For years, the relationship between rankings and traffic has been somewhat predictable. Rank higher, gain more visibility, attract more clicks, drive more traffic. It’s a simple formula that has been the bedrock of most SEO efforts. A Page ranked in the top three could attract a significant number of clicks. A Page ranking in first place attracted even more.
However, that formula has just been disrupted. Google is introducing AI Overviews. Rather than serving its users a list of search results to click through, Google is looking to provide answers within the search results themselves. Naturally, those of you who are dependent on organic search traffic have concerns: What will happen to your website traffic when users are given answers without clicking through? Will rankings matter? Will I see organic traffic drop? Should I continue investing in SEO?
The answer, contrary to what many headline writers may have led you to believe, is somewhat nuanced. AI Overviews are definitely changing click-through behaviour; however, they will not entirely do away with the importance of organic visibility, but are rather shifting how we achieve visibility. It’s a change that all marketers, businesses and content creators should pay attention to.
What is an AI Overview?
An AI Overview is an AI-generated answer within Google’s search results that pulls information from multiple sources. So, in the case of a search for:
“What is lifecycle marketing?”
Instead of a list of websites users can click to, users will see an AI overview including a definition, key information and sources. The obvious goal of this is simple: eliminate friction, get the user an answer quickly. This benefits the user; the marketer should not lose any sleep over this. While it does present a challenge in that the user may have no reason to click through to the website it has used to build its response, ultimately, you may see changes in rankings and traffic. So is it time to ditch SEO?
The Changing of Click Through Rate
It all boils down to the historical need for organic search. For years, organic search traffic was dependent on curiosity. In other words, you had to go to a website to get the answer you were looking for. AI Overviews satisfy user intent in the search results page (SERP) itself.
This eliminates the curiosity and takes the user directly to the answer. For example, let’s say you type:
“What is freight forwarding?”
In a conventional SERP, the user searches, views results, clicks, and then reads the article. Now, the user searches, they see an answer within the SERP and have no reason to click to read the article further. The missing piece is the informational need, which is disappearing from the website. This has, as you may have already realised, had an impact on the number of clicks through to various sites.
Informational Searches Have Suffered The Most
Not all search query types respond in the same way, but informational search queries have been the ones impacted the most by AI Overviews. Examples include, but are not limited to:
- “What is SEO?”
- “How does lifecycle marketing work?”
- “What is freight forwarding?”
and others.
Historically, users have had to click through these types of queries to find their answers, and today we’re seeing these appear within AI Overview answers and, as a result, a decrease in click-throughs and overall organic visits for informational content.
The impact is certainly not the loss of ranking on Google, just that the search result page has now removed the need for a click.
High Intent and Commercial Searches Perform Better
It is a misconception that every user who searches will visit the website. Actually, in high-intent and commercial searches, we still see users continuing to click through these queries, such as:
- “best CRM software for SaaS”
- “top logistics companies”
- “SEO consultant”
- “property management software prices”
etc.
High intent searches need the user to take a step forward in their search and discover the best solutions for them. AI Overviews will still guide users on where to look, but you still have a good opportunity to obtain that valuable click-through.
The Rise of Zero-Click Search
This increase in information provided by the AI Overview simply expedites a trend that was already growing.
Zero-click searches have been increasing with Google’s additions, like:
- Knowledge Panels
- Featured Snippets
- Direct Answers
But the AI Overview means the user can find the information they need without ever having to venture to another page or website. This provides a new way for marketers to consider how visibility will work on Google and the future of organic search results.
Why Rankings Still Matter
Some companies have assumed that declining click-throughs mean rankings no longer matter; that’s not the case at all. The reason they still do is due to the underlying process behind the AI Overviews; information needs to be obtained. Ranking and other traditional SEO efforts are the means by which information is retrieved by the AI. Businesses that perform well on other SEO metrics such as topical authority, technical SEO, content quality and entity recognition, will stand the best chance of having their content referenced by the AI Overviews.
The New SEO Goal is Visibility, not Traffic
The way we think about SEO has now shifted. Historically, companies and brands focused on acquiring top rankings, increasing their organic traffic and their click-through rates.
This will still be important, but Google’s updates are requiring us to rethink what SEO is now and the new aspects of SEO that should be considered, such as:
- How much content has been seen by the AI
- How much attention is being drawn to brands mentioned within the AI Overviews
- How can we best integrate with and influence the AI’s responses
We need to consider the customer journey in a way that is different from before.
Brand Search Queries Will Become More Important
When users receive a comprehensive answer from an AI Overview, and particular brands or names get mentioned often, they become more recognisable. Consider this: a user sees an AI Overview with one brand mentioned many times in their context – likely, the brand has now been noticed, and the user may search directly for them afterwards.
Because of this, strong brand searches will become even more important:
- Increasing branded searches
- Direct traffic
- Brand recall
Content Strategy for the AI Overview Era
This does not mean you need to abandon creating any further informational content. What you need to do instead is alter how your content is formatted. If your content is clear, informative and structured, you will increase the chance of your content being selected and included in an AI Overview.
It is also important that you publish unique and engaging content, as AIs are becoming more and more sophisticated. This type of content cannot be replicated by machines easily, and it is where businesses with significant expertise can make a name for themselves in an increasingly generic market.
The Importance of Thought Leadership
Experts believe that the commodification of generic information means that thought leadership will become increasingly important. AI can quickly disseminate commonly known information, but the more unique insights and information a business provides, the more likely it is to get ranked and acknowledged within an AI Overview. Expertise within a particular niche can increase a business’s credibility and presence on the internet.
Measuring Your Success in the AI Overview Age
While we have explored new areas to consider when looking at your SEO strategy, traditional SEO methods and their metrics remain useful. While click-through rates and traffic are still valuable, look to new and complementary ways of measuring success, such as:
- AI Overviews
- Brand mentions
- Branded search queries
Organisations that make a successful change to these new dimensions will continue to be the ones that perform best.
What Your Business Should NOT Be Doing
You don’t need to make drastic changes to your strategy overnight. There are certain things to avoid:
- Do not abandon SEO completely
- Do not only focus on traffic
- Do not neglect your brand’s overall image
- Do not publish bland, common information on your pages
The Future of Organic Search
The death of websites in search is not coming.
People will always need:
- Products
- Services
- Information (Research, comparison)
- Expert advice
- Human judgment
However, the connection between someone searching for something and then visiting your website is changing.
Businesses that solely focus on rankings alone will likely falter here.
Businesses focusing on visibility, authority, retrievability and brand recognition will be much better equipped for this next phase of search.
Concluding Thoughts
Yes, Google AI Overviews will reduce your click-through rates, and yes, that is going to happen. There is absolutely no debate here.
But beyond the reduction in clicks, what’s also going on here is a shift in what it means to be visible.
It’s no longer solely the websites that have high click-through rates that will thrive; rather, it will be the businesses that appear wherever the searcher’s questions are being answered.
The wins will be determined not by your click-through rate, but by your influence and authority within an answer, a presence within AI-generated responses.