New research has shown that nearly half (48%) of all Google searches never click through to retail stores or other sites. A new report from Searchmetrics, which analyzed US click data for approximately one million typical ecommerce search queries, found that nearly a third (32%) of searches lead to organic clicks and 20% trigger paid clicks either through search ads or product listing ads However, most searches do not generate clicks, and therefore no traffic, to retail and other websites. These results are consistent with those of retailers, who now report a reduction in the volume of site traffic generated by organic searches than before. The Searchmetrics analysis was part of a larger study covering the travel, healthcare and media industries.
SERP Integrations
The study partly attributes click-free activity to users refining their questions and performing a new search. However, the main reason for the excessively high no-click rate is the increasing number of SERP integrations (featured snippets, direct answers, knowledge panels, people asked, and video carousels) included on search results pages. SERP integrations, such as excerpts and direct answers, provide the user with short and quick answers to their query, aggregated from relevant links and presented at the top of the results page. Since the question has already been answered, the user tends not to scroll down for additional information or other solutions. "This is a threat as more and more retailers report a decline in organic traffic," said Tyson Stockton, vice president of Customer Services, Searchmetrics, noting that SERP integrations could also allow online merchants to build awareness of brand: "especially on terms that are more important in the funnel or inquiries early in the buying cycle." Websites large and small can directly respond to researcher queries in a structured way that's "easy to integrate with Google in the SERP," Stockton added.