Marketing agencies are still obsessed with traffic but they’re chasing a ghost.
With AI Overviews (SGE) and Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) now answering 60% of queries directly on the search page, the informational click is officially extinct.
If your website is just a collection of answers to "how to..." questions, Google has already eaten your lunch.
From shop window to laboratory
In 2026, your website shouldn't be a place people go to read.
It should be a place they go to do.
If a user can get the "gist" of your expertise from a 4-sentence AI snippet, you haven't provided enough value to earn the click.
To survive, your website must transition from a shop window (static/observe) to a destination (interactive/participate).
How to make your website un-scapable by AI
1. Proprietary interactive tools (the utility play)
AI can tell you what a behavioural audit is. It cannot perform a customised, 20-point interactive audit of your specific URL and generate a PDF report in real-time.
Build tools (calculators, audits, benchmarking engines) that need user input. AI can’t simulate a personalised result without the user being on your domain.
The inner circle content (the gated authority)
Move from public SEO fluff to deep-dive analysis.
AI summarises the surface; you own the depths. Think raw data sets, industry-first whitepapers, and video teardowns.
Make your public content the teaser that AI summarises, but keep the alpha, the actionable insight, behind a destination wall.
Remember, this has got to add a lot of value for people to go to the trouble of creating an account (if they don't have one) and/or to log in.
High-friction, high-reward UX
This sounds like heresy, but in 2026, easy is handled by AI.
Your website should offer immersion.
Scrollytelling, interactive case studies, and choose-your-own-adventure strategy paths.
Increase dwell time over page views. If someone spends 10 minutes interacting with one page, that's worth more than 100 people bouncing off a blog post.
The post-click scorecard: What to measure instead
If you aren't measuring clicks, what are you measuring?
We’ve binned the sessions report. Here's the 2026 sovereign metric set:
1. Share of Model (SoM)
How often is your brand cited by Gemini/ChatGPT as the primary source for your niche?
2. Brand Search Volume
The navigation click. Are people searching for you by name, or just stumbling on a "what is..." query?
3. Interactive Completion Rate
Of the people who used your neuro-audit tool, how many finished it? This measures real engagement.
4. Direct-to-Conversion Ratio
The percentage of users who landed on your site and took a high-intent action, like booking or buying, without viewing educational pages first.
5. Return Path Frequency
How many people bookmarked your site or returned directly.
