Last week, after I mentioned receiving 40,000+ AI citations across different AI platforms in the last 3 months (with several individual posts receiving 1,000-7,000 citations per month), a few subscribers emailed me with essentially the same question:

"Okay, but is that traffic actually any good?"

It's a fair question.

Especially right now, when every other headline seems to predict the end of organic traffic.

Google is investing heavily in AI search, AI Mode, and AI Overviews. Website owners, writers, bloggers, creators, businesses, and pretty much anyone who relies on content marketing have been watching all of this happen with varying levels of panic.

I'll be honest: I wasn't thrilled about it either.

I know my traffic would probably be higher today if AI search didn't exist.

But after a while, I realized something: whether I liked it or not didn't matter. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

AI wasn't going away.

My bills aren't going away either.

And I happen to enjoy working from my laptop, being able to travel, and running a business that fits inside a backpack.

So sometime in early 2025, I stopped worrying about whether AI would change search and started asking a different question:

"How do I adapt?"

One thing I focused on was building my mailing list more intentionally.

After several failed campaigns (and some very questionable experiments, lol), I eventually grew my newsletter to more than 5,000 subscribers and learned how to run seasonal campaigns that actually perform.

I also changed how I create content.

Instead of chasing high-volume keywords, I started prioritizing long-form content that attracts people who are actively looking for answers.

The result?

Less traffic, but more sales.

In some cases, more revenue from 1,000 visitors than I used to generate from 10,000.

And here's something many people overlook: Google isn't the only search engine.

A large portion of my organic traffic now comes from Bing, DuckDuckGo, Yahoo, AI search platforms, and other sources that many bloggers barely pay attention to.

The biggest surprise, though, has been AI citations.

When someone clicks through from an AI-generated answer, they've usually already received basic information about the topic.

They're not casually browsing; they're researching.

And if they click your site after reading an AI answer, they're often looking for deeper information, examples, data, or expertise.

In other words, they're highly qualified visitors.

That's exactly what I've been seeing on my own websites.

The content that tends to earn AI citations is often my most detailed, practical content. The same content that attracts readers who stay longer, subscribe, and eventually buy.

And there's another benefit:

As AI platforms continue deciding which sources to cite, becoming a trusted source creates opportunities that simply didn't exist a few years ago.

In my case, consistently earning AI citations has helped strengthen my position when negotiating advertising opportunities and partnerships.

That's why I'm not spending much time mourning how search used to work.

I'd rather spend my energy figuring out how search works now.

To help with that, I've updated my "How to Get Blog Traffic in 2026" guide with the SEO strategies I'm currently using to diversify traffic sources and attract highly targeted visitors from multiple channels.

And if you're experimenting with AI citations yourself, hit reply and tell me:

What's your biggest frustration right now?

Those replies are helping shape the guide I'm building about becoming a trusted citation source in AI search.

Bing As A Blog Traffic Source

For years, I treated Bing the same way most bloggers do:

I completely ignored it.

I focused on Google, checked Google Search Console, read Google SEO advice, and optimized specifically for Google.

Bing barely crossed my mind.

Then something unexpected happened.

By late 2025, Bing became my blog's biggest source of organic traffic.

At first, I assumed it was temporary. Maybe a weird algorithm update, seasonal spike, or just temporary luck (?).

But month after month, Bing traffic kept growing. And the visitors behaved differently. Very differently.

Here are a few things I noticed:

• Visitors from Bing spend around two minutes longer on my website than visitors from Google.
• Most of the subscribers who helped me grow my newsletter beyond 5,000 readers originally found me through Bing.
• Bing traffic generates more clicks and conversions on my affiliate offers.
• Many of my highest-engagement newsletter subscribers originally discovered my content through Bing.

That got my attention.

Fast.

Before long, Bing Webmaster Tools became one of the platforms I check most often.

And here's a little trick I've been using:

Whenever one of my articles starts getting impressions on Bing, I look at the actual search queries driving those impressions.

Then I update the article to better address those topics, answer additional questions, and improve sections that aren't performing as well.

Sometimes those updates create dramatic increases in clicks without publishing a single new article.

The funny thing is that I spent years believing Google Search Console was the only search tool worth paying attention to.

Turns out there was plenty of opportunity sitting elsewhere. If you've never looked seriously at Bing before, it might be worth a second look. Especially now that search traffic is becoming more diversified and people are discovering content through multiple platforms.

One important step:

Make sure Bing can actually find your content.

The first thing I did was submit my sitemap through Bing Webmaster Tools so Bing could crawl and index my site properly.

Since I use WordPress, I generated my sitemap using AIOSEO and submitted it directly through Bing Webmaster Tools. The entire process took just a few minutes.

And here's a nice bonus:

Once Bing indexes your content, you're also increasing your visibility on DuckDuckGo, since DuckDuckGo relies heavily on Bing's search index.

A small effort. Potentially a very large payoff.

Have an amazing day!

Andréane @ BeProductiveEveryDay

P.S. I'm still collecting feedback and real-world test results for my upcoming AI citations guide. If there's anything you're struggling with, now is the perfect time to tell me. Chances are, I'll cover it in the guide.

This newsletter was sent only to my subscribers as a 2-part sequence in June 2026. To get access to everything I only share with my subscribers, don't forget to subscribe to my newsletter today!