Don't ask me why I go into these rabbit holes. I just do.

And so I spent a day looking at what's happening with the traffic to 50 different therapy websites. I was planning to review just a handful but then I started seeing a trend that made me go deeper.

What I saw were three patterns across all the websites:

1. Organic traffic has decreased in virtually all of them in the past 6 months.
2. Every one of these websites was still using what I think of as the 2024 SEO playbook: creating lots of content and service pages to target as many relevant search terms as possible.
3. AI overviews on Google search understood what most practices were about, but didn't show a clear reason to choose them.

The thing that stood out to me about AI overviews is the understanding of practices' functionalities, such as methodology, hours, fees, and specialties. But the distinctiveness of each practice wasn't showing up.

Here's why it matters

When a searcher uses Google to find a practice for their needs, AI overviews aggregate all the information available for each practice, and groups all the options in one overview. So a searcher looks at the options and sees the fees, the methodology, and the location.

When those are the primary differences a person can see, you're leaving them to compare practices based on affordability and access. And if your practice is out-of-network, that's not ideal.

What changed

Earlier in the email I mentioned that the traffic to most websites has decreased recently. AI overviews are just one of the reasons why. People see the results they need without having to click through. Another reason is the change in people's search behavior.

Many talk directly to LLM platforms and follow the recommendations that they get in those chats. LLMs pull information from various sources online. I wrote about this here.

In many cases, people will do their research in different places before they ever get to your website. Your website might even be the last step in their decision-making process.

What needs to happen

Before you decide that your website is not important anymore, let me assure you that it's still vital for your discoverability. Your website is still one of the most important sources for AI to understand your practice.

But AI needs an angle.

It needs to understand not only what you do, but why your practice is particularly relevant to a certain person.

The many topics you needed to cover for SEO aren't necessarily helping it understand that. You need a competitive advantage beyond pricing, availability, and modalities.

And after looking at 50 therapy websites, that's what stood out to me most.

If you need help figuring out what gives your practice a competitive advantage, reply and let me know.

See you next week,

Avivit