Ranking well doesn’t guarantee the clicks it once did
The presence of AI, especially AI overviews on Google means that people can find the answers to their queries without having to click through to your blog. An analysis from ahrefs found that out of 300,000 keywords, when an AI overview is present there was a 58% lower click through rate for the top ranking page. So, what does this mean?
Firstly, it means that people are still searching on Google, traditional SEO hasn’t been abandoned completely for AI platforms like ChatGPT as many people speculated. Google simply kept the user and answered for them. It also means that your blogs are now competing with AI overviews and it’s harder to get the clicks.
Has content lost its value?
The presence of AI and the growing inclusion of AI overviews in search has led to businesses abandoning blog content, or at least significantly reducing it as part of their digital marketing strategy. However, blogs and top of funnel content can still have a place and play an active role in SEO.
Being visible in AI-powered search depends on your digital presence. Your website content, technical SEO and wider brand presence can all contribute to how easily search systems understand and reference your business. The foundations you’ve already built for SEO performance is still important for ranking in AI search results and overviews.
Also, traffic is an incomplete measure of value. Content can be used to support service pages, build trust, help prospects evaluate your business, and be part of the commercial journey that guides them to the point of conversion. Therefore, the beliefs around blogs have shifted. It’s not just about “are you posting 4 blogs a month and writing for these keywords?” The question now is “does this content have a meaningful job to do in supporting your commercial goals?”.
As more and more data emerges around AI, such as Agarwal and Sen’s randomised field experiment showing a 34.5% relative increase in zero-click searches, alongside a 39.8% reduction in outbound organic clicks when AI overviews appeared, content strategies need to evolve.
Generic content has a bigger problem than declining clicks
There’s no hiding from the fact that AI can write content. The search landscape today is full of blogs that all sound vaguely the same. It can churn out content fast, with strong headers and rank for keywords that may get you on page one. But you lose the quality and value of what truly lands with readers, the human experience. If you don’t want users to stop at the AI overview, your content needs to give them a reason to click through.
This is where information gain rate comes in. AI can only contribute to a topic from content that already exists on the web. It can’t add a new spin onto a topic based on lived experience in the same way humans can to create a completely new angle on an old topic.
By giving users a fresh take that they can’t find anywhere else, they have a reason to read your content, instead of stopping on an AI overview for a quick answer. For example, any accountant can talk about how to file VAT returns quarterly, but not every accountant can talk about how they helped a company file VAT returns for three different eCommerce brands they bought and then merged into one business. Specificity matters and it’s what sets human content apart from AI.
There’s been such a big surge in AI-generated content that people are already tired of it. When everything starts sounding the same it quickly becomes forgettable and so might your business. They crave human connection and to read content that sparks something for them, a thought, feeling, or an idea. Marketers now may say people don’t read content, but it’s more likely that people don’t read boring content.
You may not be able to rely on traffic or clicks as a metric for blog performance anymore, but being more intentional with your content can still help you see value from it.
The age old message of quality over quantity
Now more than ever does this ring true. Businesses shouldn’t post blogs just to say they’ve posted blogs around certain topics or keywords, anyone can do that, and everyone does.
Your strategy should be based on your commercial objectives and establish how the content you produce can support them. Are your blogs trying to attract customers earlier in their buying journey? Are you helping them overcome objections that might stop them from buying or enquiring? Everything should have a clear intention.
You can then measure success against what each piece of content is intended to achieve. Rankings and traffic can still be helpful, but they shouldn’t be the main target. If the purpose of a blog is to support a service page or give prospective customers the information they need to make a buying decision, then its value shouldn’t just be determined by how many visitors it gets.
Is blog content worth it?
Yes, but businesses need to be more intentional about what they publish and why they’re publishing it. AI Overviews are changing rankings and clicks, so relying on posting regularly for relevant keywords isn’t enough.
Every piece of content you publish on your website should have a specific purpose that aligns with your commercial goals and search strategy. It should also give users something human and valuable that makes them want to keep reading more from you, and eventually buy from you.
Human-first marketing is quietly beating AI marketing, despite the panic around AI taking over and killing SEO. We may now live in a world where traditional search and AI search live side by side, but the focus of writing content should be on the humans reading it.