Where should bloggers / creators pivot if ad traffic drops (due to LLMs)?
I’ve been wondering about this a lot lately.... If LLMs keep pulling from blogs, news platforms (and obviously other content sources) -> this results in ad revenue keeps shrinking for most folks reliant on this source of income -> what is the pivot for these creators?
My wife runs a food blog that’s heavily ad traffic based. Right now her niche (make based content seems to be some of the safest on the internet.. likely way worse for someone with an information based blog) hasn’t been hit too hard, but it feels like something that could change quickly.
That’s got us thinking about what a pivot could look like.
Is the shift toward more curated paid content / courses / memberships? Or is it more about leaning into community models like Patreon and building a one to many setup where the audience funds the work directly?
Personally - I lean toward the paid access / Patreon / membership (monthly fee for access and if you're drastically affected - move your content behind paywalls so the LLMs can't access) - packaging content in ways people are willing to pay for.
But I’m curious what others are seeing or planning. If you run a blog / work in SEO / are in some way working in tandem with Ad rev / Google ads / work with ad networks etc - curious to hear your insight.
Replies
minimalist phone: creating folders
My reckoning is that closed communities will be the way (+ as there are many synthetic answers from AI and bots), people want, at a certain point, authenticity, imperfection of humankind – but this is more likely for strong communities.
@busmark_w_nika Do you see this as like a FB group / Skool / Circle or more along the lines of a membership community where you can have access to a whole bunch of gated content?
minimalist phone: creating folders
@dzaitzow more like a membership community but more interactive with people, recently have become a part of some Discord communities or Substack communities and enjoy it more. :)
Really interesting - I always find discord / slack communities get so busy but maybe Substack is a better platform for that stuff!
minimalist phone: creating folders
@dzaitzow Substack also pushes email notifications so more likely users press buttons to visit paid channels :)
Heights Platform
@busmark_w_nika @dzaitzow our approach and belief as a community platform at Heights is that not only will having your own private branded community become more valuable, but that this real human discussion on current day problems and ideas is something the LLM providers want, so you should make some of it public because it will bring more leads and members to your community!
@busmark_w_nika @bryanmcanulty I guess the question is - how much of it is too much to have public and how much gated content is enough to compel folks to buy into your community / membership blah blah
minimalist phone: creating folders
@bryanmcanulty @dzaitzow tbh, I give 2 pieces of emails / articles for free (subscribed users can read them because they received them directly into their inbox), but after 2 weeks, it goes behind a paywall.
Yeah I feel that, ads feel shakier by the day, and with LLMs scraping everything it’s only getting tougher. I’m building a trading & investing education app and we’re already steering toward community + direct value (still experimenting though), since relying on traffic feels like a dead end.
Feels like the pivot is moving from “content for clicks” to “content people will actually pay to belong to”, emphasis on belong to.
@dheerajdotexe couldn't agree more - investing education is even more tricky given the fact that you have the whole "market factors" unknown - so if the market tanks / tariffs increase / unforeseen forces arise that impact (whatever insight you're providing) - that also impacts the direct value - when in the past you could have a legacy info blog that drove a boat load of traffic to that X purchase decision (coaching / app whatever)
Now the first step is the LLM (find me the best performing water ETF over the last X quarters) - more and more folks (I'd assume) are taking that first step LLM question before landing on a webpage to find a person of authority.
I'd love to hear more about the ways you're planning on providing that content people will actually pay to belong to!
@dzaitzow Totally, and just to clarify, we’re not giving investment advice at all, we’re strictly an education app built to make learning + practice smoother. I’m working on effectively making founder-facing content that’s half “building in public” and half actual trading lessons so people see both the journey and the learning side.
The idea is to stand apart from blogs/forums/YouTube that feel scattered or recycled, and instead build a place people belong to because they can actually learn + apply. Bonus points since this strategy directly and increasingly works with AEO and SEO.
