Google ate your clicks... now what?

_{Day 84/100}

Hey—It's Tim. 

It’s stupid-o’clock again.
Spotify has slipped into that “have you heard of folk metal..” zone
I’m so focused Chrome only has 5 tabs open this time...

One is a client’s email. “Tim, where the f*ck did all our traffic go?”
The other four are Google Docs titled “WHY ZERO-CLICK IS FINE, ACTUALLY” in varying shades of denial.

Coffee is gone.
Dignity left hours ago.
Let’s talk about Google’s new party trick: answering queries so well nobody needs to visit your site.

The Clickless Abyss

Zero-click searches now swallow ~60 % of all queries.
That’s not a stat, that’s a sinkhole.

And that was in 2024.

2025 now has AI overviews. Of which Google says they appear for around 20% of searches, but it feels like waaaaaaay more.

• Your “How long to boil quinoa?” post? Google answers it, toasting your bounce rate on the way out.

• Your SaaS comparison page? Google scrapes the bullet points, shows a tidy grid, tells searchers to have a nice day.

• Even branded queries get a knowledge panel so fat it should pay rent.

I tried yelling at my laptop.
Turns out laptops don’t negotiate.

So here’s what I’m doing instead:

1. Track the halo, not the click.
   Featured-snippet impressions up? Direct traffic up? That’s the trail. Metrics are ghosts now, learn to read EMF.

2. Structured data everywhere. I now wrap product facts in schema like they’re museum artefacts: "feature": "Writes 1500-word blogs in your LinkedIn voice".

3.  Semantic URLs. /blog/ai-writer-pricing beats /post?id=7821 because agents don’t appreciate mystery.

4.  Comparative listicles. Agents love bullet-proof comparisons. Every pillar article ends with a side-by-side table the size of a picnic blanket.

5.  No JavaScript roadblocks. If an LLM can’t load it with curl, it doesn’t exist.

6.  Snippet-as-billboard copy. I pack the featured-snippet answer with a curiosity hook: “…but the free checklist lives on Penfriend.ai →” If Google’s going to quote us, I’ll sneak in a flyer.

Channels that are still punching above their weight

I A/B/C/D/E-tested the same idea across the arsenal last quarter.

Email

Still the cash printer. 3.8 % CTR, 41 demos, 16 sales. My inbox is basically Costco for leads.

LinkedIn

Carousel got 58k eyeballs, 240 new followers, six podcast invites, zero immediate revenue. Reputation compound interest. I’ll take it.

TikTok / Reels

91 % watch-through, 14.7k followers, clicks? Ha. Attention grenade with no pin. Needs retargeting straps.

SEO Blog

Clicks slipping, time-on-page solid, converts late-stage readers who pretend they discovered you five minutes ago. Worth the long game. This is a hill I’ll continue to bleed out slowly on.

I’m a blog boy at heart. It’ll take a lot to convince me otherwise.

Paid Boosts

Good for pouring petrol on winners. Bad for starting fires from damp wood. Proceed with CFO side-eye.

The winning sequence:

12-second rant → retarget carousel → gated checklist → nurture email → demo.
Five moves, one story, zero whiplash.

The TL;DR so you can pretend you read it all

Zero-click stole the click, not the mindshare.
Email + POV LinkedIn + short-form video = 2025 traffic tripod.
Prototype fast, measure the halo, repeat until rich or unconscious.

Forward this to the teammate who still prints GA reports like it’s 2014.
They need a hug.

✌️ Tim "Clickless yet Reckless" Hanson
CMO @Penfriend.ai

Same brain, different platforms: X, Threads, LinkedIn.

P.S. Wrote this at 2 a.m. while begging ChatGPT to cite me.

If you spot today’s newsletter quoted in an AI answer box, send a screenshot — I’ll trade you a Penfriend mug (matching hero-section blue, obviously).

Penfriend.ai
Made by content marketers. Used by better ones.