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Having “only” lost 40% you’re doing well compared to a lot of sites as many have lost 60-100% of their organic Google search traffic.
Search clicks are down 40-90% across the board, AI Chatbots do everything in their power to make it close to impossible for anyone to click anywhere, social media supresses links and operates a walled garden approach, more people than ever use video and short form content for their informational searches and the average person who’s doomscrolling on TikTok mindlessly watching a video isn’t going to come out of the App to go click a link and head over to a content website to READ information.
It really doesn’t leave many useful traffic sources for the traditional content site now.
Some people manage to find a way with Pinterest and Facebook Pages but that depends on the niche / site type and at some point they’ll clamp back down on that / change the algo. Facebook has been up and down for years in terms of how good it is for publishers and how much traffic it sends but always eventually throttles links again) and Pinterest has become flooded with low quality AI slop and spam.
I hear some people are still doing OK with Flipboard but I’ve not explored that site for years now.
Really we either need to accept this is the new search landscape and AI Answers are going to be the way it is going forward and probably will expand over time as Google does everything to keep people in their own ecosystem or to a select few publishers that they can benefit from in some way so there’s just going to be a LOT less clicks or we move to new publishing models that have a multichannel approach of a blog, social media content, and video content.
Pivoting to an email newsletter is also an option and using audience swaps and paid ads to grow your existing audience further.
Keep in mind also that many of the social platforms now have ways to monetize – Facebook Parter & Bonus Programs, Google Adsense with Youtube, TikTok Partner Program & TikTok shop etc so there can potentially be a direct reward from publishing on these platforms too rather than just sharing your content.
But its definitely going to be harder than ever IMO for anyone starting from scratch to build an audience via a blog and a struggle for existing bloggers to keep growing their audience unless we really adapt and are williing to change focus and grow audience individually on seperate platforms.
