We’ve been reading more and more in search about the “zero click query” becoming more prevalent as Google continues to serve up answers directly within the search results. For those concerned with drawing customers to their local business, getting searchers to the website is not necessarily the end conversion anymore.
Acquiring a booking, appointment or sale is the goal and Google searchers can now take those converting actions without ever visiting the company’s website. Let’s review some thoughts and tips for thriving in a zero-search world!
Ultimately, I don’t really care how a potential customer finds my client’s phone number. Whether they get it from a local knowledge panel, a Yelp result, a Facebook page or from the page title that displays in the search results doesn’t matter as long as they call and my client has the opportunity to convert them into a paying customer.
There are a lot of ways to make sure your phone number is showing up in front of potential customers and even though we’re relying less on website visits, there are still a lot of peripheral tasks that can take place to support the discovery of that phone number.
Branded Queries
We see that a large percentage of queries for local businesses include some form of their brand name. In a small informal poll of Local SEOs I know, most indicated that between 60 and 70% of queries included the brand’s name in some form. That makes it even more important to have a really great presence in the search results for your recognizable brand name and its combinations.
We’re finding more and more that zero click search, which came on early in local search on Google, has affected traffic to local SMB websites. Potential customers are no longer dependent upon your site to find the phone number. They’re getting it right in the search results. That’s the world we live in when it comes to local search and Google, so we have to play the game.
To understand all of the different ways you can take over real estate for a branded query and to help you measure your progress as you work on different tasks, Local University created a tool to help with Scoring Your Brand Page at Google. Give the quiz a try, and keep checking your score’s progress as you continue to work at improving the results and features you can take advantage of for a branded query.
3rd Party Directories
A branded or non-branded query offers quite a bit of real estate. We’ve talked about the opportunities for you to shine when your brand is included in the query, and we can’t talk about that kind of real estate without talking about 3rd party sites. Having good directory listings and citations at sites that consistently rank well for related keyword phrases is a great way for customers to find you, either when your own site can’t quite make it to the top of that query or as a support for your own site’s visibility in that location.
For example, if you’re in real estate, you can’t get along without utilizing Zillow or Realtor.com. If you’re a painter, Yelp, Porch and Homeadvisor.com rank consistently at the top of the results. By working to rank your own website and getting listings in these sites that face the public on a regular basis, you’re expanding the potential for searchers to find your phone number. This can often happen without the searcher actually visiting your company’s website.
Social Media
For most businesses, a social media listing will show in Google SERPS for a branded query, but it’s unlikely to show for a non-branded query. I recently (read: as I was writing this) had a bit of an epiphany when it comes to social media profiles that rank well for your brand in Google. If you put your phone number at the beginning of the “About” paragraph in your Facebook business page, it’s very likely to show up in the search results. You get a bonus if you have some good Facebook reviews and stars are included in that listing as well.
Once Google reindexes our Facebook page, I expect our phone number to show up in the below result. I’ll update when it shows up!
UPDATE! Our listing with the phone number showed up today (8/24)!
If your Twitter profile is showing up on the first page of Google search results, then get your phone number into the description, it’s also very likely to show up for a branded query.
Make a simple edit to the beginning of your descriptions on most directory and social media sites and you have the potential to show your phone number front and center with even more regularity for a branded query.
But Your Website Is Not Obsolete
If your customers and clients are finding your information on Google, either via an organic listing or your Google MyBusiness Knowledge Panel – you could argue, “Well, then why do I need this website.” The truth is, you do need it because the content and the power of your website is still driving your visibility in organic search from a local standpoint. So don’t go pulling the plug on your website, but be aware that users might not see it as often as in the past. However, that shouldn’t worry you if you’re set up to succeed in Google’s search results.
Ranking competitively for keywords related to your store, product or service is still an important function for your website. Without a site to crawl, Google would have no idea who you were, where you were or what you sold. It certainly wouldn’t have an authoritative source on you to compare with information they find on 3rd party sites. If you want to rank for specific keyword queries in Google, you still need to have pages on your website that are optimized for those queries. And they better align with your business goals and have some sort of semantic markup if it’s available.
For local ranking, Google looks at content on the landing page for keyword and semantic content – not at the other pages. @JoyanneHawkins #ottawaquality
— Allie Margeson (@SeoAllie) August 10, 2018
Recently we picked up a Plumbing, Heating and Cooling company as a client. He informed us that he was mainly a heating and cooling company and that plumbing was less than 40% of his business. Interesting, considering his entire website is heavily optimized for plumbing keywords. If you want to be found by searchers and if you want them to call, you have to have website content that matches what you sell or service.
A strong website is your foundation when it comes to making sure you’ve got a strong presence in the search results. That strong presence supports zero-click searches in this new world of local search. Making sure your marketing strategy also supports this new zero-click world is the next step. Remember, we don’t care how they found your phone number, as long as they call you first.
