Did you hear the canary chirping in the marketing coal mine?
It got a little louder in the past month after Ahrefs released a report showing a 32% month-over-month drop in search traffic at HubSpot.com, the website home of the popular customer relationship management software. (January 2025 had 5.7 million visits, and December 2024 saw 8.7 million visits.)
Marketers did a lot of squawking, sharing the stats with surface-level responses and proclaiming the findings as an indicator that SEO is dead.
Why should you care about what’s happening with HubSpot’s website? You shouldn’t. After all, you’re probably not in the CRM industry, nor do you know in detail exactly what the company’s marketing strategy is.
But you shouldn’t ignore the potential implications. Content Technologist’s Deborah Carver writes: “In favor of rapidly pushing out content for a zero-click reader, [prominent SEO influencers and their content marketing acolytes have] forgotten that other fields, tactics, and ideas exist outside of the internet.”
See the recent search hullabaloo for what it really is — an early warning sign that marketers are in tumult about the rapid evolution of how consumers find a company and its content, products, and services.
It’s time to stop your (likely) longstanding traditional SEO approach. Here are five questions to answer to prepare your brand for the future:
1. Does your audience behave the same as it did?
Before diving into how your audience members use search, explore all their interactions with your company. A lot has happened in recent years, from changes in where people work (remote vs. company office) to how they learn (online and in person) and how they get answers (generative AI tools vs. traditional search engines). Add in the legal and social challenges around social media, from the TikTok ban to the platform owners, and you can see that your audience is going through a lot.
Has all that change affected how it engages with your company? An audit of your audience’s behavior can answer that. Examine data points from 2023, 2024, and today for your marketing tactics. What’s increased? What’s decreased? What’s stayed the same? Do the numbers indicate any big behavior changes worth noting (and responding to)?
With this big-picture view, you can now dig deeper into the specifics, and in this process, that’s referral traffic to your website.
2. Does your referral traffic really deliver?
Go below the surface of website traffic numbers to understand which visitors truly matter to your organization.
Does search referral traffic lead visitors to take the actions you want them to?
If not, maybe you should adjust your SEO investment and put some (or all) of it into your marketing strategy components that do deliver results.
If referral traffic is helpful, drill down to understand which visitor segments really deliver. What are the intents of those coveted searchers? Is it informational, commercial, or transactional?
What are the most effective keywords? After all, just because your site ranks highly for some keywords doesn’t mean it’s helpful for the business.
Szymon Slowik illustrates this in his in-depth analysis of the HubSpot news on Surfer SEO. He points out how HubSpot lost its No. 1 rankings for “marketing strategy template” as well as “quotes” and notes that one is likely more important than the other to HubSpot’s business.
With this new analysis, reprioritize your keyword list to emphasize the ones with the biggest impact and delete those that are irrelevant.
That leads to the next step.
3. Do your metrics really measure success?
Metrics for SEO success typically center on keywords and rankings. Bosses get impressed by how many top three rankings appear on a seemingly endless list of words in the quarterly report. Of course, none of that matters if the high rankings don’t serve the business.
That’s why you should revise the measurement plan to ensure that it counts what contributes to the company’s marketing goals. Of course, you can’t just unilaterally revise the metrics on your own. Talk to company executives to get their input, explain your recommended new reporting system, and get their OK before implementing the more helpful report.
4. What about your content competition?
With a better understanding of your audience’s behavior and your newly prioritized keyword list, you’re ready to explore wider search behavior.
Input each keyword to learn what sites’ content already ranks well for it. What does that search results page look like? Is there an AI overview at the top? If so, does it include a single or multiple source links? Visit those sources and any of the top rankings not cited in the AIO. Analyze the content itself (including embedded links, images, videos, and headers), along with the available metadata, to find opportunities for your brand to improve or create new content.
TIP: Don’t forget to do an audio search for your keywords to understand what turns up in your audience’s ears.
5. What’s in the SEO name?
Your company has likely codified SEO and SEM into the marketing structure. Employee titles may include the acronyms. You may contract with SEO agencies or SEM specialists.
It’s a good time to start the conversation about updating the title, recognizing that SEO and SEM are not siloed activities. But don’t just implement a title change. Ask these employees to describe their work without using “SEO” or “SEM.” Do the same with any external partners, too. Evaluate those descriptions, add your own modifications, and collaborate to arrive at a role name that more accurately reflects what they do or accomplish.
TIP: If the conversation about a new name reveals that they only do traditional SEO work, it’s time to update the job description or find a new agency.
Sing a modern marketing song
You don’t need to worry about HubSpot’s big traffic drop. That’s for the CRM provider to do (or not). However, you can hear all the hullabaloo as a warning call.
It’s time to better understand how your audience behavior is evolving and how your brand’s marketing should respond. Then, you can sing a tune that will be met with applause from your audience and your executives.
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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute