What’s Happening in Search? What Healthcare Marketers Need to Know

Seeing fewer click-throughs to your website?

It’s no secret that AI has impacted search. Everyone’s talking about it (us included), and LinkedIn is rife with posts about the death of SEO or traditional websites. (Not true, for the record.)

Recently, the impacts we’ve all theorized about are showing up in the data. Many healthcare marketing teams saw significant dips in click-through rates (CTR) from Google this year. A study of top-ranked pages in organic search supports these anecdotal accounts, showing a 34.5% drop in clicks, on average.

If you’re seeing this too, don’t panic. Here’s what you need to know.

Why is this happening?

There are two reasons why website clicks are dropping on Google in 2025.

For one, it’s a visibility issue. The AI Overview eats up quite a large portion of the screen — sometimes, the entire portion above the fold. When an AI Overview takes the top spot, organic results get pushed down (see the screenshot). As a result, fewer people see your link.

The next obstacle is that AI Overview demotivates click-throughs in general, even when links are more visible than in the example. By providing direct answers to informational queries, Google reduces the need for searchers to leave the search engine results page (SERP) and visit websites.

This is especially true for top-of-funnel, or TOFU, healthcare queries that are easy to answer quickly, like, “what are the side effects of Ozempic?” and “surgical technique for Achilles tendon repair.”

Hear more on AI Overview’s impact on CTR from our webinar hosted with Swaay.Health on October 1, 2025:

Is this cause for concern?

It’s never fun watching your analytics graph trend downwards, but before sounding the alarms, look at the complete story behind the numbers.

CTR and organic traffic are tracked because they’re easy. (Not often do we get nice, neat numbers to report to leadership.) This doesn’t mean they’re the most important metrics to measure. Unless your business objectives are directly tied to website traffic, they’re vanity metrics.

We can reframe this click-through crisis as an opportunity to reconsider how we measure success in marketing.

What should you do next?

Measurement mindset aside, how can you make the most of your marketing efforts in a digital space that’s dominated by AI? Here’s what’s working for our clients now (and what never changed).

1. DON’T ditch your SEO strategy

Ignore the LinkedIn posts telling you to throw SEO out the window and focus on GEO/AIO/LLMO/acronym du jour. Spoiler alert: It’s all just good old search optimization.

SEO still works. Many of the tried-and-true tactics you already know and love are still relevant:

• Use clear language.
• Structure your content with headings, subheadings, paragraphs, and bulleted lists.
• Optimize metadata for keywords that match page intent.
• Provide a positive user experience.

Most importantly, create human-centered content that genuinely delivers value. You’ve been doing this all along, so you’re already ahead of the curve.

2. Adjust your keyword strategy

That said, your search strategy might benefit from tweaks in keyword targeting. With TOFU keywords losing the most clicks to AI Overviews, consider where your budget could work harder for you.

Depending on your objectives, it may make sense to focus more on middle- and bottom-funnel keywords that prospective patients and buyers are searching. For example, “best pediatric oncologist in Dallas” or “[your product name] case examples.”

This also applies to your paid strategy. Consider where your investment will make the greatest impact. If return on ad spend is dropping for queries where AI Overviews land above ads, could you redirect some of that budget elsewhere?

3. Audit your search performance

Before making any changes, see how your website is performing across the search landscape, including AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, SERPs and SERP features, and social media.

Find out:

• Where traffic is coming from
• Whether it’s the right traffic (are users converting?)
• How your brand performs in AI search tools

You can monitor mentions in AI search platforms for priority keywords in just about 15 minutes per week. Here’s how:

4. Keep building relationships

Brand trust is worth its weight in gold. Get your community talking about your brand and stay top of mind when they’re looking for what you offer. It’s as simple (and complicated) as that.

There are no hacks to this — that’s what makes it fun. We could state the obvious:

• Know your audience (update those personas).
• Home in and double down on what differentiates your brand.
• Be a trustworthy, recognizable voice.
• Repurpose your content to meet people where they are.

But our favorite advice right now — and something we’re personally leaning into — is take risks. How can you capture attention in a way that feels true to your brand? How can you make people care to read the next line? How can you spark a conversation today?

Part of winning at search today is keeping the internet interesting — reminding people there are still humans behind the screens. Imagine how much better the web would be if we all did more of that.