Over the past year, the amount of traffic coming to our website from Google has dropped by 38%. That is a HUGE number, and a couple of years ago I would have been very worried!
However, our enquiries and leads have not been affected and the same number of people are still getting in touch with us.
If you run and manage an SME business like me, and have watched your website traffic drop, your natural reaction is to assume your marketing has stopped working and you either stop completely or allocate your marketing budget elsewhere. This can be an expensive mistake, and it is worth understanding what is really going on before you panic and make some rash decisions.
What is actually happening to your traffic
There are a couple of genuine causes worth ruling out first. It could be a Google penalty, or a strategy that has run its course. But more and more often, the drop comes down to something different, and it has a name: zero-click search.
Zero-click search is exactly what it sounds like. Someone types a question into Google, gets their answer right there on the results page, and doesn’t click through to a website.
You have probably seen it yourself, you search for something, and Google shows you a written summary at the top of the page, pulled together from various websites, before you even get to the usual list of links. Google calls these AI Overviews.
This is having a real effect. Analysis by Authoritas, submitted to the UK’s competition regulator, found that when an AI summary sits above a search result, the website beneath it can see up to 80% fewer clicks for that search (The Guardian). So if your traffic is down, you are not imagining it, because ours is down too.
The traffic you have lost may not be the traffic that mattered
The size of the drop matters less than which visitors you’ve actually lost.
Think about who was making those searches. Someone typing “why does my business need a marketing strategy” wants an explanation, rather than a list of businesses who offer marketing strategy services. Google now hands them that explanation directly; they read it, and they are done (for now). Their intent is low; they are right at the start of working something out, and potentially a long way from picking up the phone or filling in a form.
The people who are ready to buy still land on your website
When someone knows what they want and is looking for a business they can actually hire, Google behaves differently. Search for a specific service, or a supplier in your area, and you are far more likely to see a list of real businesses than an AI summary. That person clicks through, takes a proper look, and is often closer to making contact.
These are what we call high-intent searches, the ones made by people who are ready to act, rather than just researching. Right now, they are largely untouched by AI summaries, which is exactly why search still earns its place.
People decide who to shortlist long before they click
There is a part of this that most businesses overlook. The person who reads an AI summary instead of visiting your site has not disappeared. They will still need a supplier eventually, and when that moment comes, they already have a rough shortlist in their head. That shortlist gets built during all those early, low-intent searches.
So if your business is one of the names AI mentions while people are researching, you are already on the list before they ever run the search that brings them to your website. The content you publish to answer people’s questions is still doing a job. It just earns you a place in the conversation rather than an immediate visit.
The real mistake is judging it all on traffic
Which brings me back to that 38%. If we only looked at website traffic, the figure would tell us to cut what we spend on search, but our leads tell us the complete opposite. The work is doing exactly what it should. AI has cleared out the casual, low-intent visits, and the people who do arrive are closer to buying than they have ever been.
So rather than try to win back the traffic we have lost, our focus has moved to where that attention has gone: being the business that gets mentioned in ChatGPT, Claude and Google’s AI summaries when people are researching.
How to check where you actually stand
Before you make any decisions about your own marketing, it is worth doing a few simple checks.
Start by putting two numbers side by side: your website traffic over the last year, and your enquiries or leads over the same period. If traffic is down but enquiries have held steady, you are most likely in the same position we are. The job then is to make sure you are visible where that research is now happening, in AI summaries and tools like ChatGPT and Claude.
If both traffic and leads have fallen, then it’s worth further investigation.
Next, dig into where the lost traffic was coming from. Google Search Console, which is free, will show you which searches were bringing people to your site. If the drop is mostly in broad, informational searches, that is the AI effect I have been describing. If you are losing the searches that suggest someone is ready to buy, that needs your urgent attention!
Then check how visible you are when it counts. Search for the kind of thing a potential customer would type, and see whether your business is visible, both in the list of links and in any AI summary at the top. If your competitors are there and you are not, that is the gap to close.
Finally, look at whether people are coming to you directly or searching for you by name. If that is steady or growing, your reputation is doing its job, even when your overall traffic is down.
If you have reviewed these details and still remain unsure about what the data reveals or how to execute the required enhancements, please feel free to contact me. My team and I are available to help you evaluate your specific circumstances, and we can navigate the next steps together.
