How Google is Keeping People from Clicking on Your Site, and What You Can Do About It

Google is now doing something that could prevent people from clicking through to your website, thereby diminishing some of your much coveted traffic. But there is something you can do about it.

If you haven’t noticed, sometimes when you search for something very specific, Google brings you more than just the normal search engine results page (SERP). For instance, go now and do a search for something sports score related, such as “Who won last night’s baseball game?,” and you’ll get the scores right on the SERP. No need to click through to MLB.com or ESPN. You can do the same with topics like the weather, conversion rates for measures and currency, or directions to a local destination. In fact, I’m sure there are a lot of other things that Google is now doing for you, so that you don’t need to actually go to any websites.

But now do a Google search for your business or any other local business, and see what happens. In most cases, you’ll get a nice little (or in some cases, big) box on the right hand side that provides a lot of information about the business including location, hours, reviews, images, and some links. Think about it: a lot of the information you put online as a way of drawing traffic to your site is now available in certain SERPs so that users no longer need to click through, thereby robbing you of some traffic.

And we all want traffic, right?

I’m also guessing that as Google continues to refine its algorithm and make the SERP more user friendly, we’ll see more and more of this happening. More of the information we want will be right there on that first page without the need to click on anything else. This feature is part of what Google calls its Knowledge Graph, and it’s actually been around for more than a year, but it is getting smarter each day, as it taps into semantic search, and how we seek information. There are a number of other components to the Knowledge Graph, but this box on the right seems to be the most prominent for most searches.

So what can you do? On the one hand, it’s kind of nice to have that information there. And there’s not much you can do to fight The Almighty Google. So your best bet is to play the game and take advantage of the situation. Here are a few things you can do to make sure this fairly new practice from Google will help you and not hurt you.

Get Listed

Make sure you have a strong online presence. Of particular importance are Google + and Google Local, but Foursquare, and review sites like Yelp or Urban Spoon are also important. Sites like GetListed can help you with this task. Find out which sites you are on, claim them all, and create listings on directory platforms that might be beneficial. The added value of getting listed is that when someone Googles your competitors, your listing might show up at the bottom of the Knowledge Graph in the “People also search for” section.

Optimize

No matter what platforms you’re on, optimize them. By this, I mean that you should have as much complete information as possible. Add images, hours, contact information. And make sure all of that information is correct across all channels. Google often pulls information from Wikipedia, so if you are listed there, make sure the information is correct. If Google is going to pull and highlight your information, make sure it is the correct information.

Get Reviews

For many businesses, Google will pull reviews from its own internal properties as well as other listing sites. These will show up prominently in the Knowledge Graph, so you need to encourage your customers to write reviews for you. More reviews, and more good reviews, can really stand out in this box.

Connect Everything

You might have 5 or 10 online properties, but they don’t exist independently. All of them should be linked to your website and other properties. Cross-pollinate across listings and networks to make sure that everything fits together nicely.

Blog

In some cases, like my own, the Knowledge Graph pulls my most recent blog posts that I have linked to Google +, and creates something that is a bit more inviting to clicks from viewers. In this way, your titles are very important.

Make Your Content Count

In addition to your blog, make sure your website is filled with great content that draws people in. If they aren’t going to come to your site for hours and directions and more basic information, give them a reason to click. Think added value; what can you add to your site that is indispensable to your customers? What sorts of information and content do they want that Google can’t give them in the Knowledge Graph.

How do you feel about the Knowledge Graph excerpts, and what are you doing to get more click-throughs?