Will AI Sink Your Organic Search-Driven Inbound Marketing Engine?

One of the things that surprises people about the movie Titanic is how slowly the ship sinks after hitting an iceberg. In the first few hours, the mighty vessel slowly sinks lower in the water.  The passengers are concerned but calm as they move into lifeboats in an orderly fashion.

But then, at the end, Titanic tipped up rapidly, dramatically split in two, and sank like a stone.

What’s keeping me up at night is that it feels like our inbound marketing engine just hit an iceberg called AI Overviews. Our organic search-driven cruise liner is taking on water.

Right now, we are in the slowly sinking phase. The danger is that in the next few years, our inbound marketing engine will tip over and sink for good.

What’s Going On?

In the last two years, consumers and especially B2B buyers have started to shift from putting simple search terms into Google to asking ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude more complex questions.

A year ago, Gartner was predicting that this would account for 25% of searches by the end of 2026.

Google has responded. And this may be an even bigger deal.

They have been “experimenting” with AI Overviews for two years and added AI Mode this March. This has increasingly prioritized AI results over organic results. And if a user is searching for something where many brands are competing for attention, the situation is even worse.

The search results page will feature an AI Overview on half the page, accompanied by a long list of sponsored links.

The top five organic results used to be on the first page and get the lion’s share of the traffic. Now these top-ranked results get pushed down the search page.

I explained this in detail in this post.

And This Will Get a Lot Worse

This post explains how traffic is being lost to AI Overviews, and the author,  Cyrus Shepard, shares some very scary data.

How much traffic is lost to AI Overview (AIO)s.? Consider the following stats:

• A study by Amsive found that keywords with AIOs saw more than a 15% reduction in clicks
• A study by Ahrefs of 300,000 keywords showed a massive 34.5% drop in CTR when AIOs were present
• A study published by Seer Interactive showed CTRs for keywords that triggered AIOs drop 54.6% over 12 months (1.41% to 0.64%)

Organic CTR Drop for Queries with AI Overviews

Seer −54.6 percent, Ahrefs −34.5 percent, Amsive −15.5 percent.

• Seer-54.6%
• Ahrefs-34.5%
• Amsive-15.5%

Sources: Seer, Ahrefs, Amsive

Note: These studies used different methodologies, so this isn’t an apples-to-oranges comparison.

Not that traffic from Google search is great under ideal conditions. Research from Kevin Indig shows that even when no AIO is present, only 28% of Google searches result in a publisher website visit.

With AIOs, website clicks drop to 24% per search result.

And I am seeing this first-hand. As you can see in this chart, in the last two years, organic search has accounted for less traffic to healthlaunchpad.com than it has in the past.

I may have prevented this drop from being even worse, as I have been posting twice as much content as in prior years and have made several tweaks to the site to improve site performance.

As an aside, I have seen a slight increase in direct traffic and an increase in referral traffic that may be coming from ChatGPT, Perplexity, and other GenAI tools. It is not enough to make up for a 24% drop in traffic in the first six months of the year compared to the same period in 2024.

The good news is that views of the mid and lower funnel pages, i.e.. Our solution pages seem to be at the same level as the prior year.

Why Is This Happening?

It’s all about the scraping-to-traffic imbalance. (Ironically, I had to look up an explanation of this using Perplexity.)

There are a couple of essential concepts to understand.

This video explains it very well.

Scraping

This is when Google’s automated systems visit and read web pages to gather and index content for search results. Google scrapes many more pages than it sends visitors to – currently 18 pages scraped per 1 visitor sent.

Zero-click searches

These occur when Google provides answers directly on its search results page, eliminating the need to click through to other websites. Common examples include weather forecasts, sports scores, quick facts, and AI-generated summaries displayed at the top of search results.

What’s Changed

Google used to scrape (visits and copies) 2 pages for every visitor it sent to a website. Google now scrapes 18 web pages for every 1 visitor it sends to websites. This is an increase from 2:1 to 18:1, which reflects Google’s evolution toward zero-click searches, where users get answers directly on Google’s results page without clicking through to other sites.

Currently, 75% of Google searches end without users clicking any links, with predictions suggesting this could reach 90%.

So What?

While great for users, this creates a massive problem for website owners like you. As you continue to invest in content creation, you receive less traffic. Meanwhile, Google is using your content more extensively to create AI-generated responses.

This is a Win-win-win for Google:

• Users enjoy a better experience as Google figures out the answers for them
• It may help Google reduce users from switching from Google to ChatGPT and Perplexity
• It means you, dear marketer, have to buy more paid ads to make up for the reduction in traffic that you have been getting from organic search results.

So, if, like me, you’ve built your business by creating an effective inbound marketing engine, you’ve invested significantly in content creation and SEO to ensure your content is found and attracts prospects to your door. This strategy won’t work anymore in the long term.

Can Organic Search be Saved?

Anyone with an effective inbound and SEO program knows it brings you website visitors for free. It helps you capture people who are actively looking for services, and find you even if they have never heard of you. It connects you with future buyers who are researching. It positions you as an authority in what you do and builds your brand.

A strategy that has been a fundamental pillar of marketing for over two decades is going away.

Can you stem the tide? Probably not. Why? Because it’s not in Google’s interest to fix it.

Let that sink in a bit.

What Can You Do?

The old strategy of “building content and waiting for Google to send traffic” is dying. You will need to build a more proactive, multi-channel approach to reaching your audience.

In my view, there is no direct replacement for this. Here is a high-level game plan for the new Gen AI-driven world we are moving into. Note: I have not gone into much detail, but I will be writing more about all of these in the coming months.

Things To Do In the Next Six Months

Create AI Optimized Content

• Schema markup: Add structured data code to your website that helps AI understand your content’s context (like marking up FAQs, how-to guides, and product information)
• FAQ formats: Restructure content to answer questions directly that people ask AI tools, since AI platforms prefer clear question-and-answer formats
• Answer-based content: Write content that provides direct, concise answers to specific queries rather than long-form articles that require users to search for information

Expand beyond Google

• AEO (AI Engine Optimization): Optimize content specifically for how ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude surface information, focusing on clear, authoritative answers
• Multi-platform strategy: Ensure your content appears in AI tool responses by making it easily digestible and citeable across different AI platforms

Focus on lower and mid-funnel content:

• Target people who are already aware of their problem and evaluating solutions, rather than just top-of-funnel awareness content
• Create comparison guides, case studies, and solution-specific content that attracts higher-intent visitors

Long-term Strategy

Diversify traffic sources:

• Direct outreach: Proactively reach prospects through email, LinkedIn, and other direct channels rather than waiting for them to find you
• Referral partnerships: Build relationships with complementary businesses, industry influencers, and existing customers who can refer traffic
• Awareness campaigns: Invest in brand building through content marketing, speaking engagements, and thought leadership

Implement E-E-A-T signals:

• Expertise: Showcase credentials, certifications, and deep knowledge in your field
• Experience: Demonstrate real-world expertise through case studies, examples, and detailed insights
• Authoritativeness: Build recognition as a trusted source through citations, mentions, and industry recognition
• Trustworthiness: Establish credibility through transparency, accuracy, and consistent quality

Develop measurement systems:

• Track how often AI platforms cite or reference your content when answering user queries
• Monitor brand mentions and traffic from AI tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity
• Measure engagement and conversion rates from AI-driven traffic versus traditional search traffic

Also, check out this post by friend Patrick Hurley. He has some good suggestions too.

We are working on how we can help clients with these issues. Let me know if you would like to discuss further. You can schedule a call here.