WHAT TO DO
ABOUT
ZERO-CLICK
SEARCHES
This Article Is Human Authored
By Jeff Payne
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The digital marketing landscape has fundamentally shifted. In 2024, nearly 60% of Google searches resulted in zero clicks – meaning users found their answers directly on Google’s results page without ever visiting a website. This represents a dramatic increase from just 50% in 2019, and projections suggest zero-click searches could surpass 80%+ by 2026.
This isn’t just another marketing trend to monitor – it’s a fundamental transformation of how customers discover, evaluate, and engage with brands. The question isn’t whether this affects your business; it’s how quickly you can adapt your marketing and branding strategy to thrive in this new reality.
The Current State: What Really Happens After a Google Search
In my recent analysis of comprehensive data from multiple sources, here is a picture of modern search behavior:
Sources:
“Do Nothing” – SparkToro
“Perform Another Google Search” – SparkToro
“Click Around to Different Tabs – a minority of searches but a larger share of clicks – SparkToro – (with Datos’ panel)
“Click on Organic Listings” – SparkToro
“Click on Paid Ads” – SparkToro
“Click on AI Overviews” – Pew Research Center, Brightedge
The Zero-Click Breakdown
When people perform searches that result in zero clicks, they either end their session entirely (~37% of the time) or change their search query to something else (~22% of the time). This behavior stems from Google’s increasingly sophisticated ability to provide immediate answers through:
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Beyond Zero-Click:
The Complete Search Journey
While 60% of searches result in zero clicks, the remaining 40% distributes across:
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Chief Investment Strategist
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Why Traditional SEO Remains Your Foundation
Despite the rise of zero-click searches, abandoning traditional SEO would be a costly mistake. Here’s why CEOs must continue investing in search engine optimization:
SEO as Brand Infrastructure
Websites with a strong SEO foundation are more likely to appear in AI Overviews, and this foundation directly impacts your brand’s digital authority. Google’s core goal remains the same: to help people find outstanding, original content that adds unique value.
Think of SEO as digital real estate development. Even if fewer people visit your property directly, being located in a premium neighborhood (high search rankings) increases your brand’s perceived value and authority. 59% of American searchers click on results of brands they recognize, and 81% of consumers will only consider purchasing from a brand they trust.
The Quality Signal Effect
Search engines and AI platforms use the same quality indicators that have always mattered for SEO:
AI Training Ground
Your SEO-optimized content serves as training data for AI systems. When your content consistently provides accurate, comprehensive answers, you’re more likely to be referenced in AI-generated responses across multiple platforms – from Google’s AI Overviews to ChatGPT and Perplexity.
Measuring Visibility When Clicks Don’t Tell the Complete Story
The most successful companies in 2025 are those that have evolved beyond click-centric measurement to embrace impression-based brand awareness metrics.
The New Success Metrics
Brand Impression Tracking: Impressions are the new clicks. In the era of AI visibility, being seen is now the ultimate SEO currency. Track how often your brand appears in:
Visibility Share Analysis: Track how often your brand appears in SERPs, featured snippets, AI overviews, and paid placements, even if it doesn’t result in a click. This metric reveals your share of customer attention, not just traffic.
Branded Search Growth: When people type your company name into search bars, they’ve moved beyond generic research into targeted evaluation. Monitor searches that include your brand name – these prove genuine brand recall and indicate future conversion potential.
Quality Over Quantity Indicators: When people click to a website from search results pages with AI Overviews, these clicks are higher quality, where users are more likely to spend more time on the site. Focus on:
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Thank you for sharing your expertise, and hope you’re doing well.
Beth Zimmerman
Founder, Executive Director
July 3, 2025
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The Executive Dashboard Transformation
Replace traditional SEO reports with business-focused visibility dashboards that show:
Adapting to AI Overviews and Zero-Click Experiences
AI Overviews is one of the most successful launches in Search in the past decade, and in the biggest markets like the U.S. and India, AI Overviews is driving over 10% increase in usage of Google for the types of queries that show AI Overviews. This isn’t a temporary experiment – it’s the future of search.
Strategic Adaptation Framework
Content Strategy Evolution: Move from keyword-focused content to topic authority building. Google rewards brands that own entire topics, not just isolated search terms. Create comprehensive content clusters that establish your expertise across related subjects rather than targeting individual keywords.
Answer-First Content Structure: Structure your content to give answers or state brief solutions within the initial paragraphs to get highlighted in AI summaries. Lead with clear, direct answers that AI can easily extract and cite.
Multi-Format Content Investment: Video is seeing the largest increase of mentions and inclusions in AI Overviews. Diversify your content portfolio to include videos, infographics, guides, masterclasses, 3D animation, and interactive elements that provide value across different AI interpretation methods.
Schema and Structured Data Enhancement: Implement comprehensive schema markup beyond the basics (How To, FAQ, Product, etc.) to help AI systems better understand and categorize your content.
How to Obtain AI Overviews and Why They Matter
The strategic value of appearing in AI Overviews extends beyond immediate traffic considerations. Companies like HubSpot saw this story play out publicly when its organic traffic was claimed to have dropped 80% — the business, however, saw a 21% growth in revenue for 2024.
Official Optimization Guidelines
According to Google’s official guidance, there are no additional technical requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, nor other special optimizations necessary. However, success requires excellence in fundamental areas:
Content Excellence Standards
Technical Foundation Requirements
To be eligible to be shown as a supporting link in AI Overviews or AI Mode, a page must be indexed and eligible to be shown in Google Search with a snippet, fulfilling the Search technical requirements:
The Business Case for AI Overview Optimization
Higher Quality Traffic: More marketers are reporting a decline in traffic but a rise in revenue. Users who click through from AI Overviews are typically more qualified and engaged, leading to better conversion rates.
Expanded Reach Potential: AI Overviews help people get to the gist of a complicated topic or question more quickly, and provide a jumping off point to explore links to learn more. This creates opportunities for businesses to reach audiences who might never have discovered them through traditional search.
Competitive Differentiation: Early adoption of AI-optimized content strategies provides a first-mover advantage as competitors struggle to adapt to the new landscape.
Key Takeaways: Your Action Plan for 2025
Strategic Imperatives
The Bottom Line
Zero-click searches represent a fundamental shift in how customers interact with information online. The businesses that will thrive are those that view this change as an opportunity to build stronger brand authority and reach more qualified customers, rather than a threat to their existing traffic model.
Your brand deserves to be seen by humans and by the AI systems that increasingly determine what humans see. By focusing on impression-based visibility, maintaining strong SEO foundations, and optimizing for AI-powered search experiences, you’re positioning your company for sustained growth in the evolving digital landscape.
The companies that adapt quickest to this new reality – those that master the art of being seen without necessarily being clicked – will dominate their industries for the next decade. The question is: will your organization be among them?
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