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Chasing ChatGPT Visibility While Google Still Sends Most Clicks

Digital Marketing

Chasing ChatGPT Visibility While Google Still Sends Most Clicks

Google still sends the vast majority of clicks that reach small business websites, not ChatGPT, whatever the AI search headlines are telling you to panic about. That is the number that should set your marketing budget, not the hype cycle. At Online Marketing Group we watch Greenock and Inverclyde business owners get talked into “AI visibility” spend while their Google Business Profile sits half-finished — and that is money left on the table in the most literal sense.

This is not an argument against AI search. It is an argument for order of operations. Chase ChatGPT visibility once Google is converting properly for you, not instead of it.

Why ChatGPT visibility matters less than Google clicks today

The case for caution is not a hunch, it is in the traffic logs. Ahrefs analysed ChatGPT’s referral data against Google’s and found that ChatGPT now handles around 12% of Google’s search volume, yet Google still sends roughly 190 times more traffic to websites than ChatGPT does, according to Ahrefs Product Advisor Patrick Stox.

Read that gap again, because it is the whole article. Twelve per cent of the search volume. Roughly one one-hundred-and-ninetieth of the clicks. The reason is simple: a Google result is built to be clicked on, and a chatbot answer is built to be read and closed. A visible ranking on Google puts a visitor on your page with their card ready. A mention inside an AI answer usually just tells someone what you do and ends the conversation there.

The click gap the AI search hype ignores

AI search optimisation — the practice of trying to get named or linked inside a chatbot’s answer — is a real and growing discipline. It is just not yet where the enquiries are for a plumber, a solicitor or a garage in Inverclyde. Search Engine Land’s analysis of Google referral data found ChatGPT was only the sixth most-clicked destination from Google Search itself, behind YouTube, Google’s own properties, Reddit, Facebook and Wikipedia.

Why ChatGPT visibility matters less than Google clicks today

That is worth sitting with. Even ChatGPT’s own growth is currently being fed by Google clicks rather than replacing them. It also answers a question we get asked a lot: what is the number one most searched thing on Google? Globally it is still “YouTube”, not a chatbot.

If you have no idea which of the two is actually producing your enquiries, book a call and we will pull the numbers with you.

What Google still does better for a local business

Zero-click search — a search that ends with the answer on the results page rather than a visit to a website — has become more common as AI Overviews spread. One widely reported study put it at around 68% of all Google searches in early 2026. That sounds alarming until you notice which searches it mostly affects: informational ones. “How to”, “what is”, “who won”, “how many calories”.

“Emergency plumber Greenock” is not disappearing into a zero-click answer. Neither is “digital marketing agency near me”. Those are the searches still sending real people to real websites with real money attached, which is exactly why our paid-search audits stay focused there first.

Practical steps that improve Google search visibility today

The AI panic posts do a lot of hand-wringing and almost no explaining. So here is the short list we work through with a Greenock client, in order.

Fill in the Google Business Profile properly. Every category, every service, real photos, correct opening hours. Then ask for reviews and reply to every one of them, good and bad. This is free, it takes an afternoon, and most local businesses still have not done it.

Fix site speed and match the page to the search. If someone searched for a specific service, that is what the landing page should be about — not your company history.

Follow up in minutes, not days. Speed-to-lead is the cheapest revenue increase available to most businesses. Then reactivate the old leads gathering dust in your database, because you have already paid to acquire those.

None of that is glamorous. All of it moves revenue. It is also the “20% rule” in practice: a small handful of pages and searches drive most of the enquiries, so that is where the effort belongs.

How to measure your visibility across Google and ChatGPT

Nobody selling AI visibility services seems keen to tell you how to check the numbers yourself. So here it is, and it takes about ten minutes.

Open Google Analytics, go to your traffic acquisition report and filter your referral sources. ChatGPT shows up as chatgpt.com, Perplexity as perplexity.ai. Note the sessions, then note how many enquiries those sessions actually produced.

Practical steps that improve Google search visibility today

Now compare that against your Search Console clicks and the calls, direction requests and website taps in your Google Business Profile insights.

