Useful information or good Offsite SEO
I always enjoy reading any output from Rand Fishkin and always loved his White Board Friday episodes when he was at Moz. And his new firm SparkToro looks solid. Probably not an ideal tool for our small agency or our clients.
However his recent Zero Click Search post and ensuing hype around the ‘Datos Study’ seems misplaced or clickbaity or just a distraction. Or damn good SEO? And it coincides with his launch at Sparktoro of his new platform. “SparkToro is an audience intelligence tool that uses Datos, (a Semrush company) results services to conduct market research and provide target audience intelligence insights in a way that is affordable, quickly accessible and hugely actionable.”
But the graphic above they created is a good way of showing you what happens when people do a Google search, so lets use it, but explain it slightly differently, in a more positive way. Same image, slightly different take.
The premise is that out of 1000 searches only 40% click on links to the ‘open web’ or ‘organic links’ in the results.
37% get the answer they want so they leave. These are queries that Google answers in real time. Things like:
What is the temperature?
What is the weather forecast?
Who is the Tanaiste today?
How many sides does an octogon have?
List the bank holidays in Ireland
When did we join the EU?
What is AI overviews?
Why do birds sing?
And 22% in Europe refine their search and start over again. Closer to 21% in USA. Makes sense, we do an initial search, get ideas, refine our search further and go again. Nothing new there, because we regularly do not know the best search term to use for our query, we need ‘inspiration’. That 1% in USA which is really 5% of a difference is also due to more people in USA clicking on Google entities.
Note: The Google Ads figure of 1% in the graphic is based on all search results and not just the results where a Google Ad is served. The figure is closer to 5% on results pages that do display Ads. Ads feature in about 1 out of 5 results pages.
The big statement is that only about 40% of searches actually end up going to the open web. Has that changed in 5 years? Is it a bad thing? Or a good thing?
It is true that this 40% figure is less than the figure of closer to 45% in 2019 according to the Jumpshot survey. However this could well be because Google are getting better at answering queries. Maybe they give these better answers thereby reducing the need to do a refined search. And maybe the Maps section is well improved in 5 years, with more firms listed, again reducing the need to click or refine your search. And the Google Business Profile is now better at giving information in an average search.
However, the 37% who get their question answered makes sense.
And 22% refining their search, thereby trying again. Which again will result in at least 40% clicking on results from the open web, maybe more because they have refined their search. If the figure is a lot more, then it could mean that this study should show a lower overall figure.
So out of the 40% who do click on a link, the figure says 28% click on Google entities such as Youtube and Maps or Google Business Profile, possibly not a bad thing, if they go to a business entity. Interestingly, in Europe, probably due to more stringent penalties, we note that 4.5% less people click on a Google entity. That equates to over 20% of a difference. In the USA more people are clicking on Google Flights or Google Accommodation entities.
And finally 70% click on Organic Results links, as in websites or pages on websites. This is our focus. From that 70% figure about 40% of these will click on position 1. 20% click on position 2. 10% click on position 3. And position 4 gets 7%. As you can imagine these figures vary depending on the quality of the link, the page title and the meta description. This is where we need to focus as search engine optimisation agencies, to get the click through. And then to get the conversion from the page to an engagement such a purchase, telephone call, form fill, email or chat query. Getting a web page or entity found in a Google search is just the start, then the click through to a results page is the beginning of the sales pitch or engagement process. From that click through we are looking to help the visitor find an answer or ask a question.
Off Site SEO
Is this what Rand Fishkin and Sparktoro are doing? Yes and they are doing it very well. Better again they are promoting their page by publishing a link to it in Linkedin and creating a conversation around the figures. All their contacts are engaging, commenting and sharing. And here I am doing it too, with links to the original article and some of the people who reference it.
Off page SEO is a critical part of SEO as a whole and this is a truly great example of it.
Conclusions – Takeaways
Has Google improved to a point where they deliver better results in SERPs and via their own Google properties?
Gary Illyes and John Mueller would say yes. And I would tend to agree.
Apart from adding all the Ads and AI Overviews. And the incessant push of results further down the results page.
Does legislation in Europe mean that less Google entities are served up in search results here?
Yes, I believe so. And it explains why 24% in Europe versus 28% in USA click on Google entities.
Apart from Ads. It is clear that based on this study Google Ads get clicked 40% more than Ads in USA. The caveat here is whether Google deivers more Ads on average in USA versus Europe. And I do not have enough available data to confirm this either way.
But is seems obvious that in the USA some of the clicks go direct to the Google entities rather than other Paid Ads. Effectively Google is in the market competing with their own customers more in the USA than in Europe.
Have we really learned anything new from this blog post by Rand?
Hmm, much like the supposedly leaked Google papers recently, it may be old news or irrelevant news. By the way, the same Rand Fishkin and Sparktoro also created a conversation around this too.
As much as the conversation and ensuing comments make for good reading, from our point of view it changes nothing. It is at worst clickbaity or at best good Offsite SEO for people promoting their SEO tools or services. And well done you.
The challenge for us as a small agency is still to rank our clients high in the SERPs Search Engine Results Pages, engage the searcher to click our results using appealing page titles and descriptions, to bring them to our client website pages. Then serve up enough value or answers that they will want to take an action, such as call us or ask a question, make a purchase or complete a form.
The conditions do change as Google evolves, so there is and always will be constant change in search.
Do you want more expert SEO advice?
Do you find this interesting? If you want to keep a weather eye on the topic of SEO and Google and results, then why not follow people like Rand Fishkin, Lily Ray, Barry Swartz, Gary Illyes, John Mueller, Marie Haynes, Kevin Indig and Cyrus Shepard.
If they do not keep you mentally stimulated enough on the subject, then check out Allie K.Miller, Olaf Kopp, Koray Tuğberk GÜBÜR, Craig Campbell or Matt Diggity.
And read the most recent news items and updates regularly at Search Engine Journal and Search Engine Roundtable.