Your website can rank well on Google and still receive fewer clicks than it used to. That is the awkward bit of the AI search conversation that business owners need to understand. It’s time to talk about SEO and AI overviews.
When Google answers a question directly in the search results, some people have less reason to visit the websites behind that answer. Your content might help someone without that person ever landing on your site.
So, should you stop investing in Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)? No. But you should stop treating a handful of rankings and a rising traffic graph as the whole strategy.
A useful content strategy needs to do three jobs: help customers discover your business, give them a reason to trust you, and make the next step towards buying easier. AI Overviews make that distinction harder to ignore.
What are AI Overviews, and why should your business care?
AI Overviews are Google’s AI-generated summaries that appear for some searches, alongside links to supporting websites. AI Mode offers a more conversational search experience for questions that need further exploration or comparison.
Google says these features can run several related searches to build an answer. Your opportunity therefore extends beyond matching one exact keyword: useful content can address the related questions behind a customer’s decision. Inclusion is not guaranteed.
For a business owner, the important question is what happens after your information appears.
If someone searches for a simple definition, the summary may give them everything they need.
If they need to compare suppliers, understand a detailed quote or assess whether a service suits their situation, there may still be a good reason to visit a website.
That is where your content needs to earn its keep.
What the research says about clicks
An Ahrefs study published in February 2026 analysed 300,000 keywords using aggregated desktop Google Search Console data. It found that AI Overviews were associated with a 58% lower average click-through rate for the top-ranking page, relative to its modelled comparison.
The analysis compared December 2023 with December 2025 and included informational keywords with and without AI Overviews. That does not mean your website will lose 58% of its traffic. It is a finding about a particular dataset and method, not a forecast for every business.
Pew Research Center offers another view. In research using browsing data from 900 US adults in March 2025, users clicked a traditional search result in 8% of visits with an AI summary, compared with 15% without one. Links inside the summaries received clicks in just 1% of visits with a summary. This was a US study, not a South African benchmark.
Our takeaway: being visible and earning a visit are different outcomes. Your reporting and content plan should recognise both.
Stop building your strategy around a few big keywords
There is nothing wrong with targeting popular search terms. The problem starts when most of your content budget goes towards a few broad phrases, with little thought about what those visitors actually need.
Take a South African business selling water filtration systems. “Water filters” might attract attention. But a potential customer could also ask:
- Which system suits borehole water?
- What should I test before choosing a filter?
- What does installation include?
- How often will I need replacement cartridges?
- What will the system cost to maintain?
Those questions expose concerns that a generic product overview, whether as part of a regional SEO or e-commerce SEO approach, will struggle to answer.
Start with your sales team, customer service inbox and quotation requests. List the questions people ask before buying, the misunderstandings that delay decisions and the reasons prospects choose another supplier. Then use keyword research to check how those needs show up in search.
Search volume helps you prioritise. It should not be allowed to overrule common sense.
Build content around the whole buying decision
A comprehensive content strategy gives customers useful information as their needs develop. It does not mean publishing a blog about everything vaguely connected to your industry.
Focus on three practical stages:
1. Help people understand the problem
Explain symptoms, causes, terminology and common mistakes. An IT provider might explain why a growing business keeps losing access to shared files and what to check before replacing its systems. This content can introduce your expertise, even when the reader is not ready to request a quote.
2. Help people compare their options
Publish comparisons, cost explanations and suitability guides. Tell readers when an option makes sense and when it does not. A window supplier, for example, could explain how glass choice, frame specification and installation affect a quote. “Our windows are high quality” gives a buyer very little to work with. Explaining what to check in competing quotes is useful.
3. Help people choose a supplier
Provide service details, project examples, delivery information, warranties and a clear explanation of what happens after an enquiry. A person ready to buy should not have to read six blog posts to discover whether you serve their area. Connect these pages with relevant internal links.
A guide should lead naturally to a comparison or service page when that is the reader’s next question. Avoid sprinkling links everywhere simply because someone said internal linking is good for SEO.
Publish information your business is qualified to add
If your article repeats the same points as every other article, why should a customer choose yours?
Your advantage is the knowledge inside your business: problems you have solved, questions you hear repeatedly and details that only become obvious through doing the work.
Useful material could include:
- A project case study explaining the problem, constraints, solution and outcome.
- A pricing guide showing what changes the cost and what is excluded.
- Original photographs demonstrating an installation or repair.
- A comparison based on products your team has actually used.
- A checklist that helps a buyer prepare for a consultation.
For a South African audience, add local context when it changes the advice (that’s what local SEO is all about). Service coverage, climate, delivery arrangements and installation conditions may matter. Adding “South Africa” to the heading is not the same as making the article locally useful.
Google’s content guidance encourages original information, first-hand expertise and value beyond summarising other sources. It also makes clear that Google has no preferred word count.
