【Less than Half of Google Searches Now Result in a Click】
Rand Fishkin - the co-founder of MOZ and SparkToro released an interesting study this month outing Google and their efforts on walling off the search engine for their own. Since June 2019, only 40.42% of all Google searches now results in a click to web properties not owned by Alphabet Inc, the rest is split between zero-click searches (49.76%), Alphabet owned properties (5.98%), and paid clicks (3.83%).
It’s not doomsday for everyone just yet, but if you want to increase the survival rate of your startup under the Google overlord, here are some suggestions I’ve picked out through the ongoing discussion within the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and Marketing community:
1. [On-SERP (Search Engine Results Page) SEO]
Optimize your Search Results ranking on the most valuable keywords, make sure your Site Title and Meta Description carries your brand/marketing message on the Search Results page. You are still able to influence these potential customers by showing up on important keywords even without them going to your site.
2. [Find New Marketing Channels]
The first banner ad debuted on HotWired in 1994 with a CTR (click through rate) of 78%, CTR for Facebook ads on the other hand now averages around 0.90%. Overtime almost all marketing channels will get less effective and your CTR will gradually head towards 0. From flyers to mail, email, SMS, banner/display ads, Messenger, Youtube, Instagram, and all the way to TikTok. You will need to actively try out new marketing channels to combat the “Law of Shitty Clickthroughs” (coined by Andrew Chen from a16z).
3. [Offline Marketing Channels]
Much like the Online to Offline trend we observed in recent years, your marketing efforts deserves to have some offline presence too! Whether is hosting workshops, seminars, speaking events, or even building a community, you would be surprised at how well these offline efforts convert to paying customers.
4. [Optimize Your Presence on Alphabet Properties]
Lastly, this means playing Google’s game of “help me, help you”. With 94% Search Engine market share in most of the the world - excluding China and Russia, one sure way to leverage Google and make the most of this situation is to optimize your content and presence across all their channels (Youtube, Maps, AMP, Images, Knowledge Panels, etc).
- Jack An
Analyst, AppWorks
*Picture from SparkToro
