Creating “zero click” content

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, a growing problem with Google is the number of “zero click” searches on there — searches that don’t lead to another click, because Google answered the question for you. It’s generally a good thing for users, but it’s a bad thing for companies wanting to get more website traffic.

In the case of Google, there’s not much you can do. In other cases, though, it might be best to just lean into this trend. Most social media sites quietly penalize posts that have links in them (hence the silly and annoying “link in comments” that you see so often), so it might be best to simply forego the link and just let people see your content.

This video from the Content Marketing Institute (which I briefly shared last week) talks about this very subject about halfway through:
https://www.linkedin.com/events/7204588791657869312/comments/

No links?

For what I’m trying to accomplish with this blog, a lack of links is fine. I don’t care if you read this on LinkedIn or Medium or Substack or whatever, because I’m not trying to sell anything.

For many companies, it’s the same. If their content simply gets shared and viewed more often, it’s a win.

However, what about posts like this one? If you’re reading this on LinkedIn, I…