Is AI search replacing traditional search in healthcare? And more to the point, should you change your marketing approach in hopes of attracting more patients or buyers who are using AI tools and relying on AI overviews when searching?
I’m not an expert in SEO (search engine optimization), so I can’t answer these questions. But I know someone who can: Noah Goldfarb.
Noah oversees SEO strategies and client services at Fire&Spark, a Boston SEO agency with multiple healthcare clients. He just compiled what I believe is the most complete analysis of Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) for digital health brands. (Personally I prefer the term Answer Engine Optimization, or AEO, but no need to quibble while there’s a lack of standardization of these terms.)
When Noah posted in the Health Tech Nerds community that he was seeking feedback on the draft report before publishing, I jumped at the chance and sent him some suggested edits and commentary.
Now that the final version is out, it’s worth sharing his findings and their implications for healthcare organizations.
Understanding healthcare’s organic traffic loss
First, some context. Amid cries of “SEO is dead” and “all search will be AI,” The Economist published a story in July with its own proclamation: “AI is killing the web.” The story noted that healthcare is experiencing more organic traffic loss than any other industry.
With his curiosity piqued after seeing the story, Noah and his team dug into the analytics data they had access to. They narrowed their search to about a dozen companies in digital health, both consumer and B2B. And they found The Economist wasn’t wrong about healthcare’s significant drop in traffic.
Organic traffic among the companies in the Fire&Spark analysis dropped 41% from July 2024 to July 2025, Noah discovered.
But there’s more to the story. Fire&Spark found that conversions from traditional organic search were actually increasing – and rising enough to make up for the loss in traffic.
In other words, consumers are still using search to find and sign up with new providers, schedule appointments, and take similar actions that go beyond simply looking stuff up. And purchasers of B2B healthcare products and services are searching to narrow vendor choices, download resources to share with buying committees, and schedule sales calls and demos.
Which led Noah to the main conclusion for digital health marketers: AI search isn’t hurting healthcare providers. It’s hurting publishers of health information.
“While a significant amount of organic traffic/click-throughs have been sucked up by AI overviews and LLMs, searchers with conversion intent are still using organic search to navigate to websites to take conversion actions,” the report says.
What’s a healthcare brand to do?
The key step, Noah wrote in a recent LinkedIn post, is to measure SEO success by conversions rather than traffic.
“The only change AI search is forcing is one that should have happened a long time ago: It’s forcing marketers to measure SEO success against CONVERSIONS (which grow your business), not traffic (which boosts your ego).”
As an example, healthcare providers focusing on top-of-funnel keywords for informational intent can no longer gain an edge against established players by finding the perfect keywords. When users enter “Why am I sad all the time and can’t focus,” AI overviews from Google searches and LLMs like ChatGPT return information on depression from places such as the Mayo Clinic and the federal government. The user might continue the conversation with further prompts, but a local behavioral health clinician specializing in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) in this example probably would never be found.
Instead, the provider should think about how to show up for more specific search intent that leads to conversions. Noah cited “best CBT providers in Massachusetts Blue Cross” as an example of a search with conversion intent.
As a result, providers should take these and similar steps:
- Make sure you have complete and accurate listings in provider directories from health plans and search sites such as Zocdoc
- Explain all your services on your website
- Spell out the information prospective patients are looking for: locations, office hours, what insurance is accepted
- Include profiles of your clinicians and describe their areas of specialty
- Be active in communities and medical associations to increase the chances of trusted sources mentioning you online
Look at the data
How do Fire&Spark’s findings stack up against the latest data, advice, and commentary from SEO pros who’ve looked for patterns across all industries?
Pretty consistently.
“There are lots of erroneous assumptions people make about what AI adoption has changed. But NONE ARE MORE WRONG THAN: ‘AI searches replace Google searches!’ Nope. This is provably wrong.” – Rand Fishkin, SEO expert and head of SparkToro, in an Aug. 21 LinkedIn post, citing a SEMrush study.
“Everyone says SEO is dead… but our client data tells a different story.” – Oct. 2 newsletter from the Grow & Convert agency, providing internal data that SEO vs. AI is a false dichotomy and that the two should work together.
And from content marketer Andy Crestodina of Orbit Media Studios, in a new blog post that offers these recommendations:
- Content needs to align closely with the decision criteria of buyers. Copywriters need to be specific about who gets what outcomes from which services.
- Proof points need to be crawlable by AIs. Those award logos and testimonial videos aren’t easily ingested.
- PR, review sites, directories, industry associations and influencers all become more important. Brands with big targeted digital footprints have an edge.
To sum up: It’s clear that AI is having a profound impact on search. It’s also clear that it’s not killing SEO. As long as healthcare brands adapt, they won’t have to worry about losing out in the AI-enabled, zero-click world we’re all living in now.
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