The SEO landscape is shifting faster than most businesses can keep up with — and the latest roundtable on Link Building Ideas made one thing crystal clear: the strategies that coasted a few years ago are being stress-tested right now.
Here are some of the sharpest takeaways from the conversation with Jeremy Rivera on the Link Building Ideas podcast by Permacast Walls and features Joel Miller, Sawsan Hamawandy and Alyssa Evans.
Impressions are up. Clicks are down. And that’s the new normal.
One of the most telling observations from the discussion was the pattern emerging across client accounts: impressions climbing, but clicks dropping — in some cases by as much as 40%. The culprit is no mystery. AI Overviews are answering questions before users ever reach a result, which means traffic patterns that made sense six months ago no longer tell the full story. The impact isn’t uniform either. Certain verticals — particularly radio station publishers and content-heavy sites — are getting hit significantly harder than others.
The SERP isn’t what it used to be, and search volume alone can’t guide you.
A recurring theme in the conversation was the danger of relying on search volume numbers as a proxy for opportunity. Understanding the SERP space now requires a deeper, more analytical lens — actually dissecting what’s showing up, how AI Overviews are occupying real estate, and where paid and organic results still have room to compete.
That kind of SERP analysis has gone from a nice-to-have to a core strategic necessity. The team at SEO Arcade has been navigating exactly these kinds of shifts with clients across multiple verticals.
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High-intent keywords are pulling more weight in paid search, too.
The AI Overview effect isn’t just an organic problem. The roundtable touched on how Google Ads strategies are having to adapt as well — with certain keyword categories simply no longer triggering traditional ad placements. The pivot toward hyper-local, high-intent combinations like “[service] near me” is becoming less of an optional tactic and more of a survival move for some advertisers.
The fundamentals haven’t disappeared — they just require more sharpness.
There was a grounded optimism running through the conversation: the core components of good SEO haven’t vanished. But the margin for doing them halfway has narrowed. Content quality, strategic intent, and genuine authority signals matter more, not less. The days of leaning on volume alone — more content, more frequently — are giving way to a more deliberate, strategic approach. As a published SEO author, Jeremy has been making this case for years, and the current landscape is proving it out.
Building an audience you own might be the best link building strategy of all.
Perhaps the most forward-looking thread in the discussion was around audience ownership. When algorithm volatility is this real, the brands and creators who have built genuine followings — people who will follow them regardless of what Google does next — have a fundamentally different risk profile. And that kind of trust-building has a personality component to it. It requires someone willing to show up, be visible, and be recognizable. The stat that came up is hard to ignore: content posted from a personal page on LinkedIn is roughly eight times more likely to be seen and engaged with than the same post from a business page.
That gap is a signal worth paying attention to — and it’s a topic that comes up regularly on the Unscripted SEO Podcast and the Unscripted Small Business Podcast as well.