Viewpoint BY JAMES DEMPSEY, AIFD WHEN THE CLICKS STOP COMING


THE FLORAL BUSINESS AUTHORITY SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2026 | VOLUME 43 | NUMBER 4


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> I pay attention to our website analyt- ics. For about a year I have suspected that something in our SEO analytics was not making sense. I had done the work the trade publi-


cations and SEO consultants have been recommending for the better part of a decade. I had rewritten old blog posts — comprehensive and properly struc- tured with schema in place — and I had done broader SEO work that climbed my average search engine result posi- tion from page four to page one. The numbers said both efforts had worked; however, the clicks did not follow. I worked through the obvious


explanations: economic pressure, post-pandemic normalization, seasonal shifts. Some of the data fit some of those stories; none of them fit all of it. The piece that would not reconcile was a blog post about writing messages for funeral flower cards. It still ranked in search results and received tens of thousands of impressions but almost no clicks. That was when it became impossible


not to see what was happening. For years, the way florists earned


customers online worked like this: Someone typed a question into Google, like “what to write on a funeral flower card.” Google showed them a list of web- sites that might answer it. They clicked one of those results and were likely taken to a florist’s website. But everything we have been told to


do — write helpful blog posts, build out informative pages, optimize for the ques- tions people are asking — was built on the assumption that the answer would always live on and lead consumers to our website. AI search has changed that. Whether


using ChatGPT, Google’s AI Overviews or another AI-powered search tool, the answer is often generated directly on the screen — pulling from the same content we created — instead of sending readers to the source of the information — our websites. Increasingly, the platforms are designed to keep customers on their pages, not send them to ours. Under


this dynamic, you can keep ranking better in search results, but it may not help, because the customer reads the answer and never needs to click through. That does not


mean SEO is dead. It still helps AI systems and search engines under- stand, trust and surface your business. It’s just that the reward for that visibil- ity is changing. And in searches that drive real revenue — like “florist near me”— paid ads, map listings and other platform-controlled features have become increasingly valuable real estate. Florists may still win customers search- ing those terms, but increasingly that happens by paying for visibility rather than earning it organically. What are we to do? The safest cus-


tomer relationship is the one you own. That includes email lists, repeat clientele who know your name, strong Google Business profiles and brand-led acqui- sition that gives customers a reason to search specifically for you. Pulling that relationship back inside the four walls of your shop is what professional sovereignty looks like, and it is the only kind of asset that survives when the deal gets rewritten. My dashboard may not tell the


same story yours does. Yours might be sharper, or it might be softer. Open it this week and look at the 16-month view, with clicks, impressions, click-through rate, and average position visible together. If you are seeing a downward trend, it’s time to strengthen the assets that no algorithm can take away: your brand, your customer list and your repu- tation in the community.


James Dempsey, AIFD, owns Studio Herbage Florist in Johnstown and Malta, New York, and is the founder of FloristFacts.org, a consumer resource on floristry.


2 FLORAL MANAGEMENT | September/October 2026 | WWW.SAFNOW.ORG


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