Google’s AI

Last Tuesday, I was reviewing my analytics when something made my stomach drop. My best-performing blog post—the one that brought in 40% of my organic traffic—had lost 60% of its clicks overnight.

The culprit? Google’s AI Overview was now answering my readers’ questions directly in the search results.

Sound familiar? If you’re nodding along, you’re not alone. Thousands of content creators are watching their hard-earned traffic evaporate as AI-generated answers replace the need to visit websites. It’s frustrating, scary, and honestly? It feels unfair.

But after three months of testing, experimenting, and yes—occasionally panicking—I’ve discovered something important: this isn’t the death of content marketing. It’s actually forcing us to become better at what we should have been doing all along.

The Harsh Reality (And Why It’s Not All Bad)

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: if Google’s AI can fully answer someone’s question, maybe our content wasn’t adding enough unique value in the first place.

I know, I know. That stings. It stung when I first realized it too.

When I looked at my traffic-losing posts, they all had one thing in common—they were basically regurgitating information you could find anywhere else. Sure, I’d reorganized it and added some bullet points, but there wasn’t much of me in those pieces.

The posts that maintained their traffic? Those were different. They contained my personal experiences, my mistakes, my weird analogies that somehow made complex topics click for readers.

That’s when it hit me: AI can process information, but it can’t share the time I accidentally deleted my entire website (true story), or explain why I think most SEO advice is backwards, or tell you about the client who taught me everything I know about authentic marketing.

What I Learned From Losing (And Regaining) 50K Monthly Visitors

Three months ago, my site was pulling in about 80,000 monthly organic visitors. By June, that number had dropped to 30,000. I was ready to throw in the towel and maybe become a barista (I make excellent coffee, by the way).

Instead, I decided to treat this like the experiment it was. Here’s what actually worked:

Stop Writing for Google’s Algorithm—Start Writing for Sarah from Accounting

You know what changed everything? I started writing for specific people in my head.

Instead of targeting “small business owners,” I wrote for Sarah, who runs accounting for a mid-sized law firm and got tasked with “fixing the website” even though she’d rather be working with spreadsheets.

Instead of “content marketers,” I wrote for Mike, who’s been doing social media for his dad’s plumbing business and just realized he needs to understand SEO but finds most advice either too basic or incomprehensibly technical.

These aren’t personas from a workshop. These are real people who’ve emailed me, real problems I’ve helped solve. When you write for actual humans instead of search algorithms, something magical happens—you start including details that AI simply cannot replicate.

The “So What?” Test That Saved My Traffic

Every paragraph I write now has to pass the “So What?” test. As in, if someone read this and said “So what? I could have gotten this from ChatGPT,” then it doesn’t make the cut.

Let me show you what I mean:

Old way (AI could write this): “Content marketing is important for businesses because it helps build trust and authority with potential customers.”

New way (distinctly human): “Last month, a potential client told me she chose my services over three competitors because she’d been reading my newsletter for six months and felt like she already knew me. That’s content marketing doing its job—not just informing, but building genuine relationships.”

See the difference? The second version includes specific details, timeframes, and personal experience that AI cannot fabricate.

The Unexpected Strategy That Actually Works

Here’s something counterintuitive I discovered: the more personal and specific I got, the better my SEO became.

My post about “The Day I Lost $10K Because I Ignored My Own SEO Advice” ranks higher than any generic “SEO best practices” article I’ve ever written. Why? Because Google’s algorithm has gotten smart enough to recognize genuinely unique content.

Plus, people share personal stories. They don’t share another listicle about “10 SEO Tips.”

My New Content Framework (Tested on 47 Posts)

After all this trial and error, I developed a framework that’s helped me recover—and exceed—my original traffic levels. I’ve tested it on 47 posts over the past four months, and it works.

1. The Experience-First Approach

Every piece of content now starts with a personal anecdote, case study, or specific example. Not because it’s trendy, but because it immediately signals to both readers and search engines that this content offers something unique.

