Each week the Croud SEO team collate the latest news from relevant sources around the web so you don’t have to. Read through the top SEO news stories for this week below and follow us on Twitter or sign up to our newsletter.
How Much of Google’s Search Traffic is Left for Anyone But Themselves?
17/06/2019
A study by SparkToro on Google clickstream data showed that zero-click searches (i.e. searches that did not result in an organic click to a non-Google product) made up 49% of searches; an increase of 12% compared to 2016. Those searches that resulted in a click to a non-Google site made up just 41% and paid clicks to non-Google sites made up only 4%, whilst a further 6% of organic clicks went to another Google site in the listings. This reveals a decline of search traffic opportunity of 20% compared to 2016. In addition, click through rates are down on organic by 13%, mobile has been affected more than desktop with aggressive SERP features and instant answers, and search traffic appears to favour big companies with wealth concentration and search traffic concentration correlating.
TL;DR: nearly half of all organic searches are going no further than the search results page i.e. no organic click.
Did Google’s Site Diversity Update Live Up to its Promise?
19/06/2019
Moz conducted a study on the recent June 6 diversity update and found that it generally had minimal impact on the results; diversity did improve but marginally.
Bye Bye Preferred Domain setting
18/06/2019
Google has announced it will drop the preferred domain setting in Search Console; Google will instead pick one URL as the canonical or webmaster can use canonical tags, site maps and 301 redirects to indicate their preference.
Data anomalies in Search Console
17/06/2019
Google posted another data bug saying that it was unable to capture data between June 5th and June 7th from image search traffic – this is just a reporting bug and did not impact actual traffic, but be aware if reporting on image traffic.
Google launches new search menu with icons
13/06/2019
Google has launched a new search menu with icons. Whilst it likely won’t affect traffic it could attract more users to different Google products.
Is voice over-hyped? A new survey suggests lower adoption than previously thought
13/06/2019
A new report from SUMO Heavy has found that voice adoption appears to not be happening as fast as expected, with only 30% of US adults being active users of virtual assistants. Most usage is happening on smart phones at 49% followed by smart speakers at 18% and iPhone is outpacing Android. The study also found evidence of very little voice-commerce happening yet.
The Retail Social Proof Barometer
14/06/2019
A survey of UK consumers found that 29% find photos of products useful in purchase decisions, particularly with Gen. Z (40%) and Millennials (41%). Despite this only 16% of retailers are using USG, though beauty and electronics brands made most use of customer photos with 30% adopting USG.
