For a long time, SEO was the simplest marketing equation:
- Top rank → Get more traffic → Fill the sales funnel
To the dismay of marketing executives, that linear world is rapidly evolving.
Between AI overviews, zero click SERPs, and users getting answers directly from LLMs, the old equation of “getting traffic and leads” fails.
Today, holding a top keyword tends to generate far fewer clicks than it did two years ago.
This forced many uncomfortable discussions in the meeting rooms. CMOs and CEOs are looking at traffic dashboards and asking tough questions, especially:
- “If traffic is low … how do we know SEO is really working?”
The answer forces us to face a hard truth: The traffic model has collapsed, but managers still want measurable ROI.
We have to stop treating SEO like a traffic faucet and start treating it like what it really is: a product-dependent performance channel.
Why traffic and pipes are no longer blocked
A linear attribute never fully captures the reality of organic search.
ChatGPT does not replace Google; rather, it increases its use.
And that’s because users are skeptical about search results and LLM, so they need to verify the information they get from both platforms.
In the past, the search loop happened within the Google ecosystem (clicking back and forth between results).
Today, organic search behaves like a pinball machine. Consumers jump across channels and social media in ways that attribution software can’t track.
The user can find the answer in the AI Overview, verify it on Reddit, check the comparison of the competitor on the G2, and finally convert days later with a direct visit.
This complex broke the hungry marketing executives.
In the past, if you covered traffic and pipeline charts, the lines ran together. Now, they are often separated.
Across B2B SaaS portfolios, I see a consistent pattern:
- Organic sessions are flat or declining year on year.
- Levels of high objective goals remain stable.
- Pipelines and inbound demos from organic search are increasing.
Dig deeper: How do you define flat traffic when SEO actually works
This difference does not mean that SEO fails. It means that traffic is no longer a reliable proxy for business impact.
The traffic that is lost to zero-click searches is usually informative and of low intent. The traffic that remains has high intent and is close to converting.
We are seeing the “atomization” of search demand.
As Kevin Indig notes in his analysis of The Great Decoupling, the need for short, broad keywords has declined forever.
Users can bypass the AI search entirely, or refine their queries to specific, long-tail queries with low volume but high intent.
The “fat head” of search – the generic terms that used to drive the most vanity traffic – is being eaten by AI. The long tail is where the pipe sits.
The mistake many leaders make is to see the times going down and push to “get the numbers back.”
But chasing lost clicks often leads to publishing broad, top-of-the-funnel content that increases session counts (and other vanity metrics) without driving qualified leads.
Dig deeper: How to align your SEO strategy with buyer intent categories
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SEO ROI is now a downstream effect of product performance
This is where the argument between “product” and “performance” breaks down.
For ten years, SEO has made itself the purest performance channel.
We convinced ourselves that if we just developed H1s and built enough backlinks, we could scale anything.
We treat brand awareness as a nice bonus, but not a requirement.
In fact, SEO has always been about branding. AI links simply reveal that fact.
The rise of LLM-based search has investigated the script. These engines don’t just match keywords and pages; they put together a reputation.
When LLM creates an answer, it wants to be validated across the web:
- What are real customers saying on G2 and Reddit?
- Is the product cited in professional, unaffiliated content?
- Is the product mentioned next to the category leaders?
You cannot brute force these results using SEO techniques.
If your brand doesn’t have digital authority, no amount of technical development will save you. That’s why I call this performance brand-conditioned.
It means that the power of your product puts a ceiling on your environmental performance. You will no longer be able to improve a weak reputation.
Search engines look for consistency across the web, and if the market hasn’t integrated your product and solution, the algorithm won’t recommend it.
So, what does brand strength mean for LLM? In this new environment, the product’s power is composed of four direct signals:
- Title authority: Do you own a complete concept map of your industry, or just a few disconnected keywords?
- Alignment of ideal customer profile (ICP).: Do you answer specific, complex questions asked by your real customers, or do you publish general explanations?
- Confirmation: Have you cited sources that describe the class used by LLMs as training data?
- To be clear: Can AI clearly summarize what you do? As Indig points out, “A vague shape is skipped; a sharp point is quoted.”
Bottom line: SEO doesn’t create demand out of thin air. It captures the need that your product is already certified.
Dig deeper: The new need for SEO: Building your brand
New security metrics for SEO
When traffic stops being a KPI topic, leadership still needs proof that SEO is working.
Strong teams pursue in defensible signals that track revenue and reputation rather than just volume.
We need to focus on metrics that prove business impact, or the highest paying sessions:
- Top 10 sales positions and BOFU keywords remain stable. (He holds the position where money changes hands).
- The amount of Ahrefs traffic is increasing, even if the times are decreasing. (You trade high volume informational traffic for high value sales traffic).
- Product, solution, and page traffic comparisons are stable. (Consumers still find your money pages).
- Homepage traffic is growing YoY. (A very powerful proxy for product demand).
- LLM referral traffic is emerging and fast. (It’s a very new frontier. Tracking referral sources from ChatGPT, Gemini, or Perplexity shows that you’re part of a new conversation, even if the volume is currently low.)
- Inbound demos and pipeline from natural growth related traffic.
That last point is what changes executive thinking.
When you show that the pipeline per visitor is increasing – or times are falling – the conversation shifts from “SEO is broken” to “SEO is improving.”
Dig deep: Why AI discovery is the new battleground for brands
Modern SEO is moving from buying to influencing
The most successful SEO teams no longer ask, “How do we get traffic back?”
They understand that the game has changed from acquisition to influence.
They ask:
- How does our product appear in purchasing questions?
- How do we manage the questions of the reasoning stage?
- How do you turn organic visibility into real buying influence?
They realize that in an AI-first world, zero clicks mean zero value.
If a user sees your product ranked first in AI Overview, reads a snippet that positions you as an expert, and remembers you when they’re ready to buy – SEO has done its job.
SEO is no longer a cheap traffic hack; it is the main way brands position the market to buy.
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