common example, by searching for "how to make tea":

In this example, all of the steps to make tea have been laid out directly in a Featured Snippet, giving the user all the information they need without having to click through to the site at all.
What is Position Zero?
"Traditional" Organic Web Search results often have the "#1" ranking further down the page. Position Zero refers to the content that appears above the #1 ranking.
What is "On-SERP SEO"?
With Google moving to a zero-click reality and being very clear about their desire to continue indexing more and more structured data, On-SERP SEO is the process of optimizing your presence on the results page as much as possible.

To give you an idea of how much impact zero-click searches have, according to the SparkToro report, last year 50.33% of all Google searches ended without a click on any paid or organic search results.

Half of all Google searches. That's huge.

The number of zero-click searches has been increasing over the past few years, and will likely continue to do so.

As more searches end without users clicking through to a page, businesses are left with fewer opportunities to engage with their audience.

So, how does one compete in such a landscape? The good news is that zero clicks do not also mean zero opportunities.

Let's dig into how you can use zero-click searches as an opportunity for your business.
What's Working?
Content and how we consume it is so fluid it can be difficult to navigate the best plan of action, or even figure out what works and what doesn't.

That's why just sticking to the same old routine will not likely get you the results you're looking for. You need to test and iterate, and you need to be as fluid as the changing tides.
One word: Adapt.
Rather than trying to fight the zero-click reality, you need to adapt. Can you compete directly with Google? Not likely, unless you're Facebook. So stop trying.

Google owns top-level content. There's no way around that.