How Can I Get Traffic with Zero Clicks in B2B?
TL;DR:
5 Quick Takeaways for You Generate Traffic Despite Zero Clicks Here:
1.) Don't make your content too simple or else, you risk people not coming to your website. Focus on creating thorough content through text, video, and whatever relevant means possible to leverage new SERP features.
2.) Consider video marketing as a strategy to rank higher than your competitors and to guarantee that you get seen - exploiting this new SERP feature.
3.) Keyword volume is not enough as a metric; prioritize clicks on search as a metric when it comes to finding SEO keywords.
4.) Since 2015, Google has been slowly prioritizing its user mobile user experience overall. Focus on turning your website into a mobile-first application to appease the Google God.
5.) We live in an age where people don't want to search anymore. They desperately want curation. Zero-clicks is a situation that arises out of a need for curation.
Hi, It's Nice to Have You Here. 🙂
What are Zero Clicks Anyway?
"The more things change, the more things stay the same".
Think about that as you read about zero-clicks and how you still generate traffic leveraging them.
Zero clicks is referring the situation that less and less people are clicking on search engine results on SERP (search engine ranking pages).
In fact, 50% of Google searches tend to not result in a click - meaning people just stop at the SERP page once they get an answer.
On mobile, according to SpankToro, it's actually 60.1% of Google mobile searches that result in zero-click searches and rising.
This is very troubling for many reasons - if you've been relying on traditional digital marketing methods for SEO.
One reason why this is troubling is because SEO is a consistent and a constant generator of traffic for businesses across diverse sectors, industries, sizes, and markets.
However, it's important to always keep in mind that someone in this world is leveraging zero-clicks to bring traffic to their business.
Therefore, that implies that there's always a way.
With that said, my mission is that you can quickly walk away from this article generally understanding how you can start leveraging zero-click search for your business.
While I am mainly directing this at B2B startups, I am fully confident that this article would be helpful if you are pursuing traction through SEO.
How Do "Zero Clicks" Change the Game?
Attention spans are steadily decreasing as you may have understood from the Microsoft 2015 study here.
While human attention spans are decreasing, there are several factors to consider.
We are living in an increasingly complicated world with various distractions everywhere: from Alexa voice assistants, from mobile push notifications, from e-mails, from messaging apps, from TVs, from our smartwatches.
For the first time in human history, we have a problem of having too many resources (and that goes exponentially for information).
However, it's not that people stop reading long articles or stopped watching long movies.
Netflix's 203 million subscribers in Q4 2020 suggests otherwise.
With the total influx of data from each and every corner of our lives, we finding ourselves hating to search.
Instead, we are looking to have our content given to us.
In fact, it's one of the reasons that TikTok is doing incredibly well right now: curation.
People desperately want curation.
Even Netflix acknowledges this with their "Watch Something" feature.
We now live in an age where we hate to search.
So, what does that have to do with zero clicks?
People don't want to click through 2 pages to get to see a result: they want to get to one.
Though, thanks to voice assistants like Alexa, people don't have to even look at a screen to get an answer.
Zero clicks is a scenario where people decided to migrate away from search to curated answers.
How Could This Be a Problem for SEO?
Understandably, this is a difficult problem for SEO marketers everywhere.
As always, what worked previously doesn't apply today: i.e. keyword spamming - RIP marketing tactic from the 2000's.
There is one steady trend that Google has been moving towards since its inception: to be the simplest search engine ever used across mass markets.
That goes beyond just its initial search bar page.
It also wants to ensure that people are finding what they are looking for - and fast.
Through its algorithmic updates like Hummingbird, Google has always been pushing for better, more thorough complex content for its end users.
However, there are a slew of copied or borderline-plagiarized content across the same long-tail keywords that say the same thing over and over again.
Thus, Google responds by making more complex algorithmic changes to reduce plagiarized content - or at the very least, regurgitated content that repeats the same thing ad nauseam.