For most Greenock and Inverclyde businesses we audit, the AI column is a handful of sessions and no enquiries at all. The Google column is the business. Argue with your own data, not with a LinkedIn post.

Are Google searches actually declining, or does it just feel that way

Searches per user have softened in some markets and clicks per search have fallen, so it genuinely feels like the ground is moving. But Alphabet’s own reporting still puts total query volume at an all-time high.

Fewer clicks per search is not the same as fewer buyers finding you. The searches you are losing are the idle ones. The ones with money attached are still landing on somebody’s website — the only question is whether it is yours or a competitor’s.

Should you invest in ChatGPT SEO before fixing Google

Not before, and usually not instead of. The industry line right now is that you must optimise for ChatGPT and AI Overviews or be left behind. Keith Malone, OMG’s founder, has spent 40 years watching this pattern repeat with every new platform: “Many companies spend millions on advertising but leave significant revenue on the table” because the basics — a website that converts, an optimised Google Business Profile, follow-up that actually happens — are still broken underneath the shiny new channel.

Keith has run OMG as a family business from Greenock, on the banks of the Clyde, since 2019, and two of his children work in it. That matters here for one reason. When the money is your own family’s, you get very quick at spotting which channel is paying the wages and which one is merely interesting.

Where OMG puts the budget first

Where OMG puts the budget first

We do not sell retainers for speculative AI visibility work. Our pay-per-lead model means you pay for a real enquiry, not for activity on a channel that currently sends a fraction of the traffic Google does. A free paid-search audit will tell you honestly whether your Google presence is converting the volume it should be before anyone mentions ChatGPT to you.

If that audit shows your Google Business Profile is thin, your site is slow, or leads are not followed up fast enough, that is where the money goes first. Our Double Your Money Guarantee exists because we only take on businesses we are confident we can grow through the channels proven to convert today — and right now that is overwhelmingly Google. As Keith puts it, we would rather turn down a business we cannot help than over-promise and let it down.

None of this means ignore AI search forever. It means sequence it correctly. A business that fixes its Google conversion rate first, then adds a modest, ongoing AI visibility effort on top, ends up well ahead of the one that spent its whole budget chasing ChatGPT rankings while its Business Profile sat half-finished.

Get in touch and we will audit what is happening to your enquiries before you spend another pound chasing the wrong platform.

Sources:

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  • There is no official Google '20% rule' as such. Most people are either thinking of the Pareto principle applied to SEO, where roughly 20% of your keywords and pages tend to drive around 80% of your organic traffic and enquiries, or the older statistic that around 15% of daily Google searches have never been typed before. Either way, the lesson is the same: focus effort on the small set of pages and searches that actually bring in business, rather than spreading it thin across every channel that gets hyped up.

  • Globally, 'YouTube' has consistently ranked as the single most searched term on Google. For a local business the number one search that matters is not a global trend though. It is whatever your own customers type when they are ready to buy, which is exactly what a paid-search audit will show you.

  • Searches per user have fallen in some markets, and a growing share of searches now end without a click because of AI Overviews and instant answers. But total query volume is still at an all-time high according to Alphabet's own reporting, and Google continues to send far more traffic to websites than ChatGPT or any other AI tool. Fewer clicks per search is not the same as fewer customers finding you through Google.

  • For almost every local business we audit, Google and Google Business Profile account for the overwhelming share, with ChatGPT referrals typically a rounding error. Across the web as a whole, Ahrefs found Google sends roughly 190 times more traffic to websites than ChatGPT does. Check your own figures in Google Analytics under referral traffic, where chatgpt.com will appear as its own source, and compare that against your Search Console and Business Profile numbers before you shift a single pound of budget.

  • Start with the basics that most small businesses still get wrong: an optimised Google Business Profile, a website that is fast and clearly answers what the visitor searched for, and genuine local reviews. Layer paid search on top only once those fundamentals convert, since sending more clicks to a leaky website just wastes the spend.

  • For the vast majority of local businesses, Google first is still the right order of operations, because that is where the volume of ready-to-buy searches and the resulting clicks currently sit. AI search visibility is worth a modest, ongoing effort, but it should not come at the expense of a Google presence that is still converting for you today.