AI Stole Our Traffic – What Can I Do?
Categorized in: B2B Digital Marketing, SEO
You’re not imaging things if you’ve noticed that your organic traffic has been dropping lately. For B2B companies, the drop could have been steady but now they might be feeling the loss. Once the traffic drop results in a loss of viable leads, that’s when it’s time to take action. Sure, there could be many reasons for this drop. However, the universal consensus is that the emergence of generative AI is responsible for at least part of it.
In fact, the traffic loss could feel a bit like someone has stolen it. Everything we knew about obtaining organic traffic has been flipped upside down. Things are changing. Meanwhile, we need to figure out how to recoup these losses. What can we do?
Deciding What to Do in Uncertainty
We need to strike a balance between waiting to make the right moves and taking action. It’s easy to panic, and then panic can lead to rash decision making. It’s also easy to play it too safe and wait until things settle down or change. Well, things are in flux, and waiting will only increase the losses.
We need to do something, but it’s hard to know what to do. If it’s true that AI has been taking our traffic, waiting will only result in more losses. Yet, it might be too soon to take action and start learning how to get traffic from this new technology. What can be done? Here’s a look at some of the strategies that can help.
Invest More in Paid Advertising
If you have the budget and paid advertising has worked well in the past, consider ramping up your efforts to attract your target audience using these methods. There are a variety of options, such as Google Ads and social media advertising, and each business has its own, ideal mix.
It can feel frustrating to know that the loss in organic traffic could mean that you’ll have to start paying money for your traffic, but if done right, this could give you the leads that you need. In fact, paid advertising is good to have in the mix anyway in some form. If you create a great strategy, you’ll be able to nurture that strategy for years to come, regardless of what other traffic sources you have.
Build Your Foundational Marketing
It used to be that organic traffic was considered to be a foundational marketing item. While it is still possible to have some organic traffic, most B2Bs agree that the numbers have declined. This is a good time to examine your other foundational marketing channels, such as your social media marketing and your content.
While content is typically associated with organic traffic, its use is a lot deeper than that. In the end, any changes that occur with AI will still depend on high quality content, but perhaps the style of content that used to work so well for SEO needs to change somewhat. Do what you have always done in this case. Create high quality, value driven content that your audience will love, and this will help you over the long term (like it always has).
Now is not the time to panic concerning the changes. Think about what you do have and what you can control and focus on that. Things are changing, but by staying open and focused, you can stay ahead of the curve.
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