In essence, Google is forcing you to create more thorough content repeatedly as Google prioritizes certain websites over others through its EAT score.
Because of this, Google is judging your business as a brand nowadays.
Are You Doomed Forever? No...
While this may seem daunting when it comes to mastering SEO, stay calm.
You don't have to master the entirety of SEO to generate traffic: you just have to be good enough.
Through SERP Features like Local Pack and Featured Snippets, Google is expanding SEO into various growth channels that you can utilize for your business.
The trick is to decide which SEO growth channel that you want to leverage for traffic.
For example, if you're a local marketing agency, you will want to leverage Local Pack through Google My Business so that people near you can find you quickly.
On top of that, if you added consistent video content on YouTube with backlinks pinging back to your website, your website should be placed heavily above your local competitors.
In each shift, there are winners and losers.
The shift to navigating zero-clicks is no different.
So, let's get down to the juicy stuff.....
What Can You Expect to Learn Here?
Expect to understand more about zero-clicks more than you ever thought you would know.
Though this article will be mainly focused on zero-clicks, I'm coming from the position of a Growth Marketer.
I understand that zero-clicks is very daunting and confusing. It sounds scary!
How can you possibly leverage zero clicks anyway?
Google is forcing you to think more contextually about your content, your marketing, and your growth strategies.
You can expect think more about your operations, how you engineered your website, how you can engineered your website to keep users in - through creative means (i.e. drastically bettering user experience), and most importantly, how to leverage zero-click search without driving yourself mad.
What Do You Need to Know about "Zero-Click" Searches?
Why is"zero click" search so confusing?
It's confusing because it's a general shift from what we're generally used to measuring.
Metrics like keyword volume is no longer enough (to stay ahead); we're more focused on clicks per search now.
The general trend with Google as SEO tool is a shift from being an informational resource to an useful (mobile) application.
Since the early 2010s, Google has been shifting towards its priority to its mobile user base because that's where most of the consumer base is right now.
This is also reflected in how Google is transforming its SERPs through expanded features.
Google is no longer thinking of itself as a website (desktop/information) but as an application (mobile/communication).
Google is prioritizing engagement overall.
Therefore, there are keywords such as 'recipes' that have more Featured Snippets featured for that category as opposed to long-tail keywords for more complex topics.
Google wants to supply quick answers so you as a user don't waste time anywhere else - unnecessarily.
What does "zero click search" have in common with AI?
In my spare time, I'm working on AI-enabled matchmaking platform.
Something I've learned is that through concrete data sets, you can train a machine to match people, cars, suggestions systematically - at scale.
This drastically streamlines everything for the end user and if correctly arranged, for the company - as well.
This matchmaking feature also enables spectacular curation with AI - as evidenced with TikTok.
What is the commonality with "zero click search" and AI?
Zero-click search allows users to find their content faster but it also pushes businesses to develop more interesting, thorough content that is authoritative that stands out.
If Google is listing your content onto their SERP page, Google expects your website to provide a high-quality user experience.
"Zero click search marketing" doesn't stop with just your content but it's also affects how people are coming to your website.
Are you creating the right type of content that matches your customer's Buyer's Journey at the time: i.e. are you creating product-aware content for people are interested in learning more about your product and might want to buy it?
All and all, AI pushes for better use cases while zero click search forces marketers to consider better strategies alongside with higher-quality content.
Google is forcing you to think more contextually.
"A job worth doing should be done once - usually the first time around".
I want you to keep thinking about this phrase as you read through this section about thinking contextually.
"Just create high-quality content" is not a winning growth strategy. It's the bare minimum, really.
Yes, you should ALWAYS create high-quality content because it makes this next part easier.
You have to look at each SERP feature as a growth channel that you can leverage solely and single-handily.
Despite Pat Flynn saying, "Be Everywhere", you don't want to be everywhere - depending on what startup stage you're in.