@dheerajdotexe Really interesting! So the optimal situation is mass adoption for folks (trying to get educated on how to invest / pitfalls / potentially follow along etc.)
Curious if you'd be using any third party solutions to create that educational content / make it engaging / or is the plan to custom code it all and keep the folks in-app as much as possible?
Meet-Ting
@dbul 100% - I think from a product perspective you need to really focus on that whole GEO component when folks are evaluating (ex. What is the best automated meeting setting app) - ranking there in that capacity seems super valuable. Again something that we're thinking of on the product side of course.
For blogs (for make based intent) - I do wonder how many additional steps is someone going to take if they're looking for a simple dijon salad dressing. Current search flow: Searches on google - gets top links - clicks one and visits.
New workflow (and I presume it will start giving more Gen AI) - put in a query (google presume) - get Gen AI output that MAY (I'd assume its enough for most folks) give you a solid output (trained on 100s of lets say recipes) - now if the user really wants something specialized - they need to scroll down - and also evaluate if they really care if Martha Stuart made the cookies or not right.
Laziness / path of least effort for most folks is going to give those blogs a hard time staying afloat (my assumption) and that not to mention the folks (like myself) who have GPT as their stock browser so any search query I do - gives me an output (and from there I need to click the cited articles If I need to know more)... often times I trust the Oracle if we're being entirely honest.
@dbul +1 to this — sequencing feels important.
It does not seem like traffic is going away, just that low-intent clicks are getting filtered out. LLMs answer the first question and then send fewer, more qualified visitors to sources they trust.
Before pivoting to paywalls or memberships, it is probably worth optimizing content so it is easy for LLMs to understand and reuse. When that is in place, AI starts to act more like a discovery channel.
Scade.pro
I’m exploring the same question right now, but more from the perspective of personal brand vs. product content. For myself, I lean toward platforms where sharing knowledge can be directly supported, through small donations, paid guides, or subscriptions. And at the same time, I still want to share some insights openly on PH or LinkedIn because visibility and trust are just as important.
With products, though, my strategy is different. I work with several IT and AI startups, mostly b2b, and we publish in the open. What works for us is writing long-form guides or research and then using them as lead magnets. A portion of the guide is shared publicly, with a link to the full version. That way the content attracts warmer leads, people already curious and open to real communication.
do you see your wife’s blog more as a personal brand project or as a product in itself?
@nastassia_k Really interesting - never thought of small donations / paid guides (not entirely applicable) but theres got to be a variation of that that might be.
I don't really see it as a personal brand project or a product itself. It is in fact more of a "personal brand" project but the majority of rev comes directly through Google searches for .. "Kale Almond Salad" or whatever key words she has targeted (similar strategy for any blog that relies upon ad traffic I'd assume) - she gets good engagement from her mailing list / Pintrest has fallen off a cliff in recent years - and then a few other sources (IG etc) - so I do wonder continually - what leveraging the engaged mailing list would be into a more niche community.
On the product front thats are a really interesting LM strategy - long form content that is partially gated - do you have it gated by pay walls / or simply leads (emails) to get the full guides / articles etc?
Curious if you'd be able to share more about how you've implemented that / the outcomes? ex how you're creating that compelling content and does it feel "worth it" to allocate so much time towards something that may not yield the results you'd want.
Thanks for the reply! Super interesting.
The pivot content creators may have to make is likely towards a multi-platform model. I obviously haven't read your wife's food blog but her experience making food is her product, not the blog itself. If she can transfer that experience to YouTube or Twitch (and bring some of her audience with her), she'll have second source of income.
And please tell your wife not to put all of her content behind a paywall: she'll always have a need to attract new readers/viewers to replace those who churn.
@william_zeidler totally - I guess if you'd much prefer to be behind the camera - the pivot to Video first content creation is a massive shift from traditional blog content. I don't surmise she'd ever put it all behind a paywall (again ad rev doesn't seem to be massively impacted for "make" based content at the moment) but I just sense a shift for the industry at large - ex. websites that generate $$ from ads.