Write enough to solve the reader’s problem. Padding is still padding, even when it comes with subheadings.
Make answers easy to find and understand
Busy readers should not have to excavate your article to find the answer promised by its title.
Use descriptive headings. Answer the question early, then explain the conditions, exceptions and evidence. Use a table when people need to compare options and numbered steps when the order matters.
Suppose you are explaining installation costs. Start with the factors that affect the price: dimensions, materials, access, labour and finishing. If you provide a range, explain the assumptions and when it was checked.
This structure helps readers evaluate the information. Treat it as good communication, not a guaranteed formula for getting cited by AI.
Keep claims close to their qualifications. “This system suits borehole water” needs an explanation of the water conditions it can handle, not a disclaimer buried three screens further down.
Keep the SEO basics working
Google’s guidance says there are no extra technical requirements or special schema needed for AI Overviews or AI Mode. A supporting page must be indexed and eligible to appear in search with a snippet.
Before commissioning more content, ask your SEO team to check whether your important pages can be accessed, discovered and used properly.
Can customers read them comfortably on a phone? Do relevant pages link to each other? Is essential information available as text? Do enquiry forms work? Are key service details accurate?
A brilliant buying guide attached to a broken enquiry form is an expensive way to frustrate a potential customer.
Give people a reason to visit, and a useful next step
A short summary can answer a basic question. Your website should offer something worth exploring further.
That might be a detailed case study, a product selector, a cost calculator, a specification sheet or a practical assessment checklist. Choose the format because it helps the customer make a decision, not because your content calendar needs variety. Then match the next step to the page.
A reader learning about a problem may appreciate a checklist. Someone comparing options may want a suitability assessment. A visitor on a service page may be ready to book a consultation or request a quote.
Explain what happens next: what information you need, whether there is a fee and how the process works. “Contact us” is functional. A clear expectation is more persuasive.
Use AI to help your team, with human judgement in charge
AI can help organise customer questions, identify gaps in a draft and turn approved material into different formats. That can save time.
The weak approach is asking it to produce twenty generic articles and publishing them before anyone checks the details. You have increased output. You have not necessarily increased value.
Give the writer or tool useful source material: verified product information, subject expert notes, real examples and the questions your customers ask. Have someone who understands the topic review the result.
Check statistics, dates, specifications and any claims about your business. Never invent a case study or customer result to make an article sound authoritative.
Your content should still be useful if the reader finds it through an email, a sales conversation or a direct link. That is a much better test than whether it sounds impressively optimised.
Measure whether content helps the business
Track rankings and traffic, but connect them to qualified enquiries, bookings, sales and the quality of leads.
As a hypothetical example, 2,000 monthly visits generating 40 qualified enquiries may be more valuable than 5,000 visits generating 20. The commercial value of those enquiries matters too.
Review performance by page and purpose. Separate branded searches from searches by people who have not yet chosen your business. Compare similar periods and account for seasonality.
Google Search Console now includes a Generative AI Performance Report, which shows impressions from AI Overviews and AI Mode. You can use it to monitor your AI-enhanced SEO approach and see which pages are appearing in Google’s AI search features and track visibility over time. However, that visibility should still be assessed separately from business outcomes: appearing in an AI-generated answer does not necessarily mean it resulted in a website visit, enquiry or sale.
If clicks fall while rankings hold steady, inspect the search results and investigate. AI summaries may be involved, but changing demand, competitors, ads and other search features can also affect performance.
A practical 90-day content plan
Days 1 to 30: Find the gaps.
Review your important service pages and existing articles. Identify outdated information, overlapping pages, unanswered buyer questions and content that attracts visitors but produces little useful action. Choose one commercially important service to focus on first.
Days 31 to 60: Improve the decision journey.
Strengthen that service page. Update a useful existing guide, add a comparison or cost explanation, and publish a genuine project example. Link them where the connection helps the reader. Check the enquiry process and conversion tracking.
Days 61 to 90: Review and refine.
Look at search performance, qualified enquiries and feedback from your sales team. Are prospects better informed? Are the right people enquiring? Fix what is getting in their way and use the findings to plan the next topic. Ninety days is a useful working cycle, not a promise of ranking gains. Some effects take longer to assess.
Build content that helps customers choose
AI Overviews create a real challenge for businesses relying on clicks from easily summarised information. Publishing more of the same is unlikely to fix that weakness.
Build a content strategy around the decisions your customers need to make. Answer their questions, show your experience, explain the trade-offs and give them a clear route to the next step.
We can help you review how your SEO and content strategy support those decisions, from discovery through to enquiry. Get in touch to discuss which pages need attention, where the gaps are and what deserves your budget.
Your customers have decisions to make. Give them something useful to work with.