In the beginning, you want to be experimenting with each specific SERP Feature that you can consistently systematically leverage them for consistent growth for your business.
If you're a B2B startup, you will want to try to get Featured Snippets because most topics surround tech and business are complex enough that your readers will move forward to click on your articles.
Google wants you to think more contextually: not in just gaming the system (I said, "not just") but also who (as in the audience) you are targeting and when you are targeting them (depending on their Buyer Journey that they are in).
By being uber-specific with your content marketing, you can tailor long-tail keywords for ToFU content to raise Time on Site and reduce Bounce Rate by producing higher-quality content.
Keep in mind that Google is prioritizing engagement metrics so KPI metrics like Bounce Rate, Time on Site, and Direct Traffic still matter to your SEM (search engine marketing) goals.
Google wants you to generally supply "richer content"
The days of just supplying text are gone now.
With Google shifting its focus to prioritize its mobile user base, Google is behaving more like an application.
Google doesn't want to be JUST an informational resource.
Honestly, it would not surprise me if Google wants to be a superapp.
The reason why zero clicks exists is because Google wants to focus on user experience with its mobile users.
Mobile users don't want to search. People hate the search process: it's not cool anymore!
It's actually time-consuming.
For quick, short, concise, or even public domain knowledge, Google ensures quick answers so you can come back to using Google again and again.
According to Animoto, YouTube replaced Facebook as the #1 platform that affects consumer behavior.
With about 70% of watch time on YouTube coming from mobile devices, Google wants businesses to migrate away from primarily SEO-optimized text context.
By adding Video as a SERP Feature, Google is pushing businesses to consider video marketing to keep users on Google as their mobile search application.
The shift in metric from keyword volume to "snippable content that generates clicks".
What one indie gamer can do in their spare time to design a crowd-pleasing 16-bit game is what took an entire game development team months to create.
We stand on the shoulders of giants. There are tools that enable one person to handle what took teams of people 20 years prior had to gather to do.
Segueing to AI/ML and "zero click search", I spoke earlier about how AI streamlined operations faster to achieve a faster end use case for the primary user.
AI/ML (artificial intelligence/machine learning) removes unnecessary waste by streamlining operations so you can get what you want faster and even better: i.e. curation (content supplied to end user right away) vs. search (spending time for finding what people are looking for).
It's very easy to state that all you need is "high-authority, high-quality, high-traffic" content to get that coveted first spot on the SERP for the keyword result.
However, Google is pushing you to adopt one or several available SERP Features that you can use to customize your content strategy and your SEO strategy around.
This is more than just adopting video as part of your content marketing strategy.
This is also about supplying the higher-caliber content into your arsenal to use in conjunction to gaming the SERP Features through exploiting what Google is prioritizing currently.
This means that you have to research on what topics that most people are talking about on social media and focusing your targeted marketing strategy towards to the keywords where people complete their search.
You want to think like a TV showrunner, in a sense when creating content for SEO.
What episode are you going to publish in order to generate people to come see your business?
A general understanding of "zero-click" searches.
The bigger picture is about "zero-click" search is that Google prioritizes the results that are more engaging and more enticing for the user.
Google wants to ensure that it's proving a good experience.
In Google's eyes, if they go to a bad website, they don't blame the website naturally, they blame Google for being the arbiter of destruction of their eyes.
So, Google is going to ensure that it does everything in its power to ensure that the website that it takes you to is one that guarantees a returning user.
Taking on "zero-click" search is a lofty goal with the expansion of SEO.
Consider leverage smaller growth channels around "zero-click search" that are relevant to your growth.
The main takeaway is to focus on relevant growth channels so you can grow your business faster!
Your project management SaaS company probably doesn't need to exploit hyperlocal SEO unless location was some sort of killer validated feature for your project management workspace app.
In essence, be more selective with your time when it comes to manage certain growth channels for your business.
If this article was any help for you, feel free to upvote it.
