With AI disrupting Google, should advisors call it quits on SEO?

As hard as it is to imagine, it looks like the search is almost over ... and by that, we mean Google search.

That's the long and short of an article by Barron's this week, which went into painstaking detail to show how internet users' increasing comfort with artificial intelligence has short-circuited what's been the de facto superhighway for all things online.

As Barron's tells it, internet search traffic has been on the decline for much of the past year. Similarweb data also show referrals from AI search engines filling in for an estimated 10% of traditional search losses.

It's most certainly not good news for web-dependent businesses, with industries across the spectrum all taking hits to their traffic. In what could be an ill portent for the broader wealth space, monthly US search traffic to Schwab fell 14% in May – the first drop in at least two years and a dramatic reversal from the 179% surge it saw during the same period in 2024.

For advisors, all that begs an important question: is it time to remove SEO from their digital marketing arsenal?

Angel Gonzalez, Snappy Kraken CMO and co-founder, has an unequivocal response.

"Absolutely not," he said in an emailed statement to InvestmentNews. "The advisors who've done SEO fundamentals well have an advantage in AI-powered search results."

From SEO to AEO

Snappy Kraken, which holds itself out as a "martech innovator" for advisors, has done its own research showing the benefits of good SEO. Its State of Digital 2024 report, which draws on hundreds of thousands of campaigns from 10,000 advisors within its platform, found those who applied SEO saw 93.9% more new website visitors per month on average than those who didn't optimize for search engines. Similarly, the average advisor using SEO had 93.4% more visitor interactions per month than their average non-SEO counterparts, while also being 74% ahead on monthly pageviews.

Samantha Russell, chief evangelist at FMG Suite, pointed to a massive change in web users' behavior, noting how roughly two-thirds of all searches now end without a click.

"AI is just giving us the answer, without us having to go dig through multiple websites to find it. So in theory its a much better user experience for all of us," Russell said in an email. "But should RIAs abandon SEO? No, but they must evolve it." 

According to Russell, advisors' should now work on answer engine optimization, which focuses on tailoring content to help AI systems understand, process, and recommend it to users who ask questions.

"Unlike SEO, which focuses on ranking high in search engine results, AEO prioritizes providing contextually relevant answers to user queries," she said.

To do good AEO, Russell recommended advisors look at the top 10 to 20 most common questions to their chosen topic, then answer those questions directly. Structuring content to show clear questions and concise answers, similar to how users search for information, should also help.

From social media to the front lines

From his standpoint, Gonzalez sees greater urgency than ever for advisors to resist the urge to cast wide nets, going for specific niches rather than broad ones in their strategies. 

"It's going to be much easier to rank for 'best financial planner for pre-retirees in Toledo' versus just 'best financial planner in Ohio,' " he argued.

Taking things further, Russell encourages advisors to be mindful of other facets of their online footprint. Because AI tools have been shown to look for reputation and reviews when selecting businesses to feature, she said having ratings on platforms like Google Reviews, Wealthtender, and TrustPilot will be helpful, ideally with testimonials highlighting specific areas of expertise, geographic scope, and client focus.

"Treat social media like an extension of your website," she added, recommending advisors make at least three deep-dive posts per week on the same topics they post about elsewhere. "LinkedIn is an SEO-optimized site. If done right, people can find them even years after you post them."

With the rising risk of AI cannibalizing generic "how to" and 101-level content, Gonzalez also argues that advisors will have to get past providing basic education and financial literacy – which means sharing more personal stories from the front lines. 

"They will have to incorporate real examples of how they creatively walk clients through complex decisions and life stages," he said. "Those human insights have always been valuable. There's just more pressure to do that well now."