Lately I’ve been hearing more and more stories about website traffic dropping. Working in SEO, that’s not a new thing to hear people panic about, but it’s now all doom and gloom. They think generative AI is spelling the doom for the industry (and every business that relies on it.
I was listening to a podcast recently where they were talking about this exact issue, and it really got me thinking. They made an important point: this is mostly a problem for purely informational sites. If your entire business model is “get as much traffic as possible and monetize the page view,” then yes, AI answering questions before someone ever clicks is a real threat. But if your real goal is to sell something, generate leads, or build relationships, chatbots might change how traffic arrives, not whether your business can thrive.
Is Traffic Really The Goal of SEO?
For years, “more traffic” has been treated like the ultimate win in the SEO world. Sure, other metrics are thrown around and looked at, but traffic charts go up and to the right, and everyone celebrates.
I guess the theory is that traffic brings eyes, and someone will pay you for those eyes (customers, sponsors, advertisers, partners, etc.) But here’s the uncomfortable truth: traffic is not a reliable business model.
If your main KPI is “sessions” or “pageviews,” it’s easy to forget to ask the more important questions:
- Are these visitors actually doing anything that matters?
- Are they becoming customers, subscribers, or real leads?
- Would my business survive if traffic dropped but conversions stayed steady or even improved?
And, my personal favorite thing to ask: are these even the right people?
Traffic is a means to an end, not the end itself.
What Happens When AI Steals The Click?
AI chatbots are great at answering straightforward informational questions fast. If your site exists purely to answer “what is X” or “how do I do Y” without any deeper relationship or offer, you’re now competing with a machine that lives inside the search result. The bot might hallucinate, but your readers can’t usually be 100% confident in your answer either.
Here’s what you should be thinking about instead:
- If you sell a product, AI can still send people your way when they’re ready to buy. A lot of your precious traffic was only shopping around anyway.
- If you offer a service, AI might even summarize what you do and point users to you. Previously, they might have just clicked the first result on Google, and you could have even lost out in the second position.
- If you’re building a brand, people may skip chat and go straight to you because they trust you. Don’t forget that robots aren’t our friends (sci-fi has been warning us for years).
The danger isn’t AI itself. The real risk is building a business that only survives if people spend their time scrolling on your site.
What Should Actually Be Your Success Metric?
Instead of obsessing over traffic, it’s more useful to ask: “What’s the real outcome I care about?” It depends on the goals of your business or organization.
That might be:
- Purchases or revenue
- Qualified leads or demo requests
- Email subscribers or community signups
- Return visitors or engaged users
When you define success in these terms, traffic becomes just one input among many. A smaller audience that buys, subscribes, or sticks around is far more valuable than a giant crowd that skims and leaves.
Is It Ever Okay To Care About Traffic?
Traffic should inform your strategy, not define your success. If your revenue is stable or growing, but traffic fluctuates, that might be noise. If traffic is exploding but conversions aren’t moving, that’s a red flag, not a win.
What Does This Mean For SEO? Is SEO Dead?
I’ve been warned about the death of SEO so many times that it’s just become noise at this point. It constantly changes, and the changes make it harder for some companies and easier for others.
SEO is still incredibly valuable, but the goal has to be more thoughtful than “rank for as many keywords as possible.” When you’re doing SEO in an AI-heavy world, it helps to ask:
- Does this content attract the kind of visitor who might eventually buy or subscribe?
- Would this page still be useful if fewer people arrived via search?
- Am I creating something that a chatbot can’t easily replace (like unique insights, brand trust, or a specific offer)?
When you frame SEO around business outcomes, “traffic down” becomes a data point, not a crisis.
The Future Is Here! Until It Changes Again Tomorrow
My point is that traffic is helpful, but it’s not the hero of your online platform. If it’s your primary way of making money, you’re now heavily exposed to changes in search and AI (and you better get creative, or your days are numbered). If it isn’t, then treating traffic as your main success metric is a dangerous distraction.
None of this is set in stone, and it’ll change again tomorrow. And the day after that. I’ll keep sharing my thoughts as I keep learning, and I hope you’ll share yours, too! After all, the LLM’s need something to read.
