What Are Zero-Click Searches & Does it Affect Local Businesses?

Table of Contents

• Zero-Click Searches
  • The quick answer
  • The role of an AI overview
  • Are AI overviews reliable?
  • Declining website traffic
  • The advantage for local businesses
  • How to stay relevant
  • Do zero-click searches make blog posts redundant?
  • Zero-click searches – Conclusion

Zero-click searches are part of a monumental shift in the world of SEO. Search engines such as Google are now aiming to answer questions without the user needing to visit your website.

For example, AI overviews generally provide enough information to answer the query and keep the user on the search engine. This, of course, is a win for Google, as they can display even more ads. Sigh!

So, how is this affecting website traffic and different types of businesses? Is there anything we need to do differently going forward? Let’s find out.

Zero-Click Searches

The role of an AI overview

Love them or hate them, AI overviews are already changing how people acquire information on the web. From a time-saving perspective, they can actually be quite useful.

This is because it will gather all of the most important content and present a concise summary. Here in the UK, they’re popping up on plenty of search terms, but not consistently.

For example, sometimes it will show one for a certain search term, then the next day, using the exact same search term, it won’t. With that said, they’re still rolling it out, and they’ll only become more and more frequent.

AI Overviews increase searches. Google said that AI Overviews lead to a 10% growth in the number of searchers do. “This means that once people use Al Overviews, they are coming to do more of these types of queries, and what’s particularly exciting is how this growth increases over time,” Liz Reid told us.

Search Engine Land

Are AI overviews reliable?

Far from it. Currently, AI overviews are notorious for spouting out complete garbage. Conversely, when it works, it works very well. They certainly need a little more work, but you can kinda see this shaping the future of SEO.

Google themselves are all in on AI, with its Gemini 2.5 model now powering their overviews. Gemini is a truly fascinating LLM, therefore, we should quickly see improvements in the search results.

Referring back to the inconsistency of AI overviews, this is highly prevalent when it comes to local businesses. Even if your ranking in the top three search results, it will mention you in the overview some days and not others.

Google Search is gradually making AI Overviews available to more users, in more languages and regions. You’ll find AI Overviews in your Google Search results when our systems determine that generative AI can be especially helpful – for example, when you want to quickly understand information from a range of sources.

Google Search Central

Declining website traffic

As mentioned above, the purpose of AI overviews and zero-click searches is to keep the user on the search engine, rather than visit your website. As a result, you’ll most likely see a decrease in clicks through to your blog posts.

Additionally, depending on the type of business you operate, you may also see declining numbers across your whole website. But wait, it’s not all doom and gloom…

The advantage for local businesses

For local businesses, you’ve pretty much got off scot-free here. An AI overview can’t provide a delicious hot caffeinated beverage and a slice of cake when a user is searching for a coffee shop.

It’s important to realise that zero-click searches mainly apply to informational content. As a result, your blog might take a hit, but folks who are searching for your product or service are still going to need to visit your location or website.

Although AI overviews are still fairly inconsistent, you’ll potentially be able to earn a link to your website within the summary. This, of course, is what’s shown right at the top of the page.

Before the maps results, before the standard results, and even before the ads. It’s worth noting that ads will be placed inside the AI overview eventually, though.

Focus on continually building your E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) and you’ll be rewarded with some favourable visibility right at the top of Google.

On a good day, you might even have three links pointing to your site from the overview. One in the summary, one on the right-hand panel and another under the Show More tab. How’s that for visibility?

How to stay relevant

I’ve heard a few well-known SEO professionals discussing this recently. The general consensus seems to be a) build your brand and b) build your E-E-A-T.

E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) is a framework that Google’s human reviewers use to assess content quality.

It’s defined in Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines—the handbook that reviewers (known as Quality Raters) use to provide feedback on search results.

Trustworthiness is the central, most important concept.

Semrush

As a local business, your whole SEO strategy should be centred around demonstrating E-E-A-T. This will come in the form of the advice you’re sharing online, your reviews, accreditations, awards, website copy and blog posts.

Do zero-click searches make blog posts redundant?

Blog posts will continue to see a steep decline in traffic, but it doesn’t mean you should completely stop publishing content.

Publish less content, yes. Publish better content, definitely. Research your articles before writing them, and try to avoid covering anything that’s already out there.

As most subjects and trends have already been written about, consider putting a unique twist on your article. For example, this post doesn’t cover anything new with regards to zero-click searches. It does, however, provide a unique angle by linking it to local businesses.

If someone is genuinely interested in the subject you’re writing about, they’ll still click through from Google to read your article.

Here at Clearcut Derby and Leaflet Lion, our articles still bring in a decent amount of traffic each day. As a matter of fact, blog posts often outperform our home page and service pages.

Now, in 2025, blogging encompasses the art of writing articles that reflect your brand’s voice and message. Blogs serve as a hub for consumers seeking information on the latest news, tech, events, life hacks—or even recipes. It hardly matters whether a blog comes from a publication, brand, organization or single author. As long as it’s interesting and relevant to a particular audience, then a blog has the potential to grow and be seen. 

Wix

Zero-click searches – Conclusion

Zero-click searches mainly affect information content, such as how to and what is queries. As a result, your local business will likely see a decline in traffic to your blog posts, as Google aims to answer these types of questions right within the search engine.

The good news, however, is that an AI overview can’t provide your product or service. A user searching for hairdressers in Derby, for example, will still need to visit the business’s website to make a booking.

As the world of SEO evolves, the fundamental processes for local businesses remain largely unchanged. Build your brand and E-E-A-T, as well as continually developing your organic SEO strategy, and you’ll still show up at the right time and place on search engines.