Some examples that worked:

• How I accidentally discovered the best keyword research method (while procrastinating on TikTok)
• The client who taught me why most landing pages fail
• What happened when I applied Amazon’s customer service strategy to content marketing

2. Technical SEO That Actually Matters in 2025

While everyone’s panicking about AI, the fundamentals still matter. But I’ve had to adjust my approach:

Schema markup became crucial: I’m not just adding basic article schema anymore. I’m implementing FAQ schema for every common question, How-To schema for instructional content, and author schema to establish my expertise.

Topic clusters over keywords: Instead of targeting individual keywords, I create comprehensive topic clusters. My “SEO for small business” cluster includes 12 interconnected posts that reference each other naturally.

Load speed is non-negotiable: Google’s AI might be stealing clicks, but slow sites don’t even get the chance to lose them. I keep my site under 2.5 seconds loading time, period.

3. Building Your “AI-Proof” Content Moat

Here’s what I’ve learned: certain types of content are essentially AI-proof. Focus on these:

Behind-the-scenes content: How you actually work, your process, your tools. I wrote a post about my chaotic content creation process (involving sticky notes, voice memos recorded while walking my dog, and way too much coffee) that consistently ranks and converts.

Contrarian viewpoints: AI tends toward consensus. If you have a different perspective backed by experience, share it. My post “Why I Think Most SEO Tools Are Making You Worse at SEO” performs incredibly well because it challenges common assumptions.

Community-driven insights: What are your clients, customers, or audience actually struggling with? I maintain a simple Google Doc where I jot down every interesting question someone asks me. These become content gold mines.

4. The Email List Strategy That’s Saving My Business

This might be the most important part: AI can steal search traffic, but it can’t steal your email subscribers.

I’ve become obsessed with converting visitors into subscribers. Not with annoying pop-ups, but with genuinely useful content upgrades that extend the value of each post.

For that SEO audit post? I offer a customizable audit checklist. For my content strategy articles? There’s a content calendar template. For technical tutorials? Step-by-step video walkthroughs.

My email list has grown 340% since June, and those subscribers generate more revenue than organic traffic ever did.

The Metrics That Actually Matter Now

I’ve had to completely rethink how I measure success:

Old metrics I’m de-emphasizing:

• Total organic traffic (it’s vanity if it doesn’t convert)
• Keyword rankings (less relevant when AI provides answers)
• Page views (meaningless without engagement)

New metrics I obsess over:

• Email subscribers per post
• Direct traffic growth (shows brand recognition)
• Average session duration (indicates content quality)
• Social shares and comments (proves human connection)
• Revenue per visitor (efficiency matters more than volume)

What This Means for Your Content Strategy

If you’re feeling overwhelmed, start small. Pick your three best-performing posts and ask yourself:

1. What personal experience or insight could I add?
2. What questions do people ask me about this topic that aren’t covered?
3. How can I make this more useful than an AI-generated answer?

Then rewrite those posts with your personality, experience, and unique perspective front and center.

I’m not saying this is easy. Sharing personal experiences feels vulnerable. Taking contrarian positions feels risky. Building genuine relationships takes more effort than optimizing for keywords.

But here’s what I know after four months of this new approach: my content feels more authentically mine, my audience engagement is higher than it’s ever been, and my business is more resilient to algorithm changes.

The Uncomfortable Truth About the Future

Google’s AI is only getting better. More traffic will disappear into AI-generated answers. The content that survives will be the content that provides something genuinely irreplaceable.

That something is you.

Your experience, your perspective, your way of explaining things, your mistakes and successes—these cannot be replicated by artificial intelligence.

The question is: are you brave enough to put more of yourself into your content?

Because if you are, this AI disruption might just be the best thing that ever happened to your content marketing.

I’m curious—what’s your experience been with AI search impact? Have you seen traffic drops? What’s working for you? Hit reply and let me know. I read and respond to every email, and your insights often become future content (with your permission, of course).