Traffic is collapsing under the influence of AI, yet SEO has never been more valuable. This paradox reveals the real problem with French SEO: it measures everything, except what really matters.
Ask ten French SME managers the following question: “Do you know what your investment in SEO brings you?” Nine out of ten answer: “my site generates so much traffic”. The tenth will not be able to answer you and undoubtedly it is the one which presents the most lucidity.
None of them will answer you in figures, in euros and this is the result of 20 years of old-fashioned SEO.
Why does your SEO reporting never talk about money?
If SEO gives very real results for the company (calls, quote requests, sales) and it is unobtainable, this is not what professionals demonstrate with their traffic curve.
We prefer to show beautiful impression curves, positions, authority scores… So much data which seems perfectly legitimate to SEO technicians, but which remains dead letters for the manager. The latter will not make any decision, based on a click rate, it is his order book which will speak to him and that is completely understandable.
So why did you adopt these indicators? At least partly for convenience. It is simpler for the professional natural referencing to sell a traffic curve, because it rises more easily. By targeting the highest volume queries, by publishing content everywhere, by turning to information rather than transactional, the curve rises. This is measurable proof for the professional and allows the price of the contract to be justified. However, for the company, this does not necessarily generate turnover.
SEOs did not ask themselves the question, for convenience and also because the training mainly talked about positions and traffic.
We should not be surprised if today SEO is rather vague, difficult to justify, and seen more as a classic marketing expense than as a source of income. If we don’t have the answer, the business manager will eliminate this expense without hesitation and that’s normal.
AI doesn’t kill SEO, it kills traffic that was worthless
This somewhat shaky system could have lasted for a long time if generative AI had not appeared and had not reshuffled the cards. It may be a little brutal, but it’s a good thing.
In fact, the answers given by conversational assistants are generated directly in search engines. Although these responses are based on the content appearing on the web, they do not refer directly to the sites. We then see that searches no longer necessarily result in clicks. This means that the share of purely informational searches, those which increased the metrics, is gradually disappearing. And it’s an electric shock for the profession. Continuing to want to charge for traffic in 2026 means charging for data that is already obsolete.
Know that the traffic that disappears is the one that brought nothing to the company in terms of turnover anyway. It must be said that in any case the Internet user who immediately obtains his answer by contacting the AI would never have filled out a contact form. It’s a reversal that few business leaders have ever internalized. A visit obtained organically today is worth much more than those in 2019.
AI in fact did not kill the value of SEO, it just made obsolete the figures that SEOs knew how to sell.
Questions a business manager should ask their SEO service provider
It is normal for a manager to want to regain control of his investments, particularly those linked to natural referencing. To do this, ask him four essential questions:
“How many commercial contacts have I obtained this month thanks to SEO?” You should know that this data is perfectly measurable using suitable tools. This is the case for quote requests, calls and forms. If it is missing from the reporting offered to you, demand these figures.
“How much of my turnover is attributable to the natural referencing channel?” Although it is sometimes difficult to directly attribute a share of turnover to the work carried out, nothing is impossible. We can cross-reference the conversions on the site with the signed contracts and give an order of magnitude that is reasonably usable. Nothing magic, just precise calculations.
“At what price would the same contact rate in paid advertising cost me?” Ask for the calculation, but very often it is estimated that natural referencing allows you to obtain leads at a much lower price than using Google Ads.
“Which purchasing requests am I well positioned on?” Being at the top of the list for informative queries does not have the same value as being on the first page for transactional queries. You therefore need to know what type of keywords you are positioned on.
If your service provider is serious and competent, he will answer these questions without any problem. If you get an answer: “SEO is not measured in this way”, it displays the limits of its offer, not that of natural referencing.
The profession at the time of choice
For SEO professionals, the requirements have changed. Mastering the technical aspect is no longer enough, you must first understand the functioning of the client company to develop a strategy that brings results in terms of customers and turnover. Studying the market, the competition: these are reflexes that all SEOs have. But, is it enough? No. It is also necessary to understand the sales and decision cycle, margins, services with high added value and profitability, etc.
This detailed understanding will make all the difference and it is important before even touching the site. It’s this small turning point that makes all the difference and allows us to justify sometimes higher prices, but with results that match. By remaining within the certainties of the 2000s, SEOs remain interchangeable and negotiable, because we assimilate them more as simple providers of curves – certainly pretty and gratifying – but which do not bring concrete results to the company.
Those who take this turn will become real stakeholders of the company and its management. Natural referencing is a real lever for earning money, however this notion is often not clearly expressed and sometimes the strategy that goes with it is not the right one. For this growth lever to be clearly expressed, providing the right curves to managers is essential.
Demonstrating the ROI of this cost line has truly become essential in the difficult economic world experienced by a majority of companies today.
