Tiktok showing up in organic search results isn’t exactly a new thing.

While some have cited Tiktok as the end of websites for ranking, I tend to be a little more conservative in my estimates of the impact it might have.

I liken Tiktok to Youtube in many ways – people go searching there for tutorials, inspiration and entertainment than for finance advice or professional services or food shopping (though Tiktok shop is becoming a monster in in itself).

So it stands to reason that for many businesses today, Tiktok (amongst other platforms) would be in the marketing mix somewhere.

But Tiktok isn’t just a concern for social media teams. The reality is that there’s a good chance for certain types of queries that Tiktok is going to show up in Google organic search results too. SEMRush estimates that from Google UK alone, Tiktok enjoys over 29 million organic visits monthly.

Then we take into account searches in Google for trends and things that made a name on Tiktok in the first place and it’s clear to see Tiktok has a huge role to play in search.

I want to talk today though about a tiny little corner of this search area that Tiktok is quietly taking ownership of and that is how to searches and tutorials.

According to data from SEMRush, in the UK alone Tiktok gets an average of 150,000 visits from organic search each month from queries containing “how to,” and ranks for over 485,000 such queries.

Examples of Tiktok Ranking for How To Queries in the UK

Caveat here that SERPs are changing all the time and I’m writing this as the August Core Update rolls out.

But here are some examples:

How to clear notifications on Vinted app

Apparently enough people dislike notifications on the Vinted app that a couple of hundred each month go to search to find out how to clear them.

Here’s the SERP as of 20th August 2024:

tiktok featured snippet in search

Tiktok owns the features snippet. Vinted has the number 1 spot but in between them is a “People also ask” area. So actually, on many screens you don’t even see the Vinted result.

And do you know what it is from Tiktok that owns this featured snippet?

This page:

tiktok ranking discover page

Just a list of videos, really.

How to draw a bow

A query attracting 880 searches in Google UK alone each month has Tiktok at the top spot and in position 1 right now:

tiktok how to draw a bow

You can see here that the position 1 result has 19,100 views and is 8 months old and 1 minute long.

The result in position 4 has over 2 million views but is just 26 seconds long and is 2 years old.

That top result is a very simple video:

@doodlelou.co How to draw: a flowy ribbon bow🎀 easy edition!! 1. Draw out a basic flowy bow shape (doesn’t have to be symmetrical at all!) 2. Draw parallel lines to your bow shape and overlap some lines to create a “ribbon fold” 3. Colour your bow in a colour of your choice 4. Add in darker shadows by layering colour in the corners or where your “ribbon fold” is 5. Add a light drop shadow by following the right or left side of your bow with a light pen #bujo #howtodraw #doodle #howtodoodle #ribbon #ribbonbow #drawingtutorial ♬ buy me presents – Sabrina Carpenter

This is incredibly simple to create content but with a relatively detailed caption.

Easy Tutorial Piano

1,500 searches a month in the UK and again, Tiktok is taking its space in the SERPs:

easy tutorial piano

50% of the short videos shown in that top  row are from Tiktok.

Let’s take a look at the number 1 video there:

@keystutorials Simple Piano Tutorial❤️ #pianotok #timebackpiano #pianotutorial #pianolesson #easypianotutorial ♬ оригинальный звук – PianoKoba

This is a 16 seconds video with a 3 word caption and a handful of hashtags.

I wouldn’t doubt that most people could produce this content in moments with no kit more technical than a phone.

So how does it affect you?

None of the queries I’ve shown there seem overly commercial.

But if you sell pianos or even piano tuition there’s a value in an audience of beginner players.

If you sell drawing pads or other stationery, there’s value in an audience of people learning how to draw.

And Tiktok’s search visibility is growing all the time.

So, if part of your organic search strategy is building an audience of tutorial searchers relevant to your products (whether your specific queries are dominated by Tiktok or not yet) this has to be on your radar, surely?

This is 3 examples of hundreds of sifted through and some things are really easy to see here:

  1. Videos are short and simple to produce
  2. Long captions are useful in some cases but by no means appear necessary
  3. The videos that perform best on Tiktok are not always the ones that rank best in Google

If you’re already producing video content for Youtube, perhaps it’s time to take a look at Tiktok too. And if it feels too terrifying a prospect, then why not reach out to content creators already creating content performing well in your space and collaborate?

But ultimately, it’s likely that short form video is going to be in the SERPs more and more. And nobody is saying it means that your  high ranking website tutorial won’t get any traffic, there’s no harm in having more than one of your own assets in the SERPs, is there?

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