Every few months, a new wave of panic rolls through the online business world claiming SEO is dead — and AI overviews are the latest reason why. But before you scrap your content strategy, it’s worth looking at what the data actually says. The picture is a lot more nuanced than the headlines suggest, and for service providers, the opportunity might be bigger than you think.
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Blogging and SEO Are Dead Again
Rumor has it, blogging and SEO are dead again. I feel like this happens constantly — every few years before, and now it feels like every few months. We have seen so much information spread around about marketing, but specifically SEO, blogging, and AI search, whatever you want to call it: AEO, GEO, LMO, whatever.
Today, I want to narrow in on one specific thing: how AI overviews come into play in your content strategy, and what it means for whether your SEO or AI ranking strategy is even worth it. To be fair, there is data showing that people are clicking through to websites less often because they can get the answers they need in the AI overview. I’m not going to sit here and tell you nothing has changed.
I am a data girly, though, and I did bring some information that I think you as a small business owner should know. Too often online, we skip all the nuance and jump from “Google is sending fewer clicks” to “blogging and SEO do not work anymore.” Those are two very different statements, and I don’t like either of them.
What AI Overviews Actually Are
I think we’ve all heard the claims that SEO is dead, especially since AI overviews started appearing in Google results. Now Google has a whole AI mode, so I understand why people are worried. The way people search is changing, and I think there are too many people digging their heels in saying nothing’s changing — in my opinion, that is not the move.
If you’re not sure what I mean by AI overviews: when you type in a search and there’s that AI blurb at the top, that’s it. Google now answers many questions directly at the top of the results and will often cite websites and explain its sources. However, it also means anyone can get an answer without visiting the website that helped provide it.
For those of us who have been blogging for a long time — and specifically for informational sites — this is a huge issue. It is incredibly annoying that people have poured labor, money, and more into their content marketing, only to have those answers scraped and served up to whoever searches. That’s genuinely frustrating, and we have to work with what we’ve got.
I also think as a user of Google, AI search is incredibly convenient. I love that I don’t necessarily have to go to a website. When I think about how many searches I make every single day, so many of them would never lead to a business getting business from me — just random thoughts, like what’s the weather in Portugal in May 2027. If you’re an informational site monetizing page views, it’s a bit different, because you’re losing out on ad revenue. But for most of us, AI overviews do improve the user experience.
Zero Click Searches Predate AI Overviews
One piece of data I wanted to bring you comes from SparkToro’s 2024 study, which found that 58.5% of US Google searches ended without a click. I want to clarify that zero-click searches have existed long before AI overviews. A zero-click search simply means you Googled something and didn’t follow through to a website.
Think about every time you Googled a restaurant just to get the address, or looked up a phone number, or checked the weather. Who hasn’t typed a math problem directly into Google and let it populate the answer? I feel like I do the US dollars to Canadian dollars conversion about 85 times a week.
While 60% of searches never leaving Google sounds like a big number, when you consider how many of those are essentially nothing searches — searches that wouldn’t affect us as small businesses anyway — it’s really not that much. I’m speaking mostly to service providers here, not to businesses built around page views, ad revenue, or affiliates. That’s a different conversation, and those businesses probably have a bit more to be concerned about.
Search Volume Is Still Growing Enormously
For service providers, we’re not trying to monetize every website visit. We’re just trying to get found by people who might hire us. And in that case, Google is still enormous, and search demand isn’t disappearing.
In 2022, estimates put Google at approximately 5.5 billion searches per day. By 2025, some estimates put that number closer to 17 billion searches per day — almost three times more. So even if we lose 60% of that bigger number, we’re still working with three times the search volume that existed just a few years ago.
I don’t believe 2026 numbers have been released yet, otherwise I’d bring them here. But the point is, that is an enormous amount of search activity, and even a much smaller percentage of people clicking through to websites still represents significant potential traffic.
In fact, Google itself has reported an increase in commercial queries since introducing AI overviews. Commercial queries, just as a quick FYI, are the search terms that actually make you money — things like “best Showit website designer for wedding pros,” “Showit versus Squarespace,” or “so-and-so family photographer review.” Those are the kinds of searches Google is seeing more of since introducing AI overviews, which I find really interesting.
People are trusting Google and turning to it every time they have to make a decision about anything. So when I hear “SEO is dead,” I want to back up for a second. We’re talking about an enormous market with a ton of potential. Dead for who? There are billions of people still searching every single day — and some small but large-enough percentage of them are looking for exactly what you sell.
Not Every Search Is Equally Valuable
Most of us are not trying to get to 10,000, 20,000, or 50,000 page views every single month. Not every Google search is equally valuable. Someone Googling “what is a wedding planner” might get everything they need from an AI overview. Someone searching “how much does a wedding planner cost” might get a rough answer and move on — or might take another step to read a blog where someone has broken down everything for them.
Maybe their search journey starts in the AI overview, but it certainly does not end there. When writing blogs for clients, the goal is to look at both informational and commercial intent. For informational topics, the largest possible search volume isn’t necessarily the target. It’s about what searches people are doing before they hire someone or before they purchase something.
It feels cliché at this point, but it really is the situation where you’d rather have a hundred people reading your blog who are considering hiring you than 10,000 people who just need the quickest answer.
On the topic of AI overviews and their effect on website traffic: Pew Research Center found that only 6% of Americans who encounter AI search summaries trust them a lot. Most people treat them as a quick answer, not a final one. Before taking action, they do the research.
