It’s not just you
If your website traffic dropped this year and you’ve spent a week poking at settings trying to find what broke, this one’s for you. Some of what you’re seeing is the whole internet, and some of it might be your site. Here’s how to tell the difference and what to do about both.
When you search on Google now, there’s often an AI-written answer sitting at the top of the page before a single website shows up. Google calls these AI Overviews. People read the answer, get what they needed, and never click through to anyone’s site.
Seer Interactive, a search marketing agency that tracks this closely, looked at informational searches (the “how do I” and “what is” kind). When an AI Overview showed up, the share of people clicking through to a website fell from 1.76% to 0.61% between mid-2024 and September 2025. That’s roughly two out of every three clicks gone.
It doesn’t hit every business the same way, though. First Page Sage’s 2026 report found media and publishing sites lost about 47% of their search traffic, while local service businesses lost closer to 7%. So if you run a local practice and your traffic fell off a cliff, Google’s AI probably isn’t the whole story, and it’s worth checking your own house first.
Part 1: Getting found
First, make sure it’s not you
Start in Google Search Console, the free tool from Google that shows how often your site appears in search results and how often people click. Compare the four weeks before your update to the four weeks after. If you’re showing up just as often but fewer people click, that’s the AI shift. If you stopped showing up, something on your site changed.
While you’re in there, check that Google Analytics is still connected. Sometimes traffic didn’t drop at all, the tracking code just didn’t make it into the new version of the site.
If you updated or redesigned recently, go through this list:
Page addresses that changed. If yoursite.com/services became yoursite.com/work-with-me, Google is still sending people to the old address, which now goes nowhere. Set up a redirect so the old address forwards to the new one (on Squarespace this lives under URL Mappings).
SEO titles and descriptions. These are the blue headline and the two lines under it in Google’s results. New or duplicated pages often lose them without you noticing.
Hidden pages. Check that no page is set to hide from search engines or still sitting behind a password from when you were building it.
Words you cut. A cleaner page is great, but if you removed the paragraph that mentioned “anxiety therapy for teens,” Google stopped connecting you to that search.
Tell Google about the new version. If your site isn’t connected to Search Console yet, connect it (Squarespace and most platforms walk you through it). Then submit your sitemap, the list of every page on your site, which Squarespace keeps at yoursite.com/sitemap.xml. For your most important pages, paste each address into the inspection bar at the top of Search Console and click Request Indexing. None of this pushes you up the rankings, it just makes sure Google isn’t working from an old copy of your site.
One bit of tough love here: change one thing at a time. If you change twelve things in a week and traffic comes back, you’ll never know which one worked. Google also takes a few weeks to re-read a redesigned site, so give it time before you start panic-editing.
SEO that doesn’t wreck the experience
A lot of DIY SEO makes a site worse to use. Keywords jammed into every sentence, headings that read like search terms, paragraphs of filler written to hit a word count, a pop-up before anyone has read a line. Google’s whole job is sending people to pages they like, so a page people hate won’t hold its ranking for long anyway.
The basics help Google and your visitor at the same time. Give each page one clear topic and a title that says what it is. Break it up with real headings. Name your images what they are (not IMG_4482.jpg) and add alt text, the short written description that screen readers and Google both use. Then open your site on your phone and make sure it loads fast, because that’s where most people will see it first.
Blog what AI can’t write for you
The searches losing the most clicks are the ones small businesses have been blogging about for years. “What is EMDR.” “How to choose a paint colour.” Google’s AI answers those at the top of the page now, for free, so another post explaining them won’t move much.
What AI can’t answer is you. Your opinion, your process, what you see in your clients, what you’d tell a friend over coffee. Start with the questions clients ask you on consult calls. If you answer it every week, it’s a blog post, and it gives Google and AI tools something specific to point to when someone asks for a recommendation.
Lifelines that don’t depend on Google
Your email list. No algorithm sits between you and those people. Every email should send them to one specific page, a new post or your services page.
Google Business Profile. For a local business this is often the first thing people see, sometimes before your website. Keep your hours, services and photos current, and ask happy clients for reviews.
Instagram. Link to the exact page you’re talking about, not just your homepage. Every extra tap loses people.
Other sites that link to you. Directories in your industry, partners you refer to, podcasts, local features. Every one is another way in that has nothing to do with where you rank.
Traffic is only half of it
Most SEO advice stops right there, and that’s the problem, because getting someone to your site was never the finish line.
Think of SEO as the sign on the highway and your brand as what people see when they pull into the parking lot. A great sign gets them off the highway, and if the building looks closed, they pull right back out.
For years, plenty of businesses got away with a tired website because enough people visited that a few booked anyway. With fewer clicks, every visitor counts more. Get half the visitors and have twice as many of them book, and you’re even. Get half the visitors with a site that still sounds like everyone else’s, and you’re losing on both ends.
The two halves feed each other, too. Reviews, a clear message and being known for one specific thing also help Google and AI tools figure out who you are and when to recommend you.
Part 2: Getting chosen
Draw your line in the sand
AI is writing a lot of the websites and Instagram captions in your industry right now, and they’re starting to sound identical. Same soft promises, same “we meet you where you are,” same headline that could belong to anyone. “Compassionate care for your wellbeing” could be a therapist, a dentist or a vet. When a visitor can’t tell three sites apart, they pick on price or whoever’s closest.
Clear messaging and positioning is how you get out of that pile. Someone landing on your homepage should know within a few seconds what you do, who it’s for and what to do next. Then go further, and say what you believe that others in your field won’t say out loud, how you work, and who you’re not the right fit for. That’s your line in the sand.
Some people will read it and realize you’re not for them, and that’s a gift to both of you. The ones who are a fit read it and feel like you wrote it about them. They come to the first call already leaning your way, you stop spending consults convincing people who were never going to be a good fit, and you become the obvious choice for the right people.
Write it in your own words
AI is a great tool in the hands of someone who knows what good copy looks like, because they can spot the generic parts and fix them. If marketing isn’t your area, you can’t, and the generic version goes live. That’s how all that careful positioning ends up sounding like everyone else again.
If you’re not a copywriter, your own slightly clumsy words will do more for you than a polished version that sounds like nobody. People book people. Best case scenario, you hire people like us to do the heavy work for you.
The easiest way to start: pick the five questions clients ask you most. Answer each one out loud into your phone, like you’re talking to a client across the table, then transcribe it. Tidy it up lightly (don’t sand off the parts that sound like you) and you have the start of your FAQ page, a blog post and a few captions, all in your voice.
Use real photos
Stock photos of smiling strangers at laptops tell your visitor nothing about what it’s like to work with you. Show your space, your face and your work. Even a good phone photo of you in your actual office beats a beautiful stranger.
Make it easy to book
Open your site on your phone and try to book yourself. If it takes more than a couple of taps to find your services and the booking button, fix that first. A menu with eleven items or a contact form with fourteen fields is doing the same thing a closed sign does.
You need both
In 2026 you can’t lean on one half to cover for the other. Strong SEO with a forgettable brand sends people to a site they leave, and a beautiful brand nobody can find is a well-kept secret.
If you’re not sure which half is costing you, that’s what our free Brand & Website Audit looks at. We go through your brand, your site and your search visibility and I share with you what we’d fix first, including the pieces you can absolutely handle yourself.
