Zero click search – the new consumer comfort zone

Historische context

When Google was established in 1998, it served 10,000 searches per hour. By 2012, it had grown to 3,500,000,000 searches per hour. In 2021, Google will continue to serve around 5,600,000,000 global searches daily.

Google was given the task of bringing order and order to the chaos in the world’s knowledge. This led to its success as a transitive verb. Google knew that in order to attain this level of awareness, it would have to provide a web portal that is accessible to all and easily understandable by the general population. It also knew that inclusion would increase adoption. The search giant continues to improve the consumer’s search experience. In 2021, several algorithm updates were made including page title, passage ranking, page experience and page titles.

Google will make it easier for consumers to find information about brands in the near future.

Micro funnels

Each search session can be considered a micro funnel because Google is visited by people at key moments in the buyer’s journey. The great reset cannot be undone after the pandemic. Nearly 15 percent of Google searches Google responded to were the first of their kind. The pandemic saw 81 percent of internet users discover new brands online.

“There’s no world in which people will revert to their 2019 behaviors, and part is because they are comfortable with their current behavior.” – Corie Barry CEO, Best Buy

Google’s recent retail report identified four key consumer insights in its own recent report:

1. Dynamic Demand: People’s purchasing patterns will continue changing in response to unpredictable times
2. Inspiration from the digital world: People will turn to the internet for inspiration
3. Convenience: Customers will place priority on convenience when shopping
4. Supportive spending: People are more aware of where and how they spend their money with “values”, a significant influencer

Zero click searches, although less popular by advertisers are still opportunities for brands to target as part of their brand search strategy.

Great power comes with great responsibility

Google’s constant innovation focus is expected to make it an even greater company. Google aims to do that by making information more accessible and consumer-friendly.

Is it the solution? It brings convenience and comfort to the online searcher’s journey using zero-click search. This involves redesigning search to be more intuitive for consumers.

Take a look below at data from an industry study to see how this translate into search volumes.

What does this all mean for brands?

My research shows that the traffic split between core search marketing channels and keywords with a “need”, intent, is approximately:

• Paid6.5%
• Organic (above and beyond the fold):31.5 Percent
• Organic (below fold):two per cent
• Zero Click Searches: 60 percent

Extraordinarily the final number isn’t too far from an original 2020 study, which was made with a larger sample than most brand marketers have access to.

When smaller, more localized studies in-house produce very similar results, it pushes the conversation forward to where we need to spend a portion of our search budgets: creating data driven content that adds value and top-of mind awareness (TOMA).

Tips for brands to optimize zero click search

People also ask (PAA), which is basically website content derived FAQs in Search Results, are six times more likely than featured snippets to be found in a search result page. PAA is a powerful branding tool that should not be overlooked. The first tip is to create content for your website that you can optimize for PAA using long-tail data search data.

The second tip is to optimize content for featured snippets on brand and partner websites. Your keyword traffic or search traffic insight could help you prioritize this activity internally.

A second interesting insight was that, regardless of industry, most big brands will trigger a PAA.

Measuring zero-click performance

It is a common question that brands ask and it remains an unanswered question. This has made zero click search a difficult search aspect for many companies. These are valuable tools for search marketers to monitor the performance of zero click search features:

1. Understanding relativity

To gain insight into the potential for brand content to trigger zero click searches, it is important to understand the relationship between impression volume (and average ranking) for target keywords(s) in Google search console.

2. Keep an eye on soft metrics

This is where soft metrics shine. By focusing on brand domains with zero click search engine results, it is possible to create an index that tracks the evolution and outcomes of soft metrics such as share of intent. This will help you grow product or service awareness/consideration via the zero click search element of your Search Strategy.

This information can be used to tailor your brand’s search marketing strategy.

Barilla Group’s global digital and search marketing manager is Nitin Manhar Dhamelia. Nitin is a global B2B/B2C manager with 15 years of experience in governance, management, and commercial experience across Americas, EMEA, APAC.

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