How to handle falling website traffic in 2026

Feb 26, 2026

Ryan Law, Director of Content Marketing at Ahrefs, brings research-led SEO and content strategy chops. He breaks down how AI overviews are slashing clicks and which search intents still hold up. Short wins include content refreshing, title tests, and filling topic gaps. He also explains scoring topics by business potential and platform-native social tactics like LinkedIn PDFs and carousels.

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ANECDOTE

Ahrefs Blog Saw Months Of Falling Organic Clicks

Ryan shares Ahrefs blog's steady monthly decline in organic clicks and the shift to direct traffic becoming the primary source.
Despite high domain authority, experienced authors, and editorial rigor, organic clicks fell almost every month over two years.

INSIGHT

Informational Queries Bear The Brunt

AI overviews disproportionately affect informational queries; commercial, transactional, and local searches are less impacted.
AI overviews appear for ~60% of question queries and nearly half of long (7+ word) queries.

INSIGHT

AI Search Sends Almost No Direct Traffic

Traditional search still drives far more website traffic than AI search.
Ahrefs data: ~41% of traffic comes from traditional search, while AI search sends only ~0.26% of traffic across tracked sites.

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Website traffic is down. AI Overviews are answering questions before anyone clicks. For marketers who have relied on search for growth, this feels unsettling.In this session, Ryan Law (director of content marketing, Ahrefs) joins Joe to break down what’s driving the decline (hello AI overviews), what’s still working, and the practical moves to make right now - from content refreshing to business potential, research-led content, and platform-native social distribution.Key topics include:- Why AI overviews can cut click-through rate even when you rank number one- How to prioritise content refreshing and spot pages that are quietly bleeding traffic- Title tests, keyword tweaks, and filling topic gaps to improve rankings and clicks- Using business potential to choose topics that naturally lead to your product- The three content archetypes performing best right now research thought leadership trending topics- Social distribution tactics that drive reach without forcing people off platform⸻Timestamps:00:00 The state of website traffic in 202607:00 The real impact of AI Overviews13:00 Content refreshing strategies22:00 Scoring topics by business potential26:00 Research and thought leadership32:00 Social distribution and LinkedIn tactics38:00 Q&A and practical advice⸻Watch / listen:Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/marketing-meetup-podcast/id1365546447Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5QvmFdxg5pMwsfPkKjhXl9⸻Please take the time to check out our partners, all of whom we work with because we think they’re useful companies for lovely marketers.Frontify – All your brand assets in one place: Frontify combines DAM, brand guidelines, and templates into a collaborative source of brand truth.Mailchimp - The all-in-one marketing platform that helps teams turn emails, automation, and now SMS into smarter, more connected customer journeys (and they’ve been longtime friends of TMM!).Cambridge Marketing College – The best place to get your marketing qualifications and apprenticeships.Planable – the content collaboration platform that helps marketing teams create, plan, review, and approve all their awesome marketing content.Wistia – a complete video marketing platform that helps teams create, host, market, and measure their videos and webinars, all in one place.