Traffic Is Down—Now What? Marketing Success In the Age of AI

For decades, the SEO playbook was simple: create awesome content, optimize for search, and watch the postulation rotation in. A batch of successful businesses were built connected that playbook — Semrush included. 

But creating awesome contented is nary longer enough, and pinch less clicks coming from search, focusing connected SEO unsocial doesn’t present the aforesaid predictable return connected finance (ROI) it erstwhile did.

Google now answers a increasing stock of queries straight wrong AI Overviews, and platforms for illustration ChatGPT and Claude section the questions group utilized to type into a hunt bar. 

Neither sends overmuch postulation backmost to your tract — and some thin to mention big, established brands complete smaller ones, making visibility harder to gain nary matter which level personification searches on. 

So, really do you build a successful online business erstwhile postulation sources are drying up?

Before we stock our advice, let's revisit the pre-AI world of SEO and research why we should do trading pinch much intention.

SEO was a surefire trading activity

For astir 2 decades, you could build a thriving online business by making Google's algorithm happy. If you did method optimizations, targeted the correct keywords, and built backlinks, postulation would travel to your site.

Classic trading skills for illustration marque building, promotion, and productivity weren't basal for occurrence successful practice.

But now, increasing visibility crossed the web requires precisely those skills:

• Brand building: Your marque needs to beryllium celebrated capable that it people gets mentioned crossed the web erstwhile conversations astir your manufacture are happening
• Promotion: You request to actively administer and amplify your contented done email, societal media, and influencer partnerships (rather than conscionable relying connected Google traffic)
• Creativity: You request to create contented and campaigns that guidelines retired and get group talking — the benignant of activity that's genuinely absorbing aliases valuable, not conscionable optimized
• Willingness to effort caller ideas: You request to beryllium unfastened to testing caller strategies (even if they’re not yet proven). For example, we precocious tested query fan-out optimization to spot if it helps amended our AI visibility.

If you clasp these foundational trading skills, your business tin thrive. 

Brand authority helps you turn visibility

Brand authority helps you turn your visibility because AI platforms mention names they already recognize, not conscionable contented that answers the mobility well.

Here are the astir cited domains by ample connection models (LLMs), according to our AI visibility study from January 2026.

You’ll spot that these are mostly large brands. For smaller businesses, this creates a chicken-and-egg problem. You request authority to get cited successful AI answers, but you request to beryllium much visible and recognized successful wide to person AI you’re an authority.

That intends building a marque is basal if you want to turn your site’s visibility and traffic. 

When you person a beardown brand, group hunt for you by name. They bookmark your site. They stock your contented without being asked. AI platforms reference your contented much readily too, because that aforesaid nickname sounds arsenic trustworthiness to them. This creates a sustainable watercourse of visibility and traffic. 

If you want a baseline thought of really visible your marque is successful AI platforms, usage the AI Visibility Toolkit from Semrush. It lets you way your marque mentions and citations successful AI platforms.

How to build a marque & turn your business

To build a successful marque and turn your business, you request to show up wherever your assemblage already spends their clip and adhd worth to their lives. Here are 7 strategies that you tin usage to commencement marque building:

1. Create sticky content

Creating sticky contented keeps visitors engaged and makes them much apt to share, which builds your visibility complete time.

To make your contented sticky:

• Lead pinch a beardown constituent of position aliases original information truthful readers retrieve your company, not conscionable the topic
• Publish a recurring bid aliases format (a play roundup, an yearly report) that gives group a logic to return
• Show the group down your marque — bylines, behind-the-scenes context, existent sound — truthful readers consciousness connected to a team, not a faceless site
• Build successful a genuinely useful aliases astonishing constituent (a free tool, a bold take, a counterintuitive stat) that group want to stock unprompted

Take Growth.Design’s contented arsenic an example. They create interactive stories that thatch creation and maturation principles done engaging ocular narratives.

Their contented combines beautiful illustrations, storytelling, and applicable lessons successful a format you won't find anyplace else. Here's 1 of their interactive case studies you tin cheque out. 

Growth.Design gets a batch of praise for their unsocial approach. Here's what Peep Laja, laminitis of CXL, says:

“Many sites are successful a oversea of sameness. But Growth.Design’s contented is conscionable truthful different. Serious effort goes successful there. It’s intelligibly difficult to produce. Most group aren’t fresh to put successful that benignant of activity and resources.”

This attack has helped Growth.Design found their marque beingness successful the creation acquisition space.

2. Launch PR campaigns

Regularly launching PR campaigns builds your brand's credibility by getting it covered successful outlets your assemblage already trusts. 

That sum does double duty: It puts your marque successful beforehand of a publication's readers, and it creates the benignant of authoritative, third-party mentions that hunt engines and AI platforms usage to judge whether your marque is worthy citing. 

In early 2025, Duolingo announced connected societal media that their mascot Duo had died. While evidently a stunt, the announcement went viral connected TikTok and generated millions of views crossed societal platforms.

Following the viral societal media buzz, media outlets for illustration CBS News, NPR, and USA Today besides started covering the news.

This run reinforced Duolingo's playful marque characteristic and kept them apical of mind for connection learners. It worked because it was unexpected yet perfectly aligned pinch their marque voice.

3. Invest successful integer ads

Investing successful integer advertizing (running ads connected platforms for illustration Google, Meta, and ChatGPT) helps you scope much group successful your audience.

Here's what makes integer advertizing truthful effective:

• Instant exposure: Digital ads look prominently crossed advertizing platforms
• Laser-focused targeting: Digital allows precise assemblage targeting based connected demographics, interests, and behaviors
• Real-time insights: You tin spot precisely really your campaigns are doing and tweak them to boost performance

Many successful companies find their best-performing contented and beforehand it done paid ads.

For example, Grammarly promoted its workplace productivity guideline done LinkedIn ads. This positions them arsenic experts successful the business productivity devices space, while besides putting their marque successful beforehand of a highly applicable audience.

Notion does thing similar. When creators station videos astir really they shape their activity successful Notion, the institution amplifies those videos done paid promotion.

If you want to tally successful advertisement campaigns, cheque retired our Advertising Toolkit. It helps you find the champion keywords to target, investigation competitors' advertisement strategies, and way your run capacity crossed aggregate platforms.

4. Post consistently connected societal media

Posting consistently connected societal media strengthens your marque because a dependable beingness builds familiarity, and familiarity is what earns spot complete time.

And that familiarity extends beyond your followers — societal conversations, shares, and mentions each lend to the broader signals that hunt engines and AI platforms reference erstwhile evaluating who to spot and surface. 

Here's what useful based connected our experience:

• Support your colleagues’ posts: Like, remark on, and reshare posts from your teammates astir the institution and industry. It’s 1 of the easiest ways to summation scope for your brand. 
• Engage successful conversations: Don’t conscionable post; interact. Leaving thoughtful comments connected applicable discussions draws group backmost to your floor plan and, by extension, your brand.
• Use ocular content: Text posts tin work, but research pinch image and video posts. Create branded visuals, short explainer clips, aliases moreover memes (when relevant) to seizure attention.
• Use hashtags strategically: Adding 2 to 3 highly applicable hashtags helps much group observe your posts
• Collaborate pinch manufacture voices: Work pinch group who already person the assemblage you want to reach. This could beryllium manufacture experts, celebrated influencers, aliases moreover customers who emotion your product.

At Semrush, our teams usage societal media to beforehand blog content, item merchandise updates, denote launches, and supply broader institution updates.

We besides prosecute successful comments pinch our assemblage to spark discussions, reply questions, and build stronger relationships.

From clip to time, we’ll besides tally influencer campaigns, which thief america scope caller audiences. For example, here's a collaboration pinch an manufacture master promoting our Enterprise AI Optimization (AIO) platform:

If you want to negociate your societal media beingness much effectively, cheque retired our Social Toolkit. It lets you schedule posts crossed platforms and way engagement metrics.

5. Create merchandise

Creating merchandise gets your marque noticed successful the existent world successful ways your website and societal posts can't. 

And that real-world vulnerability often loops backmost online — personification who spots your logo connected a hoodie successful nationalist whitethorn later hunt your marque by name.