Lots of people find AI useful, but most are gearing toward using it as a starting point rather than trusting it to guide an expensive or personal decision with no further research. AI is definitely making generic information less valuable, but it is not making expertise less valuable. If anything, it makes it more important to show people what you actually know.
Making Content Harder to Replace
When writing, the goal is to include firsthand stories, real client examples, original photos and portfolio pieces. Every piece should have a specific opinion or recommendation, some behind-the-scenes detail about how someone actually works, and a perspective that isn’t interchangeable with every other website.
In a blogging membership where clients filled out a form to receive a blog post, one of the questions asked was: what unique perspective do you have about this topic? In the video explaining how to fill out the form, the answer was clear — that is the most important question on the whole thing.
What you’re going to get is an AI-assisted blog, but in order for it to rank and do something for you, it needs to be more than what ChatGPT would produce on a first draft with no context. You have to give it context.
There’s also a hesitation that sometimes comes up, particularly in the luxury space: a reluctance to invest in informational content because it feels like DIY content doesn’t suit a high-end clientele. But a recent client in the wedding industry shared that someone had just inquired with a multi–six-figure budget. That person said, “Thank you so much for your website. It’s been such a good resource for us as we started the planning process, but we’re just ready to hand it over now.”
That is a luxury client. And that story illustrates something important: just because people have money does not mean they want to hand it over without doing their homework. So many people love researching.
A lot of people, in the early stages of something exciting — a wedding, a home design project, a new business — want to research. And the first person they find who has the information they’re looking for is the person they feel most connected to and eager to work with. That kind of value is hard to quantify.
What Blogs Are Actually Doing for Your Business
When watching whether a blog is “doing well,” the typical markers are rank position, impressions, and clicks. But what’s more valuable is whether a blog is helping people make buying decisions. A blog does not have to be the first thing someone finds to be one of the reasons they hire you — although it absolutely can be.
The gold star scenario is someone saying, “I found you on Google, binged a bunch of blog posts, and then reached out knowing I had to hire you.” That’s the dream. But equally valuable is someone who found a business on Instagram, headed to the website, and then referenced something specific a blog post said. Giving people something to dive deeper into is just as powerful.
What to Change About Your Blogging Strategy
The first shift is to be more selective about topics. Search intent matters enormously. That said, this is not an argument against informational blog posts — just an argument for specificity. If Google can completely answer a question in two sentences, skip that topic. But keep the informational posts centered around questions people ask when they’re considering hiring someone like you.
The second shift is to make the content harder to replace with a generic AI answer. In every blog post, include things you’ve actually done, things you’ve seen clients do, specific examples, opinions, and original photography or real work. And explain why you’re saying something or recommending something — not just what it is. Don’t make your point and leave it there.
The third shift is to connect every blog to your overall marketing purpose. Run it through this lens: Does it attract the right person? Does it answer a question that could be preventing someone from hiring me? Does it show off my expertise? Does it lead naturally to an offer? Would it be useful to someone who was referred and wanted to learn more? Those are the blog posts that perform well on Google and as conversion pieces.
Rethinking Benchmarks and Publishing Frequency
When it comes to benchmarks, impressions, rankings, and clicks still matter because those things happen first. Moving from position 45 to position 13 may not change the number in your bank account immediately, but it is a huge win. Early markers of success are worth tracking.
However, at a certain point, the more valuable signals are inquiries, bookings, and real conversations. If someone says they found you online, follow up: Did you read a blog? Was there anything on the website that led you to reach out? Taking that extra step is huge.
As for publishing frequency, not every business needs to post a blog every single day. The general recommendation is about four posts a month, or weekly. Twice a month is a reasonable minimum. Some people see success with once a month posts, and that’s great — each post stands on its own. More content means more opportunities to rank. But the quality-versus-quantity conversation is real.
Stop publishing AI-generated posts straight out of ChatGPT with no perspective and no added context. That content will simply get scooped up by AI overviews and do nothing for you.
The Opportunity Is Enormous
Having a blog just to have a blog is becoming less and less valuable. It has to be strategic. A solid library of content — thought leadership pieces, answers to client questions, content that shows people why they should trust you — is incredibly valuable. That kind of content gets picked up on Google. Paying attention to search intent, writing about questions people have before they hire someone: that is not going away.
For service providers, the opportunity right now is enormous. People are not just searching for information — they are overwhelmed by information. They want someone to break it down for them, to give them a clear path, a simple path. People want the five-step version, not the 500-page version.
People are still hiring people. The goal is to make sure your clients are the ones they find.
Want Strategic Blog Posts That Actually Rank?
If this got you thinking about your own content strategy, I can help. I write SEO blog posts for service providers who want to show up in search, build trust with the right clients, and turn readers into inquiries — even in a world shaped by AI overviews. Reach out if you’re ready to make your blog work harder for your business.
- Read the full shownotes: https://thekarareport.com/140
- My private podcast on search-driven marketing: https://thekarareport.com/private-podcast
- SparkToro Research: https://sparktoro.com/blog/2024-zero-click-search-study-for-every-1000-us-google-searches-only-374-clicks-go-to-the-open-web-in-the-eu-its-360/
- Pew study: http://pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/07/22/google-users-are-less-likely-to-click-on-links-when-an-ai-summary-appears-in-the-results/
- Learn more about working with our team: https://thekarareport.com/services
- Follow me on Instagram: https://instagram.com/thekarareport
