The Sky Isn’t Falling, But Search Traffic Sure Is
First, I know —?this isn’t the first “marketing will never be the same” newsletter you’ll read this week. Maybe not even today.
Another Monday morning, another new doomsday prediction. Take a shot (espresso, of course) for every post in your feed telling you the sky is falling.
Marketers, we’ve survived a lot over the last 5 years. (Remember 2020?) We will survive this.
… Which is what, exactly?
What’s happening with search?
If your website is getting less organic traffic this month than it was a year ago, I have a scapegoat for you.
You can blame:
Let’s unpack this.
Less above-the-fold visibility
Remember when Google first moved sponsored listings above organic results, and it felt like the end of the world? (Tell me I’m not aging myself.)
Those sponsored results don’t feel that bad anymore, now that we’re also competing for prime SERP real estate with:
Anything after spot 4 on SERPs now feels like the second page. Users may not even make it to the top organic listings after digging through all the rest.
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What can this mean for marketers? Less click-throughs and traffic.
More places for people to search
Search used to happen primarily on traditional engines (Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo … ).
Then we all found something that could answer any question, sometimes even accurately, within seconds: AI. And the floodgates opened.
Consumers no longer need to rely on cluttered search engines. They can find answers in AI answer engines like SearchGPT, Perplexity, and AI Overviews. The savviest consumers also search with social media.
For marketers, this means search is no longer a single platform. It’s a diverse channel.
Consumer fatigue toward content
It’s never been easier to publish content at scale, and people are abusing this new power. Our social feeds, emails, search engine results, and even books (I know) are being padded —?or written completely —?with AI. And people are fed up.
Consumers are getting annoyed with all the misinformation and robotic-sounding drivel. They’re sick of the bot accounts on social. Their guards are up, understandably, against any online information.
Marketers are tasked with creating trustworthy, authoritative content that wins over an increasingly skeptical audience.
“Is SEO even worth it anymore?” Don’t give up on SEO yet. Just change your perspective.
Search optimization is no longer just search engine optimization. It’s generative engine optimization and social media optimization — and creating credible content that boosts your online authority. (That part never changed, right?)
There’s so much more to say about this. Meet me at the blog: Search’s New Normal: How AI Changed the Way People Search.