How can you use SEO to drive more traffic to your website? Our ongoing series answers this question and more – today’s post explores how to use SEO to overcome zero click searches.
Related posts in this series:
SEO Strategies for 2020, Part 1: Welcome to the New School
SEO Strategies for 2020, Part 2: Basic Optimization
SEO Strategies for 2020, Part 3: Know Your Audience
SEO Strategies for 2020, Part 4: Advanced Strategies
ZERO CLICK SEARCHES: A REAL ROADBLOCK TO SUCCESS
As of 2019, over 50% of searches did NOT result in a click. Sounds crazy, right?
But think about the number of times you’ve typed a question you just needed a quick answer to like, “Who was the president after Lincoln?” You type the question, the answer pops up at the top of the results, and you close your phone without clicking a thing.
It’s convenient for the user but challenging for website owners. Since people are clicking on fewer results, it’s becoming harder to get traffic to your website.
The good news: You can get your website to show up at the top of those results with a few important strategies.
1. Overcome Zero-Click Searches With Featured Snippets
When someone types a question, Google finds the website that has the best answer and grabs one or two sentences and places them at the very top, actually appearing before the #1 organic result.
How do you get a featured snippet?
- Write how-to articles.
- Ask and answer questions like:
- “What are the most common interview questions?”
- “What should I ask during a reference check?”
- Use tools to help:
- SEMrush Snippet Search Tool
- AnswerThePublic.com
BE DIRECT AND GET TO THE POINT.
Featured snippets are usually 40-50 words.
2. Overcome Zero-Click Searches With Local SEO
When you search a localized term like, “Staffing agencies in Dallas,” local SEO determines the results you see.
The results kick back a map, a couple of listings on the map, reviews of those businesses, and in the case of mobile, links to tap to call that business directly from the results.
Why does this matter? Appearing in the map pack can be even more lucrative in terms of clicks and calls than ranking number one organically!
You can appear in local results by:
- Claiming and setting up Google My Business Listing (GMB).
- Including NAP on your website and making sure all information is consistent with your GMB.
- Uploading images of your office to GMB.
- Acquiring customer reviews on your GMB listing.
- Claiming local citations from other sites (Bing, Facebook, Yelp, etc.).
3. Overcome Zero-Click Searches with Video
Don’t forget that YouTube is the second-biggest search engine on the internet!
- Over 62% of searches include video results (mostly from YouTube).
- Video search results have a 41% higher click-through rate.
- Posts with videos attract 3x more inbound links.
Up Next: User Engagement
Views are one thing, but engagement is another – how does Google measure your audience’s actions on your website? The next post in this series will take a look at how you can improve your Google ranking with audience engagement. If you don’t want to wait, download the full, FREE eBook “SEO Strategies for 2020: Welcome to the New School” here!
