Your Website Is Disappearing. Here’s How to Fight Back

Jul 27

The internet is undergoing a tectonic shift—and your business might be vanishing in the process.

ChatGPT now boasts over 500 million monthly users, and Google’s newly released AI Mode is quietly rewriting the rules of how customers discover your brand. Traditional search—based on keywords, backlinks, and SEO best practices—is being replaced by AI-generated summaries that rarely link to your website. That means fewer clicks, less visibility, and lost revenue.

If your business depends on being found online, this is an emergency.

According to the Pew Research Center, when Google uses an AI Overview, users click through to other websites just 8% of the time—nearly half the rate of traditional searches. Even worse, only 1% of AI answers drive traffic to the sources they cite.

That’s why businesses are racing to understand and implement a new strategy.

Enter Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)

Unlike traditional SEO, GEO is built for a world where ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and other LLMs are the first stop for consumer research and product discovery. These models don’t reward attention-grabbing headlines or keyword stuffing. Instead, they reward clarity, utility, and structured content—the kind of information that directly answers a user’s question.

If you’re not actively optimizing for AI search, your site could effectively become invisible.

So what does GEO look like in practice? Think structured FAQ sections, detailed product specs, and clear, useful answers that AI can easily parse. Think about retooling your content to answer complex, real-world questions—like “best trail running shoes for women with wide feet and plantar fasciitis under $120.” The future of digital marketing isn’t about clicks. It’s about resolution.

Startups are rushing in to help—tools like Athena and Profound are already raising millions to help brands reverse-engineer AI models. Because the truth is: every business now has a new, invisible customer—ChatGPT—and you need to win its trust.

Santa Cruz Works is bringing together local leaders and national experts to tackle this transformation at our July 30 event. Whether you’re a founder, marketer, web developer, or just trying to future-proof your business, this is the workshop you can’t afford to miss.

Don’t get left behind. Register to attend at: https://bit.ly/airevscw