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Why Your SEO Isn’t Working Anymore

You check your SEO reports. Rankings look solid. The keywords you care about are still on page one. But traffic is down. And so are the leads.

When your sales team talks to prospects, they hear, “We already researched it,” but those buyers never came through your site.

Sound familiar?

The shift marketing agencies don’t want to talk about

Most searches are no longer ending with clicks. A Bain survey found that nearly 80 percent of consumers now resolve about 40 percent of their searches without visiting a website.

Think about that. Almost half the time, buyers never make it to a site. They get their answers from AI summaries and move on.

If you’re not showing up in those answers, your SEO isn’t broken. It’s invisible.

What AI tools look for

AI platforms like Google’s AI results and ChatGPT are designed to serve one thing: answers. They are pulling content that:

  • Gives a direct response in a sentence or two
  • Explains cost, trade-offs and risks clearly
  • Uses simple structure (questions, bullets, tables)
  • Matches facts across the web

In other words, the content that buyers want anyway.

A simple example

Take a plumbing company.

A homeowner types into Google, “How much does it cost to fix a leaky pipe?”

One company posts a blog with that exact title. The first paragraph says: “Fixing a leaky pipe usually costs $150 to $400, depending on the location of the pipe and labor rates.” Then it explains why the cost varies, shows photos and adds a short video.

Another company posts a 1,000-word blog on “Signs of Plumbing Problems” and never talks about cost.

Which answer do you think the AI tool will pick? Which company do you think the buyer will trust?

The pain behind this shift

  • Safety: Buyers feel exposed if they cannot get the cost and clear next steps. They leave.
  • Trust: They connect with companies that admit risks and show examples. They trust those who tell the truth.
  • Logic: They justify the decision with facts, comparisons and proof.

If your content doesn’t address all three, buyers move on.

What to do now

  1. Answer cost questions directly.
  2. Be honest about risks and who you are not a fit for.
  3. Compare options fairly, even if you are not always the winner.
  4. Use your customers’ exact questions as headlines.
  5. Keep your answers short first, then explain.

Next step

We can run a quick audit that shows whether your business is being cited in AI results today. That snapshot will tell you exactly where you are showing up, where you aren’t and what to fix. See If AI Is Mentioning My Business