According to Search Engine Land, zero click searches accounted for almost 65% of all searches in 2020. This is up from 50% in 2019. So in a world where people are more mobile, less patient, and companies are receiving less clicks to their websites, how do you stay on top of your organic efforts? The answer lies in featured snippets.

 

What are zero click searches?

 

A zero click search is when a user searches for something in a search engine, and gets the answer directly on the search engine results page (SERP), and doesn’t need to click on any of the links. This results in a zero-click search as the intent was the user got what they needed from the search results directly.

 

Zero click searches are common especially for informational searches – for example ‘How old is Leonardo DiCaprio’ or ‘How many minutes should you boil an egg for’.

 

 

Evolution of zero click searches over time

Zero-click searches first started to gain traction in 2019 when Rand Fishin of SparkToro published an article claiming that less than 50% of searches resulted in a click. Now this is problematic for digital marketing teams and any website owner who rely on clicks to their website to drive sales.

 

Although Google has disputed the exact figures around zero-click searches, it is clear that in recent years, you can get a lot more information from the SERP. This is in part due to Google trying to give searchers the best user-experience possible by being able to find clear, useful information as fast and as easily as possible, but  also due to the rise in mobile users.

 

 

Image source – SparkToro

 

Some industries are more affected by zero-click searches than others, like review websites and travel websites, however transactional queries are less affected by the phenomenon. So in general e-commerce sites should be safer.

 

Zero click searches and featured snippets

 

It is thought that the rise in zero click searches also happened when Google introduced featured snippets to the search engine results page.These snippets come in various forms including instant answers, carousels, knowledge panels and even native functions like checking the weather, currency conversions or time zones.

 

 

 

By offering the user more content in the search results themselves, it’s quite easy to get the information you’re looking for directly on the SERP without needing to click onto a website link.

 

However many websites are now using this to their advantage by optimising their content for featured snippets and adding schema markup to increase their exposure on the SERP.

 

How to leverage featured snippets in zero click searches

 

Although ranking in position zero i.e. in a featured snippet position is harder to track, it does give you excellent brand exposure and visibility. Having your content at the top of the SERP is also a sign that Google trusts your website which is a positive signal to users.

 

Types of featured snippets

Featured snippets come in various forms but some are more advantageous to optimize for than others. On one hand you want to give users enough information that they will see your result as relevant, but at the same time you want to show them that there is even more useful information if they click through to your website.  Here are the top content-types to add to your website and increase your chance of appearing in the infamous position zero:

 

List content:

 

A great way to entice users from the SERP onto your website is with list content. Especially a list where only half of the content displays, and the snippet displays a ‘more items’ sign which will drive users to your website.

 

 

 

For your chance to appear in this slot, try adding lists to your content and mark it up with schema.org. Ensure to make them long enough that only some of the list will show on the SERP so you’ll get the ‘more items’ button.

 

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs):

 

Another great example of a featured snippet that could lead to a click is a FAQ section. Try to include questions and answers in your content, and mark them up with schema.org structured data. You can find questions by looking up some relevant search terms and seeing what comes up in the ‘people frequently ask’ section in Google.

 

 

 

How-to guides:

 

Another popular content type to optimize for is ‘how to’ questions. By providing an answer in the form of a step by step guide, which includes images, this will very likely get people clicking through to your website to see all the steps.

 

 

 

How-to searches are one of the most popular types of searches and results on these have high click-through rates. Whether you sell a product or a service, there will likely be something where a step-by-step guide could be created. Infographics and images are important here so remember to include these.

 

So although zero-click searches don’t look like they’re here to stay, so are featured snippets and rich results. Use them to your advantage to stay on top of the SERP and keep the clicks going. If you need any support with this or any other of our SEO services, get in touch so we can help you today.

 

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