Your business solves a problem; it makes sense to solve problems with blogging. When searching online, users look for answers. If they ask Google, whatever happened to white dog shit*, the answer is nearly always found in a blog, coz blogs are where websites publish helpful content.
Finding solutions.
When looking for solutions to problems, users search Google with informational search intent — intent to learn stuff. They might ask questions like why is the sky blue or why did Steven Seagal release the dancehall track, Strut? No, seriously, WHY?
“Understanding search intent sounds difficult, sounds like you might need a degree in psychology. Thankfully, you don’t. Many keyword tools reveal search intent. However, if you’ve assigned keywords to your website without understanding the motivation behind them, there’s a simple way to check you’re targeting the correct keywords…”
Your potential clients want to read about solutions you have. They’re looking for solutions centred around your expertise. They’re probably tapping queries — right now — into search engines, seeking insights. And when you brainstorm industry-based topics and research the demand for said topics, you know there’s a high probability of attracting traffic because you created blogs on said topics.
Wait, AI has bollocksed everything up.
Yep. What a doozy AI is. Continuing to solve problems with blogging means the organic traffic potential blogging once had now seems to be sailing down the shitter. It may never regain such potential again. The world’s gone AI bonkers. (Ok, the digital marketing microcosm has gone AI bonkers; Jeff down the Mucky Duck likely hasn’t gone AI bonkers. Let’s apply a little perspective here.)
Still, it’s not all bad…
“In 2025, Google continued to control roughly 90% to 91% of the global search engine market share across all devices.”
Semrush
Phew. AI hasn’t ruined Google searches. Googling reigns supreme! Business owners of websites relying on Google traffic can rest easy.
Yeah, about that…
“In the first four months of 2026, a whopping 68.01% of Google searches ended without a click.”
SparkToro
FFS.
Most answers to questions can be found immediately in the AI Overview (AIO). You might take a cursory glance at the cited source website, but why click the source when you have the answer right there on the search engine results pages? Google sure is doing us dirty, and I mean ‘not washed in weeks’, dirty.
So what are we meant to do now?
You could do one of the things Rand Fishkin of SparkToro suggests: “Invest in marketing on platforms you don’t own or control. Free yourself from the goal of directly driving traffic back to your website”, but I think that’s terrible advice. It’s certainly one strategy, but not owning or controlling a website means any investment you make can disappear if the site owner decides to pull the plug or change the rules. Yes, any risk of that strategy failing is relative to the investment made. However, publishing a few business posts on social media is all the investment I’m prepared to make on other people’s websites.
So what are we really meant to do now?
Panic? Live off grid and whittle spoons? Sacrifice a small child to appease the Google gods? All excellent suggestions, but whatever you do, don’t ditch your website just yet. Now might be a good time to sound like a wanker by saying be the reason for the click (Jesus Christ). You could start by making sure any blog snippet landing in the AIO is a joy to read, but that should be a given for any content you produce. The two reasons I click something beyond the AIO are 1) the quality and style of writing and 2) the quality of the information provided. In both cases, I’m enticed enough to find out more. But there’s also another reason I and others click a website link…
User intent determines the click.
Successfully navigating the days of ‘everything is handed to users in the SERPs now, so what’s the fucking point?’ is determined by user intent. Targeting keywords that focus on informational intent will probs result in zero clicks, so if your content strategy is heavy on informational search terms, accept that most of the content you’ve written might never see the light of day.
SIDE NOTE: If ChatGPT is blogging for you, humans not reading it is a public service.
But your website isn’t just targeting informational intent keywords. Unless you have no idea what you’re doing, your homepage and service pages target transactional and commercial user intent — intent to take action/make a purchase. Search queries with commercial and transactional user intent are less likely to be fulfilled in the search results alone. If someone wants to hire a drain specialist, no matter what sexy SERP feature Google has, that someone wants to contact a bricks-and-mortar business. Commercial and transactional queries result in a click. (And if a user lands on your homepage because of commercial/transactional intent, there’s every chance they’ll stumble upon your wonderful blog from there.)
You’re duty-bound to solve problems with blogging.
Your clients are your priority. Even if, through tear-soaked eyes, you watch the organic traffic to your blog fall to its death, content for clients is a duty of care. And I don’t just mean new potential clients. The ‘solve problems with blogging’ isn’t all ‘attracting traffic‘ shiz. Existing leads who already know you exist, likely loitering on email lists and LinkedIn, wish to greedily lap up your blog (gross). They’ve probably been eyeing you for some time (perverts). However, they need a bit more convincing. And a fresh, authentic, delightful, readable blog might be the ticket.
* White dog shit is a phenomenon of the 1970s because back then dog food manufacturers used a lot of bonemeal. Dogs couldn’t absorb the calcium in the bonemeal, so they’d shit out angel white turds.
Article first published, 20th June 2024.
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