I’m about to say something that probably won’t surprise you. Try not to look too bored.
Here goes: Artificial intelligence is transforming professional services website strategy.
Only it’s not happening in the way you think. I’m not talking about sophisticated chatbots or other on-site AI tech. I’m not talking about how firms use ChatGPT or Claude to write the copy. In fact, I’m not talking about the way sites use AI at all.
Instead, I’m referring to the way people find websites. It wasn’t that long ago that the most common entry point to any given firm’s website was not their homepage or services pages. It was their blog. And while that often is still true today, the story is changing rapidly.
How AI Search Has Turned Web Strategy on its Head
The amount of this type of traffic is in sharp decline. Traditional search engine optimization allowed firms to build visibility around their expert content. While that still works (for now), it is steadily becoming less potent.
Most people still head to Google, Bing and other search engines to find answers. In fact, they use search engines 20 times more often than AI chatbots to do research and answer questions. But that delta is getting smaller each year.
You only need to look at your own web traffic reports to see that organic web traffic has been eroding year after year. Innovations such as AI overviews and answer engines are supplying the information most people are searching for without requiring an additional click to read an article.
Some buyers are even asking these fast, convenient new tools to recommend service providers—not understanding (or caring?) how opaque the behind-the-scenes evaluation criteria and process are.
If the number of people who actually scroll past Google’s AI Overview and ads to click on a website link is shrinking, that means fewer people are actually reaching your firm through your expert content. In fact, fewer people are visiting your website, period.
Most AI Traffic Is Invisible—and Chaotic
We know that AI-driven traffic is growing. But in our analytics tools, we can only see a very small slice of that traffic. AI responses provide only a few sources, if any, and many users never click any of them. And even when somebody clicks one of those links there is no guarantee it will be correctly attributed to the AI source in analytics.
Add on top of that the fact that people don’t make decisions in a linear fashion. Research by SparkToro and Similarweb has shown that the buyer journey is not this:
prompt AI > visit a website > buy product or service
Instead, it involves many disconnected steps that we cannot see or track, often including separate Google searches to validate the results and expand the search. Also, the time between initial query and final outreach can be many weeks or months.
Traditional Web Strategy Isn’t Working Like It Used To
A traditional web strategy goes something like this: You use SEO to attract a lot of visitors to your blog posts and other educational content. In your posts, you promote more in-depth free gated content to capture their email address. Then you use email marketing to feed your visitors more high-quality, relevant content. Over time, a certain percentage will become true fans, trust your expertise, and prefer your firm over others. When it’s time to buy, the decision is easy.
This approach worked beautifully for years. Then AI diverted the water and the roaring river of web visitors began to subside and run dry. The strategy, while still fundamentally sound in some ways, needs a rethink because the old SEO audience is evaporating. (Though it is unlikely to go away entirely, at least for the time being.) Now, people are taking other routes to reach firms’ websites.
The Return of Old-Style Marketing
In a way, AI has turned back the clock. Marketing in this new age is as much about gaining old-fashioned exposure—what some might call brand awareness or public relations—as it is about optimizing your marketing stack. A recent survey of marketers and owners showed that the top factor influencing a company’s visibility in AI is brand mentions.
How do you get brand mentions? Through PR, personal connections and brand visibility.
In a digital marketing world where you can no longer see how a significant portion of your traffic arrives at your website, visibility is crucial. The more familiar your audience is with you, the more likely they are to remember and think of you when it matters most.
In this environment, your website doesn’t need to change dramatically, but its role is different.
The Website’s New Place in Marketing
It is time to think of your website less as the central driver of your marketing machine and more as a primary character in a larger marketing play. Content Marketing and SEO are still critical. But they now have to cater not only to a traditional search engine audience but also to a new, more shadowy AI search audience.
As before, you should continue to configure your website with relevant offers and gated content to convert visitors into contacts. Email marketing remains very effective so long as recipients know you, consent to receive your emails and are sent educational material they find useful.
You may also want to begin optimizing your content and some of your services pages for AI search. Keep in mind that marketing experts are still teasing out the rules of this game and there is plenty of disagreement about what works and what doesn’t.
If, however, sustained growth is your objective, you need to look beyond SEO, AI search and traditional marketing techniques like networking to build visibility. This may mean expanding your repertoire to include actively networking on social media, producing videos and webinars, soliciting media and influencer coverage, asking clients to write online reviews—and, importantly, determining where your audiences go to get information about their business problems. Once you know where your clients and prospects seek out business information, you can tailor your marketing program to be visible and helpful in those channels.
The term “multichannel marketing” has been around for decades. But never has it been more relevant or urgent to firms of all sizes. That means marketing is more complex than ever, and the website is just one piece—albeit a crucial one—of an integrated strategy.
Just a few years ago, a firm’s website combined with a strong content marketing initiative could carry much of the weight of its marketing program. AI and Google have changed the rules. The result is less visibility, which you must make up for in other ways.
Don’t misunderstand. Content marketing and SEO—and now AI search optimization—are as important as ever. Your expert content lays the foundation for your reputation. At the same time, it continues to draw in a flow of new visitors from online search. Even if this flow is diminished, these visitors tend to be of high quality and convert at a higher rate than before the SEO collapse.
But you need additional sources of visibility, like those I mention above, to address the habits of the modern buyer. Ultimately, your website is where your wider marketing program should send people. At that point, its role hasn’t changed: to inform, validate and persuade.
