April Marketing updates
Zero-Click Searches
What Every NZ Business Owner Needs to Know
You’ve probably noticed it yourself. You ask Google something and the answer is right there – no clicking required. AI has made search so smart that users can find out almost anything without ever landing on a website.
So if people aren’t clicking through… does showing up on Google even matter anymore?
Actually, it matters more than ever. The rules have just changed.
Here’s the thing nobody’s talking about: yes, clicks are down. But the people who do click – or who see your business recommended by an AI – are far more ready to buy than they’ve ever been. Visitors arriving through AI-powered search convert at 23 times the rate of traditional organic traffic visitors. Twenty-three times. 😉
That means showing up isn’t just about driving volume to your website anymore. It’s about being the business that gets mentioned, gets trusted, and gets chosen – whether that’s through a link, a snippet, or an AI that tells someone “this is the company you want.” The way we measure success has shifted. But the prize for showing up? It’s bigger than it’s ever been.
What Is a Zero-Click Search?
A zero-click search happens when Google answers your question directly on the search results page, so there’s no reason to click through to a website.
You’ve seen these all the time. You search “what time does the sun set in Christchurch today” and Google tells you right there. You search “best marketing agency?” and boom – we showed up 😉. You search “best Italian restaurants in Wellington” and a map with star ratings pops up.
The features driving this include featured snippets, knowledge panels, People Also Ask boxes, local packs, and increasingly, AI-generated Overviews.
That last one – AI Overviews – is the big new player. Google now generates a written summary at the top of results for more and more queries, pulling information from multiple websites and presenting it in one tidy answer. No click required.
How Did We Get Here?
This isn’t something that happened overnight. Five years ago, roughly 25% of Google searches ended without a click. By mid-2025, that figure had climbed to 65%.
The tipping point was Google’s AI Overviews rollout. The share of queries triggering AI Overviews jumped from 6.49% in January 2025 to 13.14% by March 2025 – a doubling in just two months. And it’s kept growing from there.
The pattern is clear: Google is increasingly becoming the destination, not just the signpost.
Why Should NZ Business Owners Care?
If your business relies on people finding you through Google and visiting your website, zero-click searches directly affect your traffic numbers. Recent analysis by Onely found that 73% of B2B websites experienced significant traffic loss between 2024 and 2025, with average declines of around 34% year-on-year.
You might have noticed this yourself – your Google Search Console (not sure what that is? Watch our quick explainer here) shows you’re ranking, but clicks are down. That’s not your SEO failing. That’s a structural market shift affecting most organisations, regardless of how much they’ve invested in optimisation.
The types of searches most affected are informational ones – “how does X work”, “what is Y”, “best way to Z”. Research from Semrush found that 88.1% of queries triggering AI Overviews are informational in nature. If your content strategy has been built around answering general questions to attract traffic, that content is now being absorbed by Google’s AI before anyone reaches your site.
But Here’s the Plot Twist
Here’s where it gets interesting – and where a lot of the panic around zero-click searches misses the point.
Some publishers are actually seeing revenue growth even as traffic declines, because they’re being cited inside AI Overviews. That citation drives branded searches and direct visits from people who saw the mention and wanted to find out more.
Think of it like word of mouth, but at Google’s scale. You didn’t get the click – but you got the credibility.
And when people do click through from AI-powered search results? Those visitors convert at 23 times the rate of traditional organic traffic. The clicks are fewer, but the people clicking are much more serious.
So rather than chasing volume, the game is shifting towards authority – being the business that gets mentioned, not just the one that gets found.
What Does This Mean for Your Marketing?
This shift is changing what “good SEO” looks like. A few things worth understanding:
Your website still matters – a lot. Zero-click doesn’t make your website irrelevant. Original research, expert analysis, and content that requires someone to actually visit your site to get value – like interactive tools, downloadable resources, and product pages – are significantly less affected. Generic how-to content is what’s getting eaten. Genuine expertise isn’t.
Being cited beats being ranked. The new goal isn’t just sitting at position one. It’s being the source that Google (and ChatGPT, and Perplexity) trusts enough to reference. That comes from building real authority in your space – not just publishing content for the sake of it.
Your owned channels are gold. Email lists, social media followings, and direct traffic channels are the most durable assets in a zero-click world, because they don’t depend on search discovery at all. If you’ve been putting off building your email list or showing up consistently on social, now’s the time.
Local search is still very click-friendly. If someone searches “plumber in Timaru” or “hair salon Ashburton”, they’re not getting an AI summary – they’re getting a map and a list of businesses. Transactional queries, where users need to complete a purchase or make a booking, still drive clicks reliably. Local SEO and Google Business Profile still deliver real results.
So...
Zero-click searches aren’t a bug – they’re Google evolving to keep users happy. And while that creates real challenges for businesses built on organic traffic, it’s not the end of search marketing.
What it is is a nudge to stop thinking about your website as a passive waiting room, and start thinking about your brand as an active presence – one that shows up in answers, gets recommended by AI, and builds real relationships with customers through channels you actually own.
Published on 04 May 2026 by Florencia Arias