“58.5% of Google searches now end without a click”…….is the most worthless SEO data I’ve ever seen.
The vast majority of Google searches are basic searches not meant to have clicks in the first place.
Unless you are a media publishing brand that relies solely on mass page views to monetize, this metric should vanish from your headspace. The most common searches are about weather, politics, musicians, etc.
You think searches about detailed B2B SaaS integration software are resulting in no clicks? Nah, let’s get real.
Perfect example: Monday.com’s Q2 earnings call. They said they are experiencing drops in actual clicks from search. And this makes sense. Take a look at the search results they dropped on. Top of the funnel, informational, low level.
But they also directly stated, immediately after sharing their traffic drops: The drop in clicks and traffic volume has not impacted lead quality and quantity of high-intent prospects finding them via organic search.
You should not expect to get clicks on basic information. Treat basic content as brand awareness and move on. Stop trying to measure it, you’re burning opportunity cost.
If you consistently optimize for the most basic level information consumption, you are going to get left behind. That’s obvious. Do the opposite and you’ll get ahead:
Not a single C-suite executive has ever read a 2 sentence AI overview and said “Yep, cancel our current 7-figure CRM provider and sign a new 7-figure contract with XYZ tool tomorrow, that AI overview sentence convinced me!” Not even close.
Decision makers, more and more, are looking for expertise in content. Actual case studies, use cases, and understanding of how a tool can integrate into their current workflow to save them time, money, operational headaches, etc.
How do I know?
- I’ve had 555+ clients in my agency, 100s of them being publicly traded companies with billion dollar market caps, I have spoken to the biggest decision makers with the largest marketing budgets quite literally on earth
- Our team works directly with marketing and sales teams at these companies driving organic growth, meaning I can see the internal lifecycle journey of sales qualified leads from start to finish and understand what content they consumed that led them to a buying decision
Focusing on high-intent searches, use cases, case studies, actual decision making content gleaned from sales conversations and insights on why your existing customers already bought from you, is how you win SEO.
Trust comes from repetitive, relentless value in your content over long periods of time. How many random statistics, blips, and “SEO is dead” type headlines have been published in the last decade?
Too many to count.
Yet you’d still sit here, begging yourself to go back in time 10 years ago and invest all out into SEO because then it would be YOU dominating your niche and not YOUR COMPETITION doing it. It would be you raising that next funding round with hockey stick organic growth to show.
Focus on actually driving organic revenue for your business and less on scary headlines that don’t even matter in the first place.
Or head to Google Ads, type in that ol credit card number, drop stacks of cash on brutal CPMs, and enjoy those cost-conscious leads who tire kick for the next 2 quarters before saying it’s not a good fit.
-Jeremy
