Do B2B Businesses Still Need Organic Web Traffic?
This is a critical question B2B marketers must grapple with in the months ahead. The reason: Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE) and AI-powered overviews are transforming the way people search—and the way Google delivers answers.
Increasingly, Google’s AI is prioritizing on-page answers directly within the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) rather than pushing users to click through to websites. This is especially true for informational queries, where generative AI can summarize complex topics in a few sentences, potentially cannibalizing traffic that used to land on your site.
So far, we haven’t seen this shift significantly impact our industrial B2B clients. In fact, many of them are still enjoying steady or even rising organic traffic. But in broader sectors, the cracks are already showing. A recent study of 23 SaaS companies found organic traffic declines ranging from 18% to 64%.
Now is the time for B2B marketers to rethink the playbook. What metrics should we really be tracking as Google increasingly keeps traffic for itself? If your website becomes less of a destination and more of a data source for AI-driven answers, how do you measure success? It’s not just about traffic anymore—it’s about influence, visibility, and authority in the SERP itself.
LLMs Aren’t Replacing Search - They’re Rewriting It
Despite growing interest in tools like ChatGPT, Google isn’t losing ground. Quite the opposite: search volume rose 21.64% from 2023 to 2024. People aren’t abandoning search—they’re just using it differently.
That shift is largely driven by AI Overviews, LLM-generated answers that are now appearing at the top of nearly half of all Google queries. These summaries reduce organic clicks on non-branded keywords by 15–35%, creating real challenges for SEO.
But it’s not all downside. AI Overviews build brand authority. They create another touchpoint in the SERP, and their direct tone can increase trust. When AI Overviews are present, branded keywords see an 18.68% lift in CTR. Homepage clicks for B2B sites are up 15% since launch.
The takeaway: AI Overviews are reshaping brand visibility—what gets shown, what gets prioritized, and what earns clicks.
Brands may have less control over how they appear in search, but the core playbook still applies. The same principles that drive organic visibility can be adapted to improve presence and performance in LLM-driven results.
How to Optimize for LLMs (and AI Overviews) in 2025
If you want to show up in search in 2025, you need to optimize for LLMs. That’s because Gemini—the large language model behind Google’s AI Overviews—is now shaping how answers appear at the top of the SERP.
Here’s how we focus our LLM optimization:
Crawlability
LLMs rely heavily on your website to understand your brand. If your site isn’t easily crawlable, you lose control over how you’re perceived. Make sure your technical setup allows AI to access and index your content.
Content Structure
Once AI can reach your site, it needs to understand what it finds. Use schema markup, concise formatting, and clearly written, high-signal content. Prioritize content that answers questions directly—in short paragraphs under header tags, which is a format that AI Overviews favor.
Broader Online Presence
LLMs pull from more than just your website. Social content, press mentions, YouTube transcripts, and other digital signals all play a role. A strong, consistent presence across LinkedIn, YouTube, and more helps shape how your brand is surfaced—especially for niche or long-tail queries.
Third-Party Outreach
For many non-branded queries, LLMs pull from external sources—not your site. To influence these results, we identify which domains are considered authoritative by AI models (often based on frequency of citation, domain authority, and alignment with known training data), then target those sources for placements, updates, or sentiment improvements.
Mapping Your Brand’s Role in LLMs and AI Overviews
Until recently, brands had limited visibility into how LLMs like ChatGPT were referencing them—or how that might influence the buyer journey. That’s a major blind spot, considering ~115 million people use AI daily and ChatGPT processes around 1 billion messages per day.
Now, new tools are emerging that change the game. They let you track three critical metrics across LLM responses:
Presence - Is your brand present?
Position - Is it mentioned before or after other brands?
Sentiment - Is it framed positively, negatively, or neutrally?
For 2025, presence and position will be the primary levers to pull. But sentiment shouldn’t be ignored—especially since strategic content updates and third-party optimizations can influence how LLMs portray your brand.
LLMs are already part of the customer journey. Now we can measure our footprint—and start optimizing for it.
Keeping Your B2B Brand Relevant in 2025
So, what does all this mean for your business?
In most cases—if you have the right marketing team—the impact should be minimal. AI Overviews and zero-click searches pose a greater threat to publishers, not product or service providers. Google still wants to connect users with solutions, not block them from doing business.
Yes, you may lose some organic traffic. But that’s not the same as losing customers. What is changing is how we measure success. Web traffic alone won’t cut it. Marketing teams need better visibility into the full funnel—tracking top-of-funnel activity even when it happens off-site, and ensuring mid-to-bottom-funnel users get what they need once they land.
Search is evolving, and so are the rules of engagement. The brands that stay relevant will be the ones with marketing partners who know how to adapt—quickly and strategically.
