Zero Click Marketing? The Truth About Search Traffic in 9 Charts

Welcome to the “zero click” world, where websites no longer get traffic.

I hear this a lot lately. I hear it from people whom I respect. But I don’t agree with the idea, or at least I don’t think the full story is being told.

Yes, top-line traffic to most websites is down. Traffic from organic search to websites is dropping. You can probably quickly spot this trend in your own reports. Here I’ll share the data from the Orbit Media GA4 reports. This is monthly organic traffic from the start of 2022 to the summer of 2025.

That chart is a marketing nightmare. A bloodbath …but it doesn’t bother me a bit.

I’ll explain why, but first we need to understand what’s happening.

Why is organic traffic falling?

It’s not because of a drop in your rankings or some “core update” to the Google algorithm. It’s because of all of those things in search results that aren’t blue links, are keeping visitors on Google and away from websites: “People also ask” boxes, video carousels, AI overviews and now, AI Mode. These are called “SERP features.” (SERP stands for “search engine results page”)

It’s about clickthrough rates, not rankings.

For many years, I’ve collected full-page screenshots of Google search results pages. I do the same searches, year after year and capture the SERP. When you see the side-by-side, the story becomes clear.

Google changes are usually gradual, so marketers don’t notice them much. But these new AI features and their impact is dramatic. You can confirm this by checking your own Google Search Console reports. Here’s what it looks like for our website and many others. Impressions are up! But clicks are down.

If you feel you’ve been ripped off somehow, you misunderstood the nature of search engines. Google is an advertising company. Most of their revenue comes from clicks on ads. It was nice that they sent free traffic to websites, but they did it to build trust and build their user base, not to help brands and content marketers like you and me.

Do you complain when other advertising companies don’t send you free traffic? Probably not.

If the marketing for your company was based on free traffic from an advertising company, you’ve always had this risk. You probably knew this. The tide would go out someday and your boat is now on dry land.

Marketers worry about “zero clicks” but Google worries about “zero revenue,” in other words, every click on an organic listing. It is a zero-sum game and Google makes the rules.

They didn’t want to go to your website anyway

When the searcher has information-intent, they just want an answer. They don’t intend to take action. They just wanted tips for solving the problem themselves. They don’t want popups or cookies or to be retargeted. They don’t want a brand experience. They often just want a few hundred words.

And of course, as content marketers, we are happy to help. I love seeing that people have read our how-to articles. We love being a useful resource.

Often, the pages that rank for these phrases never convert visitors. They are mostly just noise in your marketing data and they cause unnecessary panic when traffic drops.

Here’s an example. Fourteen years ago, I wrote an article about best practices for social media profile pictures. It’s this one. It’s ranked forever and still attracts tons of visitors. But of the 82,000 organic visitors who landed on it over the last three years, there have been zero conversions. Not one.

Do I care that traffic has dropped? Not a bit. Am I alarmed when overall organic traffic declines because this one declined? I am not. It is not meaningful traffic.

This is the problem. Too many marketers are still watching topline organic traffic, rather than filtering these reports and watching high- and low-intent traffic separately. As soon as we do this, we start to relax. Because we realize that the most valuable traffic to our websites is far less impacted.

To see high- and low-intent visitors separately, create a comparison in GA4. Put the people who landed in your content marketing program in one group (often this is just Landing page contained “blog”) and people who landed on your money pages in the other group (Landing page does not contain “blog”).

In seconds, you’ll notice that your most important traffic may have declined, but not so dramatically.

Yet in social streams everywhere, marketers are still posting reports showing top-line organic traffic drops and complaining about Google stealing their visitors. They’re still lumping all their traffic together.

Remain calm until you check your high- and low-intent traffic separately.

When you look closer, the true nature of the traffic (and Google) becomes clear.

Keywords, intent and clickthrough rates

Consider the types of searcher intent, then think about the features that Google puts in various search results pages. What is the value of this search to Google? What is the value of the traffic to the brand? Let’s put it all on a big chart:

*The value of truly strategic content is very high. It supports sales, grows email lists, builds followings, drives PR and is memorable. But the value of the organic traffic to this content isn’t high because the intent of the visitor (and key event rate) is typically low.

• When the searcher has commercial-intent (buy something), Google does everything possible to monetize them. Google and the website owner are in competition.
• When the searcher has information-intent (get an answer), both Google and website owners both try to get value from them, but there isn’t a lot of value to gain.

So what strategies will succeed in this low organic clickthrough rate environment? Here are a few that come to mind…

1. Optimize for the “visit-website intent” phrases

I do not believe in a “zero click” reality. Many phrases still have “visit-website intent.”

For many decisions, people are serious about research, especially for high-consideration B2B decisions (web development is one of many examples). They want to check out the business, learn how they do it, see examples, hear their story and what they believe. They’re taking time to decide if that brand is a fit for their specific needs.

They want to visit websites.

For these phrases, searchers click on organic listings even where there are ads and AI overviews. They may click on several of the top positions.

These are the commercial intent phrases. They have higher clickthrough rates and attract visitors who are far more likely to convert. Again, you can measure this yourself in GA4 with the same comparison we used moments ago.

