What Is Zero-Click Visibility And How Is It Changing Search Engine Marketing
You may think that the rise in LLMS like ChatGPT would spell the end for our good friend Google, but as it turns out, you’d be wrong.
We’ve spoken to numerous brands that noticed their web traffic from search was dropping, even though the number of people who said “I found you on Google” remained the same. Curious… but those prospects aren’t lying, and those brands (unlike AI) aren’t hallucinating. So, what’s going on?
Well, we’ve entered the era of “zero-click visibility,” where users can get answers via LLMs without ever clicking links on a search engine results page (SERP).
What does zero-click visibility mean?
Put another way, “zero-click visibility” refers to a website’s ability to achieve brand awareness without first achieving a click on a search engine. Before the rise of generative search optimization, businesses relied on users searching a long-tail keyword like “woman-owned marketing agency near me” and then clicking on four or five results in order to show up on their screens. Now, through the magic of ChatGPT and its competitors, like Claude and Gemini, brands can show up on people’s phones and computers without generating a single site visit.
To some, this may sound alarming, but rest assured, it’s a shift rather than a death knell. In some ways, it’s nothing new. Take Google’s knowledge graph, for instance. Before it launched in 2012, users had to click onto a company’s website and scroll to the footer to find its hours of operation, like some sort of Neanderthal. But with the knowledge graph—that helpful box to the right of the list of links on a SERP—users could see vital details like photos, locations, descriptions, social profiles and even founders’ names.
In short, “zero-click visibility” isn’t new; it’s simply evolved thanks to LLMs.
Why is zero-click visibility a problem?
Historically, search followed a predictable path: user types a query → Google returns links → user clicks → brand gets traffic. Simple. Linear.
Today, that journey looks very different. With nearly 2.5 billion prompts per day, ChatGPT is answering a whole lot of queries that would’ve previously gone through a traditional search engine. But OpenAI’s ChatGPT isn’t the only culprit. If at this point, you’re thinking, “Aw, poor Google,” consider that even Google’s own AI model, Gemini, now answers search queries with fewer clicks and faster answers with its AI Overview. According to Search Engine Land, 60% of Google searches ended without a click in 2024.
Google is still thriving, ChatGPT is doing great, and users get the same answers as before in less time. The issue? It’s getting harder and harder for brands to track their success. In the past, all a business owner or marketer needed to do to validate their work was to crack open an analytics tool and watch how the user journey played out. Now, with less transparency into the user journey on LLMs, it’s difficult to measure marketing’s win rate. (That’s how you get less Google traffic but the same number of people saying they found you on Google.)
In other words: discovery is happening, but traffic is optional, and that’s disrupting the way we’ve historically measured success in search.
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Images courtesy of Semrush's Zero-Click Visibility Playbook
How zero-click is changing digital marketing
There is no evolution of digital marketing without issues. Even the “traditional” search methods we talk about in this blog post used to be earth-shatteringly innovative. And as with any change in the marketing landscape, the ones who win are the ones who flex to meet the times and learn to make the most of it.
The good news is that visibility, whether you can track it or not, is still visibility. When your brand appears in a featured snippet, a local pack, a product carousel or an AI-generated answer, you’re still getting in front of the right people and building authority and trust—even without the click. And that trust often pays off later when the user is ready to buy, hire or recommend.
Zero-click is rewriting the marketing playbook. Here’s how to adapt:
1. SEO Is About Answers Rather Than Rankings
It’s no longer enough to rank on Page 1. Content must be structured to answer questions clearly and succinctly. That means using headers, bullet points, FAQs and schema markup so search engines and LLMs can easily extract meaning. Clear answers win zero-click real estate.
2. Brand Mentions Matter More Than Links
In AI-driven environments, citations don’t always look like traditional backlinks. Brand mentions, consistent naming and topical authority signal credibility. Being referenced—even without a clickable link—still builds visibility and trust over time.
3. Content Must Serve Multiple Surfaces
A single piece of content now needs to perform across search results, AI summaries, voice assistants and social previews. Brands that write with clarity, structure and context make it easier for their content to travel beyond their website.
4. Measurement Goes Beyond Site Traffic
If clicks decline, marketers must look elsewhere: impressions, branded search growth, assisted conversions and offline attribution. Visibility without clicks can still influence purchasing decisions downstream. Google Analytics acknowledges this broader view of user behavior and attribution in its documentation on assisted conversions.
5. Authority Is the New Brand Currency
Zero-click visibility rewards brands that consistently publish helpful, accurate and experience-backed content. Thought leadership, FAQs, educational guides and clear positioning increase the likelihood that search engines and LLMs pull from you as a trusted source.
So what? Chase clout, not clicks.
Zero-click visibility isn’t a threat—it’s a signal that marketing is shifting from traffic-obsessed to presence-driven. The brands that win won’t be the loudest link builders; they’ll be the clearest communicators, the most helpful explainers and the most consistently visible experts.
So sure, keep up your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts where it makes sense. Google is going away. But also optimize content to be seen, quoted and remembered in an AI-saturated world where answers come instantly. At the end of the day, the brands shaping those answers are the ones shaping demand.
And that? That’s a pretty elevated place to be if you ask us.
Written in collaboration with ChatGPT