Business Strategies Column: Why Website Traffic Is Down And What To Do About It

“I used to get thousands of clicks a month. Now? Crickets.”

If you’ve said or thought this recently, you’re not alone. Across the mortgage industry and nearly every other sector, website traffic is declining. And it’s not because your SEO is broken.

It’s because the entire model of digital visibility is being rewritten.

We’ve entered a new era where traditional SEO is no longer enough. If 2023 was the year of AI headlines, then 2025 is the year of AI disruption, especially in how people discover information, make decisions, and choose financial providers.

The question is no longer, “How do I get more traffic?” It’s now: “How do I stay visible when people stop clicking?”

From Search Engines to Answer Engines

In 2025, the mortgage industry is feeling the full effects of the “Great Decoupling,” the breakdown between search volume and website traffic. Historically, more Google searches meant more clicks to your website. But not anymore.

That’s because Google, and others like it, are no longer just search engines; they’ve become answer engines.

With the rollout of AI Overviews (AIO), Google now provides synthesized, AI-generated responses at the top of the search results page. These answers are pulled from multiple sources, eliminating the need for users to click through.

Data shows this is reducing organic traffic by 15% to 35%, depending on the query. And this is just the beginning.

A growing share of consumers, especially younger, tech-savvy homebuyers, are now skipping Google entirely. They’re turning to generative AI platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude to get their answers directly. These tools rarely send users to a website. Instead, they generate answers, cite a few sources, and end the journey there.

Defining the New Landscape: AEO and GEO

To understand how mortgage companies and loan officers can stay relevant in this evolving ecosystem, we need to define the two frameworks shaping the future of discoverability:

What Is Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)?

Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is the practice of optimizing your content so that AI tools (like Google’s AI Overviews or ChatGPT) can understand, cite, and surface your answers directly in their results.

AEO is less about “ranking” and more about being recognized as the expert answer. It focuses on:

• Structuring content clearly around questions and answers
• Using schema markup so machines can parse the data
• Building content that is both factually rich and semantically clear

AEO makes your brand “answerable” in the places where users get their information, without ever landing on your website.

What Is Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)?

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is an emerging strategy for crafting content designed to appear within AI-generated responses, such as those delivered by large language models like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity.

Where AEO focuses on formatting for traditional platforms (like Google), GEO focuses on training the AI itself to recognize your authority and include you in its generated output.

GEO best practices include:

• Publishing semantically rich, plain-language content
• Creating frequently updated, data-backed resources
• Structuring your data so that it’s easily crawlable and verifiable by AI models

In short: AEO makes you visible in answer boxes. GEO makes you visible inside AI-generated thought.

The Mortgage Industry’s Visibility Crisis

So how is this playing out in our industry?

Mortgage-related searches are especially vulnerable to AI interception because they’re:

• High in informational value
• Commercially relevant
• Data-driven and time-sensitive

Take common questions like:

• “What is a good DTI ratio?”
• “Are interest rates going down?”
• “Can I qualify for a mortgage as a freelancer?”

In the past, these would drive users to your blog, calculator, or landing page. Today, these answers are served up directly by AI, cutting your website out of the loop.

The problem is compounded by real-world market dynamics:

• Persistently high interest rates are locking sellers in place.
• Inventory is tight, and buyer demand is volatile.
• Casual traffic, driven by curiosity rather than urgency, has declined sharply.

This double-hit of AI interception and economic lock-in has created a perfect storm for falling web traffic in the mortgage industry.

The 2026 Outlook: Less Traffic, More Opportunity

Here’s the twist: While website traffic is projected to decline further, business volume is poised to recover.

According to the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), 2026 originations are expected to reach $2.2 trillion, up from ~$2.0 trillion in 2025. Rates are forecasted to stabilize in the 6.0%–6.5% range, potentially unlocking inventory and bringing sidelined buyers back.

At the same time, Gartner predicts search engine usage will drop 25% by 2026, with as much as 80% of informational queries ending in zero-click results.

This means lenders who rely solely on web traffic to drive leads will see diminishing returns, even as the market itself improves.

What replaces traffic as your growth engine? Visibility. Authority. AI-readiness.

The New KPI: Share of Model, Not Share of Click

Let’s look at what the shift actually means for marketing strategy:

Metric	2025 Status	2026 Forecast
Website Traffic	Down significantly	Continued decline
Lead Quality	Higher (fewer casual clicks)	Higher (AI pre-qualifies users)
Mortgage Volume	Flat to low	Recovery (+8–10%)
Primary KPI	Sessions / Pageviews	Brand Mentions / Share of Model

“Share of model” refers to your presence within AI-generated answers. It measures how often your content, brand, or perspective is surfaced by tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s AIO.

And it’s quickly becoming the most important visibility metric in digital marketing.

Strategic Actions Mortgage Lenders Must Take

To succeed in this new model, your strategy must evolve beyond traffic and into AI-enabled trust-building. Here are three practical moves:

1. Rebuild Your Website for AEO + GEO

• Use structured FAQ blocks, bullet summaries, and conversational subheads.
• Add schema markup to every rate table, calculator, and product page.
• Organize content by intent and semantic clusters, not just keywords.

2. Feed the AI Engines Directly

• Ensure your current rates, loan options, and tools are updated and machine-readable.
• Build XML data feeds that platforms like Google and ChatGPT can ingest.
• Create custom GPTs trained on your proprietary knowledge base.

3. Invest in Experiences AI Can’t Replicate

Traffic may drop, but interactive tools remain sticky. Enhance your site with:

• Mortgage calculators
• Refi savings estimators
• Prequal application flows
  These experiences can’t be fully delivered by AI yet—and they keep prospects engaged.

Final Thought: Visibility Begins at the Point of Thought

The greatest shift in 2025 isn’t just technological, it’s psychological.

Borrowers are no longer waiting until the point of sale to begin forming trust. They’re building it silently, long before they reach out, at the Point of Thought.

If your brand is absent from that moment, no amount of ad spend or lead nurturing will bring them back. But if you’re present, if your expertise, empathy, and authority are embedded in the engines they trust, you won’t need to chase traffic.

You’ll be the answer they already believe in.