There has been new Google search research from SimilarWeb that shows from Jan to December 2020 65% of searches on Google (desktop and mobile combined) ended in the search results without clicking to another web property. That number is probably not counting most voice searches. This is a deceiving statistic because you can click on a phone number or pronunciation icon and it falls into the grouping of zero clicks.
Let’s take a look at the zero-click worldwide data now and analyze it.
Below is the summary of the data so there is no confusion:
SimilarWeb analyzed ~5.1 trillion Google searches in 2020
These searches took place on the 100M+ panel of mobile and desktop devices from which SimilarWeb collects clickstream data
Of those 5.1T searches, 33.59% resulted in clicks on organic search results
1.59% resulted in clicks on paid search results
The remaining 64.82% completed a search without a direct, follow-up click to another web property
Searches resulting in a click are much higher on desktop devices (50.75% organic CTR, 2.78% paid CTR)
Zero-click searches are much higher on mobile devices (77.22%)
Based on this data we can make three general assumptions:
There are more searches on Google today than ever before and more clicks available as well.
In the last three years, Google is the leader and has been increasing their worldwide search volume.
As the pandemic takes more people off their laptops and desktops and puts them back on their mobile devices, the zero-click search problem is likely to rise even more in the future.
Why Zero Search Is Not A Big Deal?
When most people think of zero-click, they think “Google is making it more difficult for users to get to my website by giving them the answers in the SERPs.” This assumption might be true but Google’s main objective is to give the user the best experience possible by trying to answer users’ questions as fast as possible. If people can find their answers faster on Google compared to their competitors like Bing and Yahoo, this gives them a huge competitive advantage which is why 95% of users use Google compared to any other search engines.
Also think of this, if a user is just looking for an answer and has no intent to buy do you really want those users on your site. Some might say yes because their website monetizes website traffic by having ads on their site, but others only want users on their site that are researching a product or service and are ready to buy or almost ready to buy. If a person is looking for a product or service to buy Google most of the time will give them different search results which have fewer rich snippets that have answers in them. This is because Google knows what keywords have intent behind them and are trying to give you the best results because of that. Below are two keywords examples that have intent to buy with no rich snippets
Example 1:
Example 2:
2018-2020 Data for Google Organic, Paid & Zero-Click Searches
Here is the main take always from the zero-search research:
Overall search volume is growing, though the pandemic may be responsible for the reverse from that dip at the end of 2019 (that might also be SW’s panel size shrinking; hard to know)
Paid search share is clearly growing, and digging into the numbers, that’s true on both mobile and desktop
Organic clicks grew in 2020 after a long plateau and slight drop. This looks to be from the rise in desktop use in 2020 (again, due to Covid-19 putting more of us on big screens), and thus could be slippery as vaccinations roll out.
The end of 2020 recorded the highest-ever share of zero-click searches. It’s possible that Google’s experiment of limiting featured snippets in Q1 (which now looks to be over) could reveal fascinating correlations (I’ll ask SimilarWeb to follow up).
Conclusion:
Don’t fear the increased popularity of zero searches. It was something that is inevitable since Google has been doing richer snippets and Google My Business efforts. At the end of the day, Google is the main place people go to not only look for answers but also to buy, sell, and research. Out of all the digital marketing channels I use Google organic gives me the highest conversion rates compared to any other channel. I have noticed that my website’s landing pages have been getting more impressions but from a branding standpoint that is not a bad thing. That means users are still seeing my answers and website in the search engines and when they are ready to buy, they will contact me.
The main concern I have as a digital marketer is if my conversions and ROI drop on organic search suddenly. That is a way bigger problem than having fewer clicks and more impressions. Because when my website does get clicks there is a high chance they are going to convert. Click-through rate becomes less of a key metric for me from an analytics standpoint. SEO is still alive and kicking and will continue to be a key digital strategy for years to come. This is mainly due to the fact the SEO is comprised of a lot of areas such as content creation, backlinks, user experience, site speed, analytics, and much more. Those areas will not be going away anytime soon if you ask me.