AI & The Organic Decline: What Small Business Owners Need to Know

Everyone is talking (non-stop) about AI. But while most conversations revolve around how they're using it, business owners need to be discussing the impact of AI on their online presence with their marketing agency or team.

Here's what small business owners need to know about the impact of AI and the organic decline... but why they can relax if they have a good marketing partner like The Digital Perch:

The Shift in Online Search Behavior

While Google remains the king of all online searches, more and more people are going straight to AI tools like ChatGPT (also known as LLMs) for answers or shopping guidance. Additionally, every informational search has an AI‐generated summary that appears at the top of Google and Bing results, but that soon will occur for EVERY search (regardless of intent — even finding a local business).

Why does this matter?

AI-generated content is creating a "zero-click" trend — and it's majorly impacting traditional KPIs for search engine optimization (SEO) and website traffic. According to Wall Street Journal, 80% of consumers resolve 40% of queries without clicking any links, and 42% use generative AI for purchase recommendations.

Other sources say 60–65% of Google searches end without a click. On mobile, it’s approximately 75%.

Users often get answers directly from search or AI summaries. That doesn’t mean:

• Your site isn’t being crawled

• Your brand isn’t influencing purchase decisions

• Revenue is declining

AI visibility can still drive conversions through direct, referral, and branded traffic.

How AI is Impacting Website Visits

Web Traffic Is Inflated by Bots

• 51% of web traffic is now bots.

• Approximately 14% of those are “good bots” (Google, AI crawlers, etc.), but that number is steadily increasing.

• Blocking bots isn’t realistic — you’d block search engines and AI too, which are important revenue and visibility drivers you can't afford to lose.
  

Business of every size, type, and industry (even big boys like Intuit and Mailchimp) have seen steady declines in website traffic because AI tools are pulling information directly from sites — therefore giving online users less of a reason to visit the referring website, or completely bypassing their pages when AI tools don't mention the referral source at all.

Overall organic traffic is down 15–25% due to AI chatbots. However, traditional SEO still matters.

Think of Traditional SEO and AI SEO as a Venn diagram:

• Approximately 99% overlaps (technical SEO, content quality, authority, structure)

• A small percentage involves AI-specific optimization tactics

Traditional KPIs for SEO (i.e. clicks, rankings, CTR) are becoming vanity metrics and less important in monitoring and measuring online success — they no longer translate into visibility online in the way we're used to seeing.

This makes marketing agencies and professionals anxious — not because of the decline in specific metrics, but because of those business owners who fail to adapt to these changes, fail to understand why these changes are happening, and still pointing the finger at marketing asking "why their website is getting less traffic."

How Small Business Owners & Marketing Teams Can Adapt

AI-related acronyms being thrown around such as generative engine optimization (GEO), answer engine optimization (AEO), and AI optimization (AIO) are the new popular topic. A business owner may ask,"How do we rank for each of these?" But here's what they really need to know:

If their marketing agency or team is already doing great SEO work and following best practices, it's going to naturally impact visibility in GEO, AEO, you name it.

All these "new" SEO terms are still just that — SEO. But SEO is becoming "Search Everywhere Optimization," not just for search engines.

Optimization now includes:

• Google search

• AI platforms

• Social

• Marketplaces

• Maps

52% of sources cited in Google AI Overviews already rank in the top 10 organic results — meaning traditional SEO best practices are not going away.

Blogs Are More Important Than Ever

• Blogs are the #2 most cited source by GPT (after Wikipedia, before news sites)

• Google AI Overviews cite blog-style articles 44% of the time
  

High-quality blog content remains a critical visibility driver.

New KPIs to Measure for AI

AI tools ("LLMs") love machine‑readable data, super fast page loads, structured snippets and simple, conversational copy — far more than overly long, keyword‑dense text.

I mean, what's new?

Those who understand SEO know that they optimize not just for the bots/search engines, but also for people and giving the best user experience ever on each page that exists. It's the same best practices as before, but with a shift in HOW you measure your online presence with a new focus on KPIs that tell a better story than just clicks, CTR and rankings.

Does that mean we completely ignore those "old" metrics? No, we are just adapting to the new KPIs that help us understand the general visibility of a given website or brand — wherever that visibility is showing up.

Impact on Reporting:

• Sessions appear higher than true demand

• Bounce rates look worse than actual user behavior

• Conversion rates look artificially lower

Traditional traffic metrics are becoming less reliable indicators of real performance.

Preparing For What's Next

AI platforms will continue to roll out new features that marketers need to stay on top of and evolve their efforts with (where needed) — at least for the sake of educating clients or bosses on what it all means when they look at the reports.

New features like ecommerce / shopping button on ChatGPT, and Google AI ads.

What are Google AI Ads?

You can expect Google and others to insert ads directly into AI responses, monetizing AI interactions. Ads will be triggered by semantic and topical relevance, not strict keyword matching (a.k.a. Context / Intent over Keywords). Success will rely on broad match setups and hyper-personalized creative that aligns contextually with AI-generated content (more reasons to include Broad Match & Contextual Targeting in ads). And being aware that we will lose some control over ad placement — making content quality, intent alignment, and brand authority critical to staying visible.

Ad Fraud & Bot Traffic

• 15–30% of ad spend is estimated to go to bots

• GPT may surpass Google Search traffic by 2027

Efficiency and placement strategy matter more than ever.

CTR Is No Longer the Gold Standard

Clicks don’t tell the full story.

Visibility, influence, and assisted conversions matter more in an AI-driven ecosystem.

AI Is Changing Buying Behavior

• People increasingly use AI to research and even purchase products

• Platforms like Amazon may buy on behalf of users (including non-Amazon items)

• Consumers validate purchases across multiple touchpoints (AI, social, friends, reviews, marketplaces) before converting

Result:

• Clicks may decrease, but revenue doesn’t always follow the same trend. Attribution models must evolve.

Bottom Line

• Traffic metrics are noisier.

• Zero-click behavior is rising.

• Traditional SEO still matters.

• Blogs are critical.

• Ad measurement must evolve.

• Influence now extends beyond the click.