When Google introduced the featured snippet in 2014, it opened up new opportunities for brands looking to secure the #1 ranking spot on the SERPs, and one of them was zero-click search. The concept of zero-click search performance was to offer direct answers to user search queries without having to click and navigate to a website.
Despite this process resulting in a gradual decline in organic traffic, this also offered higher brand visibility. If this is your first time with zero-click search performance, it is wise to check out this article to learn more about the concept first. In this blog, we explain more about zero-click tracking by guiding you through a series of steps.
Since the zero-click search allows users to get information from SERPs without having to make any clicks, the zero-click search’s impact on businesses is mainly in these two areas: organic and paid search. If you continue to optimize your website for higher search rankings, the chances of getting ranked are higher in the SERP, and Google might choose your site for the position zero content. This saves users from making a click as Google has already shown them what they need. However, there will be a downward trend in organic users visiting your site. Understanding what is SERP position zero can help you strategize your content to maximize visibility while still driving traffic to your site.
Despite this, it is better to continue optimizing to rank competitively against paid search. Now coming to paid search, Google has been priortizing this to come after the position zero answer boxes. The percentage of paid search clicks has been increasing over the years. This means that brands have to focus on incorporating them into their content strategy. This is because if you are not willing to pay to get more clicks, your competitors are.
If you are wondering how to optimize for zero-click searches, it’s all about providing the best possible user experience. This involves focusing on keyword research, prioritizing creating content for featured snippets, investing in schema markup, and more. Measuring and tracking the zero-click searches helps improve your website’s performance. However, as zero-click seo has fewer clicks to track, applying the traditional SEO methods won’t generate the full result. So, how do you measure and track the performance? The following set of metrics should help you get started:
The thing about zero-click search is that even though users aren’t clicking, they still see your brand in search results whenever they search for information. It is possible to track your brand impressions metric via Google Search Console.
Filter your brand name, and you can see how often people are specifically searching for you. As zero-click content primarily appears on featured snippets, PAA, AI overviews, etc, you can utilize tools such as Semrush, Ahrefs for monitoring your brand presence in the above SERP features. Even if you are ranking for a featured snippet but not getting any clicks, the content is answering the user’s question, which still builds brand awareness.
Another important metric to be measured is the return on investment (ROI). With this no-click search tracking method, you can check how many conversions you have got with search through GA4.
Here, you can filter by the term Organic Search to see the number of assisted conversions. Assisted conversions are those cases in which search has played a vital role. Now, if you wish to find the impact of brand searches on conversions, it can be measured as follows:
Once opened, you can compare the direct traffic conversions vs. organic search conversions. If the former is increased.
Now that you know the types of metrics used to measure zero-click performance, let’s learn more about zero-click tracking to get a clearer picture.
When it comes to tracking, it is important to go beyond the traffic. Setting up custom reports focusing on brand visibility, engagement offers a detailed insight. You can track the process by utilizing Looker Studio connected to Google Search Console, which is explained as follows:
You can also set up custom GA4 reports for zero-click tracking. Here you can track direct traffic trends to see if your search visibility translates into brand awareness. By setting up Attribute reports, you can measure assisted conversions from search visibility.
You can leverage several SEO tools that not only help track zero-click SEO analytics but it also monitor how well your content is performing. Some of those tools are:
This tool lets you monitor your website’s overall performance on Google Search. You can track featured snippets, measure and provide data on impressions, clicks, all of which help you understand your content performance and visibility on SERPs.
With GA4, it is possible to track direct traffic growth, assisted conversions involving search, referral traffic spikes, etc. All these metrics offer detailed insights on how search visibility translates into brand awareness and engagement.
You can gain valuable insights into your website performance in zero-click searches through SEMrush’s position tracking feature and organic research tool. While the former tracks your site rankings for specific keywords, the latter identifies the top-ranking pages on your site.
Another popular tool for zero-click tracking is Ahrefs. This well-known SEO tool can be used for analysing SERPs, tracking website backlinks, organic traffic, etc. Its built-in site explorer tool allows you to see the top organic search keywords on your site, including your competitors.
Zero-click searches have their challenges and opportunities for businesses looking to increase their online visibility in the SERPs. As zero-click SEO is becoming the norm, the number of clicks you get might decrease. However, making necessary changes and optimizing content for zero-click can build brand awareness.
Apart from the optimizations, measuring and tracking the various brand metrics helps improve website performance. Consulting with a renowned search engine optimization company in UAE is a good way to get started with understanding more about zero-click content and how it can be implemented in your business.
Being humans, we love any sort of visual stimuli and respond to it compared to…
Content marketing captures your target audience’s attention, and having more mere content does not benefit…
Most of you might have heard the launch of Google's March 2025 Core Update, whose…
Google passage indexing from Google has been dwelling on the search engine optimisation strategy since…
Want your brand to be listed first on SERPs? That’s what everyone wants. Getting there…
Have you heard about LSI keywords or the LSI SEO technique? Many marketers and SEO…