The insight is clear: optimize your service pages before writing another search-optimized article. That’s where the action is. One well optimized service page should have more business impact than 20 keyphrase-focused articles.

And to confirm you aren’t targeting a super low-clickthrough rate keyphrase, search for the keyphrase before you build the page. If the page is packed with SERP features, consider targeting a different keyphrase. Or make the page anyway but set your expectations low for organic traffic. There’s more to life than search.

I tried to help a friend rank for a commercial-intent coffee phrase, but realized in seconds that it was a waste of time. The entire SERP was packed with little visual ads and products. The top ranked page was at the bottom of the pile.

2. Build on rented land

SEOs feel the tension between their goals and the goals of Google. But some marketers are in perfect alignment with the goals of Big Tech. For example, marketers who build an audience on LinkedIn or YouTube.

LinkedIn and YouTube want to attract visitors and they need content creators to do that. So when you are a creator on one of those platforms (or any social media network) you are in alignment with their goals. It’s often smart to build on their land.

Marketers who decide to set aside the traffic goals, and instead prioritize visibility, are publishing directly onto these platforms. They build YouTube channels and publish LinkedIn articles/newsletters. Often they are pleasantly surprised at the subscriber growth, engagement and the conversations that arise.

It’s also surprising how high the conversion rates are when visitors come from content programs on “rented land.”

Really it shouldn’t be surprising. These visitors may have been reading and watching for years. They know you well. They’ve been planning to reach out. They’re excited to talk to you.

“Building on rented land” isn’t an either/or question. The content should also be posted to your website. Optimize your website first. This is always the first priority. And publish your content on your own land first. The version on rented land is really just a syndicated version. The version on your website can still attract links and email subscribers. It can still be used in internal links and kept in social rotation.

Posting and promoting everywhere drives more visibility and engagement, but also the metrics across the platforms give you a much richer picture into content performance. Here’s the performance of a single article with embedded video across GA4, LinkedIn and Youtube.

Of these three reports, GA4 is the least accurate. It underreports your traffic by 20% or more. YouTube and LinkedIn own their platforms and see all visitor behavior. But GA4 only knows about your website visitors’ behavior through cookies, which some visitors don’t accept.

3. Create sales-focused content

The visitor who has the most value to your brand is the prospect who is already in your sales funnel. Marketers should never forget this audience.

The content that has the most value to your brand is the content that helps this visitor make a decision, to hire your business or not. Marketers should never forget this content.

So before writing another top-of-the-marketing funnel article, make sure you’ve written (or recorded) all of the bottom-of-the-sales funnel content. If successful, these are worth 100x more to your brand even if they have just 1% as many readers.

Again, it’s about quality, not quantity.

They are your case studies, your deep research, your detailed resources that show deep expertise. They answer the questions your prospects didn’t think to ask, showing that you know their needs better than they did themselves. The deliver these at the key moments.

• Put excerpts in your sales decks
• Send them in follow up after sales calls
• Add them to your email nurture sequences
• Use them to warm up cold leads

Sales-aligned content is your most valuable content. And it has nothing to do with SEO.

Don’t give up the fight to win more traffic

We should all seek more traffic from all types of visitors. If you can search-optimize that article, do it. If you have time to write a new keyphrase-focused service page, go for it. Stay in the game.

There’s still a ton of search visibility you can win. Google is still 373x more popular than AI. And Google searches are up. There is no evidence that we should give up on SEO. Search is still your first priority.

But don’t make top-line traffic your primary goal. All kinds of low-intent visitors were always mixed into that number, so it never really correlated with business outcomes anyway. It’s needlessly distracting and sometimes depressing.

What to do next…

We suggest these actions in this order, because it aligns with the lead generation goals of most B2B marketing programs:

1. Conversion-optimize all of your service pages.
2. Search optimize the service pages that align with keyphrases, you have a realistic chance of ranking for and if you rank, you have a chance of getting clicked.
3. Write articles that support your best sales messages. Deliver these directly to prospects.
4. Create original research, thought leadership and detailed how-to articles. Publish them on your site and wherever your audience spends time (ie. LinkedIn, YouTube)
5. Search-optimize the articles that align with keyphrases, you have a realistic chance of ranking and if you rank, you have a chance of getting clicked.

And when it comes to reporting, we suggest you watch these metrics in this order:

1. Leads (all sources)
2. Lead gen conversion rates, clickthrough rates on calls to action
3. Content conversion rates (email subscribers, downloads, webinar registrants)
4. Traffic to service pages (all sources …including organic search)
5. Traffic to content on your website (all sources …including organic search)
6. Traffic to content on the platforms (LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.)

I know this is a difficult time, especially for content marketers and SEOs. I am one of you.

I’m not surprised and I’m not worried. But that may be because I am a full-funnel marketer (search and conversion optimization) who uses many channels (online and offline, on-site and on other sites, search, social and email) and have many years of experience measuring the value of marketing actions and outcomes.

This was just one perspective but I hope it was useful.
Everyone has their own data but I hope ours was useful.