SaaS HR SEO traffic got crushed after AI Overviews - looking for advice
Hey everyone,
I manage SEO for a SaaS HR software company, and I’m trying to understand how others are dealing with the current AI search shift.
Before AI Overviews became more common, most of our organic traffic came from TOFU informational content. Around 85% of our SEO traffic was from pages around HR letters, workplace policies, compliance topics, templates, and employee/employer guidance content.
That traffic has dropped heavily.
I expected some decline on informational queries because AI answers, snippets, forums, and other SERP features now answer a lot of those searches directly. But the bigger issue is that we’re also struggling on more commercial and product-led queries.
For example, pages targeting HR software, HRMS, payroll/attendance/leave management, compliance management, and similar SaaS-intent keywords are not performing the way they used to. In some cases, I’m seeing lower-DR domains, fresh websites, thin content, or pages that feel less useful appearing above more established and relevant pages.
So it feels like we’re getting squeezed from both sides:
TOFU informational content is being replaced or absorbed by AI answers, while commercial pages are becoming much harder and less predictable to rank.
Right now, I’m unsure where to focus effort:
- Should we keep pushing commercial pages harder to reach the top 3?
- Should we shift more effort toward long-tail, use-case-specific, and problem-aware pages?
- Should we invest more in brand demand, reviews, comparison pages, and community visibility?
- Should we optimize specifically for AI citations, mentions, and LLM visibility?
- For those working in SaaS, HR tech, compliance, or similar niches, what is actually working for you right now?
- What signals do you use to decide whether a keyword is still worth chasing versus moving effort elsewhere?
Would really appreciate any practical advice, frameworks, or examples from people dealing with the same thing.