How To Optimise For Zero Click Searches in 2025: 6 SEO Tips

The digital marketing landscape is continuing to be transformed by the ever-growing presence of generative AI. New additions to search engine results pages (SERPs) like AI overviews and other rich snippets are changing the way that search engine users are finding their information online.

One of the most concerning trends is the sudden rise of zero-click searches, which could deprive businesses of vital website traffic that they rely on for sales and leads. In this blog, we’ll breakdown if businesses should be concerned about this latest trend, and offer our top 6 SEO tips to help your business adapt to this new era.

What are Zero-click Searches?

Put simply, a zero-click search is when a search engine user searches a particular query, but does not end up clicking on a web-link. Instead, they obtain their information from the SERP itself. With the rise of generative AI, search engine users are increasingly turning to AI overviews and other rich snippets to quickly obtain answers to their burning questions, saving time and hassle.

It makes sense, these overviews are highly convenient; they not only synthesise information from a wide variety sources to provide tailor-made answers, but they also produce answers much more quickly than users could by manually trawling through various web-links.

However, with fewer people actually clicking onto websites, this might set alarm bells ringing for businesses who rely on organic web traffic for generating leads and sales. Fewer website clicks means less exposure for your brand, and over time this could result in a reduction in the amount of conversions.

In a study published last month, it was found that the number of zero-click searches in the UK and EU rose from 23% in March 2024 to 26% in March 2025. If extrapolated across the year, this means that a quarter of all searches in 2025 will likely not result in a website click, depriving businesses of vital organic traffic.

However, there are plenty of encouraging signs which suggest that this does not spell the end of traditional SEO. Despite the rise in alternative, AI-powered search engine platforms like ChatGPT and PerplexityAI, people are still turning to Google just as much—if not more so—than they were prior to the AI boom.

This suggests that traditional search engines aren’t becoming a thing of the past, they’re simply evolving. Your website must now do the same. Rather than focusing on clicks alone, it has never been more important to optimise your site for featured snippets that appear on SERPs. This includes things like AI overviews, knowledge panels, local packs (Google Map results), “People Also Asked” (PAA) snippets, product carousels, video packs, and other on-SERP placements.

Just recently, we published our blog on how you can optimise your website for AI overviews. In this blog however, we will explain how you can optimise your overall digital marketing strategy to ensure your business can adapt to the growing trend of zero-click searches. Read up on our 6 SEO tips below that you can start actioning for your website today.

How To Optimise for Zero-Click Searches

1. Use Schema Mark-up

One of the simplest things you can do is to add schema mark-up to your website. Also known as “structured data”, schema mark-up is a form of code that gets added to a website’s HTML which helps search engines to better understand the content on a website. This significantly increases the likelihood of your website appearing in featured snippets, as it gives Google an easier time interpreting your website’s data.

Your website will become eligible for rich snippets like star ratings, reviews, prices, and much more. For example, if you add product schema mark-up to your website’s products, your individual products may have their price, estimated delivery time, and returns policy listed as a compelling visual snippet beneath the main web-link, boosting your chances of receiving a click.

Meanwhile, local business schema can help you appear in more local pack results (Google Maps), as this schema helps Google to understand what services you offer and where. Finally, if you have FAQ’s on your site, FAQ schema can help you appear in ‘People Also Asked’ snippets and AI overviews, as it helps Google to understand the answers that you provide on frequently asked questions within your industry.

Not sure how to add schema mark-up to your site? Contact Chameleon Web Services Today.

2. Optimise Your Content for AI Overviews

By far the most dominant of featured snippets that now appears on SERPs is AI overviews. It’s vital to optimise your wesbite to appear in these overviews. This not only maximises the chances of your website receiving a click, but even if it doesn’t, it still ensures that your brand gets valuable exposure.

To increase your chances of appearing in AI overviews, focus on writing clear, concise answers to specific queries. AI-powered search tools like Google’s SGE favour content that simplifies answers for the user, providing them with exactly what they are looking for. This is especially the case when such queries haven’t been adequately answered by other sites.

We recommend starting your content with a short, authoritative snippet that aims to directly answer a query within the first few lines. You can then follow this up with deeper analysis or explanations later. Starting off by getting straight to the point simplifies the job of AI platforms when it comes to scanning through large amounts of data, and they will see your content as valuable for being more clear and authoritative than your competitors.

This approach helps boost your chances of being featured in AI-Overviews, allowing you to claim the lucrative “position zero” on SERPs. This maximises your potential CTR, as it directly places your website in the shop window. Your web page will likely appear as a special web link on the right hand side of the AI summary, indicating that your website is one of the sources that the search engine selected to help synthesise an answer for a particular search query.

