Team Madcraft
You’ve done the work. Your site ranks well. Impressions are high. But clicks? They’re slipping. If your SEO click-through rate (CTR) is falling even as your keyword rankings improve, you’re not alone. It’s a growing trend, and the reason may not be what you think.
The search engine results page (SERP) has changed. Google’s layout is no longer a clean list of ten blue links. It’s now filled with AI overviews, featured snippets, People Also Ask panels, local packs, image carousels, and more. In short, being visible doesn’t always mean being seen.
High rankings used to mean predictable traffic. Today, SEO performance is influenced by how your listing appears visually and where it’s placed among competing SERP features. Clicks are being diverted before users even get to your link.
Several factors are making it harder to convert visibility into actual traffic:
Google’s AI-generated answers are extracting content directly from top-ranking pages. While this increases visibility, it often eliminates the need for users to click.
Mitigation Tactics:
Ranking isn’t enough. If your title tags aren’t compelling, your content gets skipped, even if you’re in position one.
What Works:
Listings without schema, structured data, or compelling visuals lack impact. They fail to stand out in an increasingly crowded SERP.
Fixes Include:
At Madcraft, we take a hands-on approach to closing the visibility-to-click gap. Our methods include:
This combination of technical, content, and UX optimisation ensures your SEO efforts result in measurable engagement—not just rankings.
As Google evolves, so does user behaviour. Visibility is no longer enough. Businesses must now understand and adapt to four major shifts reshaping how people engage with search results:
In 2024, nearly 65% of Google searches ended without a click to a website. On mobile, that figure exceeded 75%. This is driven by Google’s expanding suite of instant-answer features like featured snippets, knowledge panels, calculators, and more.
Users receive their answers directly on the SERP without needing to click through. For example, a search for “what is ROI?” might return a concise definition in a featured box. Great for convenience, but often a missed opportunity for the website that created the content.
How to Adapt:
AI-driven summaries like Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE) and Bing AI are reshaping the SERP. Instead of scanning ten links, users are presented with a generated paragraph that answers their query immediately.
These summaries pull from multiple sources, reducing the need for further clicks. A user searching “how to improve local SEO on a budget” may be shown a paragraph listing five detailed tips, without clicking a single website.
How to Adapt:
With fewer clicks to go around, standing out visually on the SERP matters more than ever. Rich snippets powered by schema markup enhance listings with review ratings, event dates, product details, and more. That extra info builds trust and draws the eye.
How to Adapt:
Not all schema will guarantee a rich snippet, and Google has trimmed some snippet types recently.
Search results can now resemble social media feeds. On mobile, this shift is pronounced; one analysis found that image results appear about 12.5 times more often in Google searches on mobile than they do on desktop. Google displays image carousels, video previews, and rich thumbnails directly in the SERP.
How to Adapt:
Success in this evolving landscape means more than just ranking. It’s about appearing in the most visible and interactive formats—and earning the user’s attention at a glance.
SEO in 2025 is as much about clickability as it is about visibility. If your CTR is dropping, don’t panic, but don’t ignore it either. Strategic content and SERP optimisation can restore your traffic flow, even when Google keeps changing the game. By doing so, you won’t just protect your organic traffic, you’ll ensure your brand remains visible and relevant in the dynamic search landscape of 2025.
SEO isn’t dead, it’s evolving. Your rankings might be steady, but without strategic optimizations, your clicks will continue to drop. Want to know which of your pages are ranking but not converting? Let’s take a look and run a quick audit, no strings.
Higher rankings don’t guarantee clicks anymore. Google’s SERP includes AI answers, featured snippets, and zero-click results that often satisfy the user’s query without them visiting your site.
A zero-click search happens when a user finds the answer to their query directly on the search results page and doesn’t need to click through to any website. These often come from featured snippets, knowledge panels, or AI-generated overviews.
You can improve your CTR by:
Yes but with context. Rankings are still important for visibility, but they must be combined with SERP appearance optimisation to drive meaningful engagement.
Tools like Google Search Console and GA4 help identify pages with high impressions but low CTR or traffic. An SEO audit can also reveal which pages are ranking but not converting due to poor metadata, weak headlines, or SERP competition.
Not necessarily, but they require an adaptation of strategy to ensure your content is shown where users engage.
Because just ranking isn’t enough anymore. With AI Overviews, snippets, and other SERP features grabbing attention first, you need to stand out visually and structurally to earn clicks. High visibility helps you show up where it matters, whether that’s in a featured snippet, an FAQ dropdown, or even the AI-generated answer. Without visibility, even great content can get overlooked.
