Zero-click searches get tossed around a lot in the search world, usually in alarmist posts that make business owners feel like they’re behind. In this episode, I’m sharing what it actually means and how to factor it into your website marketing strategy.
Resources
- Tool of the Week 👉 How To ClickUp.
If you’re a fan of ClickUp, you’re gonna love this! Learn ClickUp basics in just one day. Taught by ProcessDriven, one of the most knowledgeable teachers on the tool. It’s one of the most comprehensive and easy courses I’ve ever taken. I took it when I first started using ClickUp. - Recommended Podcast 👉 Say “NO” to Awkward Networking with Special Guest, Ande Lyons on the Small Business Casual show.
Emily is doing a NO-vember theme and I really appreciate this episode. The word networking has such an icky connotation to it. This episode offers an angle to make it not-icky. Emily’s questions are so great. Ande talks about how she follows up and Emily asked what I was exactly thinking, that’s a lot of people! She asked how many do we follow up with. Ande also provides a way to help ease the anxiety before going into a magical meetup. When you listen to the episode, you’ll understand why I call it a magical meetup.
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The functionality of zero-click searches has been around since 2014, inside a feature Google calls featured snippets. When you search for something, sometimes, Google sometimes shows a “snippet” of a page with the answer to your question. Theeeen, the organic results from websites around the world would show.
You got your answer right away and didn’t need to click any further. The intention is to help searchers find what they need faster.
Fast forward to today and the frenzy is around AI overviews and other search apps that provide summarized answers, increasing the decrease of clicks to websites, thus… zero-click searches.
Traffic to your website may be going down because of this.
If people are searching on terms where they can get their information summarized, even if Google finds the answer from your website, it’s likely that most people won’t click through further.
So the question comes up, how do we modify our strategy to maintain or improve our visibility despite the rise of these zero-click searches?
The tactic I like the best, because of its utility to be used in multiple places, is video. Now hear me out.
Before you grumble and think awww shit, a video strategy is much simpler to implement and use when you have a plan. So for the rest of this newsletter, let’s assume there are no roadblocks… you have energy, you have capacity or someone to hire, etc.
The reason I say video is because it’s so versatile! You can create one video and chop it up for multiple channels, diversifying your reach. You can use it in your website. It build trust with your website visitor. Not many of your competitors are probably doing it and it sets you apart.
Another tactic I like because of its potential for utility is formatting pages and posts with structure. Things like bullet lists, headings and faqs.
Headings that are direct, not fancy/clever, have more potential to affect the probability of the page showing up. If the search apps have to interpret the meaning, it’s making it too hard to understand what the page is about.
FAQs might be one of the simplest and fastest tactics for you to implement. Gather the questions your audience asks a lot and put those questions at the bottom of the blog post. Very direct and succinct.
Pro tip: Curious about what people are asking around your topic of expertise? Visit answerthepublic.com. You get 3 free searches. Type in your core service and bam! You got yourself some FAQs!
The Takeaway
Adapt your strategy. Instead of fighting what you can’t control or possibly thinking you just need to create more content, focus on things that you can control that have a longer-term impact on your efforts.Listen on Apple