3. Use Multi-media elements and channels

Be sure to diversify your content by using both written and visual elements. You can include more images on your website with optimised alt text. Or you could produce a couple of detailed videos on your main products or services, and maybe design some useful and visually-striking info-graphics. These visual elements help to maintain your website visibility in both image search results, and in featured snippets in the form of video-packs.

Today’s internet users are used to—and indeed often expect—visually compelling content. With multimedia elements, you can place your website directly onto the SERP via video packs, image packs, or info-graphics, gaining an edge over competitors who rely solely on written content and web links, which will remain further down on the SERP.

What’s more, consider creating a YouTube or TikTok account to upload your videos too. These can act as new channels for gaining greater brand exposure, and for winning more clicks through to your website where Google and other search engines may be letting you down.

Contact Chameleon Web Services Today for expert photo and video marketing services.

4. Target Long-Tail Keywords

Broad, highly searched for keywords are more likely to attract featured snippets as these are the keywords that are most hotly contested for. Search engines like Google will also be more keen to display rich snippets for these keywords, as they will want to satisfy the search intent behind popular keywords as much as possible.

You will have a far easier time however appearing on SERPs for keyword which have much lower search volumes, as these are not as fiercley contested for, and will therefore typically feature fewer snippets. Long-tail keywords are longer, more niche keywords, but which are still highly relevant within your industry and hold promise for web clicks and lead generation.

For example, rather than just “Ford Engine Oil”, you might want to target “What Engine Oil Should I Use for Ford Transits?” By targeting long-tail keywords, this not only gives your web-link a much better chance of being seen (as there will be substantially less SERP competition) but it will also give your site the best possible chance of appearing in featured snippets, such as in AI overviews.

Long tail keywords are therefore a great way of both dodging snippet-saturated SERPs, and for appearing as a featured snippet yourself on less heavily competed SERPs. If you are tired of constantly being out-muscled by more established brands, or you’re sick of being drowned out by copious featured snippets, then this is the solution for you.

5. Target “People Also Ask” Snippets

Another way you can go about directly placing yourself within featured snippets is by furnishing your website with FAQ’s. This is a great way of appearing in the “People Also Asked” snippets that appear slightly lower down on SERPs. This maximises your chances of receiving a click for questions which are related to keywords that you’d like to rank for.

By stepping into the shoes of your target audience and predicting what else they are likely to ask about a specific service or product, you can maximise visibility in PAA snippets. This helps to establish your brand as a topical authority and source of knowledge within your industry, helping to increase your website’s trust.

To take this further, you can implement FAQ schema mark-up on your pages. This will help search engines to easily identify your Q and A content, and increase the likelihood of it being pulled into SERP features. FAQs can be added almost anywhere across your site to help with this, on product pages, service pages, blog posts, or even better—a dedicated FAQ page.

Contact Chameleon Web Services Today if you need expert content writers for your website.

6. Structure Your Website’s Content

Finally, we recommend formatting the content on your website so that it reads clearly and logically to both users and search engines. Search engines favour content that gives them an easy time scanning your information. If your content is logically organised with structured H-tags and bullet points, this helps to breakdown your content into easily digestible sections.

This not only enhances the User Experience (UX) by making your content clear and engaging, but it also means search engines can more easily scan and interpret your content. When your information is laid out neatly using headings, bullet points, numbered lists, and short burst paragraph, your content is therefore more likely to be selected for placement within featured snippets on SERPs.

Sou can atart by organising your content around a clear hierarchy of headings (H1, H2, H3, etc.). Use these to break the page into thematic sections, each touching upon a specific point or sub-topic. Be sure to also order these sequentially, so that it flows like a chronological narrative. Within these sections, keep sentences concise and paragraphs short to improve readability (for both for users and for search engine crawlers).

Indeed, Google often pulls list-style snippets directly from content which has been formatted as bullet points or numbered lists. You could maybe outline the steps to one of your processes, or list the benefits to a particular product or service. P information in this format can dramatically increase your chances of appearing in position zero.

How To Optimise For Zero Click Searches: Contact Chameleon Web Services

Concerned that your business might be suffering as a result of the rise in Zero-click searches in 2025? Get in touch with the digital marketing specialists at Chameleon today. We’re currently helping our cleints to adapt to the world of zero-click search through innovative SEO strategies, which incorporate all of the above.

Contact Chameleon Web Services Today