No-Click searches: everything you need to know to prepare

The rise of No-Click searches: everything you need to know to prepare for the best.

What is zero-click searches

This is how zero-click searches are changing the face of the Internet and what to do to get into the games before it’s too late.

The web is a place in continuous evolution, without borders, eternal laws and, often, many certainties.

The security of total page optimization for a desktop format, now replaced by the mobile experience.

The importance of your website, now increasingly tending to give priority to social pages.

And now the very value of entering, clicking on a link and seeing what lies beyond, forgotten in favor of a faster no-click experience. Or maybe not.

If for the first two examples it is a question of truth, on this last point the situation is not yet at such levels. Although the trend of no-clicks is increasing over time, today most of the value still resides in the “dated” establishment of the link, where the user looking for an answer chooses to click.

However, the future may bring major changes. And anyone with an online business will have to keep up to date so as not to miss the train of opportunities and become démodé.

How Google builds no-click search in the SERP…

No-clicks are defined as those searches where the user is satisfied with the result of the query without actually having to click on a link.

In most cases it is the search engine itself that satisfies the request. And Google is certainly in first place in this race.

To clarify the ideas, trying to write “Data Brexit” here is what will appear in first position:

That’s all. Asked the question, found the answer. Everything else becomes superfluous. And in case you’re looking for some more detail, next to it is the no-click section of Wikipedia that provides different information depending on the query.

And if you want to learn more about the issue, just scroll down the page to continue with the results zero-click. Or rather, a click will be there, but certainly not to access a real website.

Google calculates the average of the searches related to the keywords you just typed and offers users related content. In this way, if you are interested in continuing to discover what triggered Brexit, everything will be at your fingertips.

And if you’re thinking that you don’t feel enriched enough by the answer, here’s what happens just after you see one of the results:

Six points. Yet a moment earlier there were four options available. Given the interest shown in clicking, Google takes the liberty of directing the user into an informative funnel with short questions and answers.

The opposite of any organic link full of words, long phrases, speeches and lots of unnecessary information.

That’s right, like this article.

And the trick is endless, because by continuing to open a result, Google will always add two more to its queue. So the fearless navigator will not need to move to other pages to search for what he wants. Everything will be within reach of a no-click.

..and how Google Maps is the right hand man of the game

Although SERP is the main terrain for SEO war, with no-click queries the competition moves to Google Maps. That’s because at 8 pm, out of the house starving and without a destination, the first thing is to get your hands on the Big G app from your Smartphone and write nothing more than “pizzeria”.

You won’t need any descriptions, details or other terms. Google knows your location, your past searches, the places you’ve already been and maybe even the ones you might like.

The result will be a complete mapping of the pizzerias in a more or less short range. And with all the necessary information:

Name, location and distance, average reviews, average prices and type of room. And you can experience the same with shops, activities, gyms, travel and more.

Google is talking to that person, inviting him to participate, saying:

everything is ready, only you are missing

Understanding the phenomenon: the mind of the user

The reasons for the spread of this phenomenon are different. But the first one is undoubtedly that Google is doing its job damn well, otherwise the data would show the opposite.

The search engine has in fact been able to create a way that harnesses the 3 elements that users look for when they type something: 

• speed

• precision

• speed

And yes, the speed must be double and Google knows it well. This word does not mean the milliseconds calculated to have the result back (depending on the speed of the connection). Instead, it means the time between the appearance of the results and the closing of the page.

The shorter that time, the greater the success of Google, because it will have been able to respond to any doubt in a short period of time.

And as you can see, numbers don’t lie. From the beginning of 2016 to the fall of 2018, the number of no-clicks searches on mobile devices rose from 55.6% to 62.5%. We are therefore facing a constantly growing trend.

And the second reason lies in the minds of Internet surfers around the globe. In an increasingly fast and hyper-connected world, there is no time for the superfluous.

What counts is getting straight to the point and in the shortest possible time, with the least effort required and the lowest effort of energy.

The no-click search is therefore an inevitable destiny.

But how can we then keep our names alive, continue to be known and discovered, and not be overshadowed?

How to survive at the no-click arrival

The SEO is still alive

The SEO rules and the goal of front-page positioning have certainly not gone away. As you can see in the third image of the article (results after the “Data Brexit” query), there is a link to a BBC article just below the first question.

This is because the online reputation of the site is very high and its article about the topic is authoritative. And Google knows it well, placing it as the first link available for all users who want to learn more.

So continue to work on the SEO aspect to grow the reputation of the site.

Create a SERP-friendly

If the game is moving more and more to the results page, it means that everyone with an online activity will have to do the same. So model your result space in the SERP to the best of your ability:

• quality is the goal. Users recognize quality content, so you need to create an intro that can convey that value;
• use Google My Business to enter (if any) types of business, reviews, prices, photos and services. Especially for offline activities, it doesn’t matter how many people enter the site, but how many then buy the product/service;
• keep Title and Snippet below the maximum characters, so as to show all the content in the SERP. And create them for readers, not for search engines: more quality, less keywords;
• provide all possible answers in the available space that are then deepened (and of value!) in the page. 

Use special tools

Using suitable tools allows you to understand what are the intentions of users to search for certain keywords.

There are in fact 3 types of queries.

1. Transaction searches –>the person is interested-intentioned to proceed with a purchase (e.g. “air max white shipping”).
2. Information searches –> the intention is to get more information, not necessarily to buy.
3. Navigation searches –> the target is already defined and the user navigates directly to where he wants to go.

Knowing the percentage of these searches you can model a strategy. Some examples of good tools are  STAT and Google Search Console.

Use social networks

At least for the moment, the structure on social media is clearly different. You don’t have the concept of SERP, clicks and links: if a person is affected by a certain content, it is likely that they will go to the page of the person who published it and, perhaps, will start to follow it.

So having social media on your side is a powerful weapon. The contents that in no-click searches remain hidden behind the links can here be proposed in the form of images, videos, animations or texts.

And all accompanied by the correct links. Because a no-click search is such if it starts from the search engine page, not from Facebook or Instagram. If a user sees an interesting product/service, he will be willing to learn more specifically and directly access the dedicated site, without going through the quick content of Google.

The important thing is to keep up with the times before it’s too late.