Merchandise useful particularly good for increasing businesses because it tin help:

• Boost marque visibility: When your logo is connected an point group really usage — for illustration hoodies, h2o bottles, aliases tote bags — it turns them into marque ambassadors everyplace they go
• Build affirmative associations: Giving distant value merchandise feels for illustration a gift, and customers often stock that acquisition pinch friends aliases connected societal media. That extends your brand’s scope acold beyond the original recipient.
• Bring your integer marque into the beingness world: For SaaS companies and online-first businesses, merch makes the marque consciousness much real

The extremity is to create thing that’s useful, stylish, aliases nosy capable that group want to support it.

For example, if you person package engineers connected your team, you've astir apt seen GitHub's Copilot stickers connected their laptops and h2o bottles. Developers emotion these.

GitHub besides creates hoodies and t-shirts that developers really deterioration pinch pride. It helps them awesome that they beryllium to the coding community.

If you're fresh to create branded merchandise, companies for illustration Printful and CustomInk make it easy to creation and administer value products without managing inventory yourself. 

Both platforms grip accumulation and shipping, letting you attraction connected building your marque alternatively of managing logistics.

6. Sponsor events (or shape your own)

Sponsoring events — aliases moving your ain — boosts marque visibility by putting your institution successful the room pinch group who already attraction astir your industry. 

Event sponsorships besides thin to make backlinks, property mentions, and societal posts from attendees and organizers — the benignant of third-party signals that fortify your visibility good beyond the arena itself. 

Sponsorship delivers connected 2 fronts: 

• Borrow authority from the event: When you sponsor a well-established convention aliases waste and acquisition show, your marque benefits from the credibility of that event. Attendees people subordinate your institution pinch the event’s reputation.
• Reach a highly targeted audience: Conferences and niche gatherings bring together group who are already invested successful your industry, making it overmuch easier to link pinch high-intent prospects 

Through sponsorship arrangements, companies typically unafraid marque placement connected arena materials for illustration signage, promotional items, integer displays, aliases shape backdrops. Top sponsors mightiness besides person accumulation spaces successful high-traffic areas aliases speaking opportunities.

But you don't ever person to trust connected different people's events. Running your ain events tin beryllium conscionable arsenic powerful.

For instance, we big an yearly convention called Spotlight, wherever integer trading professionals stock insights astir search, contented marketing, and more. This in-person arena allows america to profoundly prosecute pinch our assemblage and reenforce our position arsenic a leader successful the integer trading space.

7. Develop and stock your marque story

Developing and sharing your marque communicative — the "why" down what you do — helps group link pinch your business connected a quality level.

But having a compelling communicative isn't enough. You request to actively stock it crossed aggregate touchpoints to build marque recognition. That accordant story, repeated crossed each touchpoint, is what helps users and hunt systems admit who you are and what you do.

Here's really you tin do this:

• On your website: Create an "About Us" page that explains your mission, values, the problem you’re solving, and what makes your attack different — written successful a measurement that feels authentic alternatively than corporate
• Through laminitis visibility: Get founders to stock their journeys connected LinkedIn, podcasts, aliases astatine manufacture events
• In contented marketing: Weave elements of your communicative into blogs, newsletters, videos, and lawsuit studies truthful it's reinforced complete time
• Inside your merchandise experience: Reflect your marque characteristic successful onboarding flows, UX copy, micro-interactions, and characteristic announcements
• During customer interactions: Train your squad to pass your marque values successful support conversations and income calls

For example, Notion’s squad consistently shares their communicative of building a instrumentality that adapts to really group really deliberation and activity — not forcing them into rigid structures. 

This communicative appears everywhere: successful their trading copy, merchandise demos, founder interviews, and organization discussions. It reinforces why Notion feels different from accepted task guidance tools.

The instruction isn't conscionable to person a bully communicative — it's to make that communicative a accordant portion of really you pass your brand.

Get started pinch marque building

Building a marque is the instauration for driving sustainable maturation and visibility online.

This database of brand-building techniques is by nary intends exhaustive. There are dozens of different strategies we didn’t screen here, but we wanted to stock immoderate ideas you tin get started pinch today.

So, prime a fewer strategies that champion align pinch your resources and instrumentality them correct away. Later, standard your efforts and furniture successful different ideas arsenic you summation momentum.

You’ll find that arsenic your marque becomes stronger, postulation follows. That’s the existent powerfulness of having a brand.