Music Websites Just Got Harder (But It's Not the End)

Intro: The New Reality for Music Websites

Having your own music website used to be a smart move—it still is. You get more traction here than on platforms like SoundCloud or YouTube. But it’s now significantly harder to be discovered via search.

1. Why SEO for Musicians Is Getting Harder

AI Overviews are now embedded directly in many SERPs, shrinking organic clicks by up to 32% for the top result (from 28% down to 19%).
Another study found a nearly 18% decline in CTRs for positions 1–5 from 2024 to 2025 .
Plus, zero-click searches are rising—SparkToro reports fewer than 40% of Google searches lead to the open web.

What this means for musicians: even top-ranking pages get far fewer clicks, and Google increasingly captures users on the results page, without sending them anywhere.

2. AI Is Training on Your Content—For Free

Even as you push traffic back to your own site, AI is scraping your images, videos, music pages, blogs—and using them to train its models. Without compensation or proper licensing, your creative work propels systems you can’t monetize or influence directly.

3. Is This the End for Content Creators?

It doesn’t have to be—but it will be, unless we shift gears.

AI doesn’t need to copy your content forever—once its training corpus is "saturated," it just regurgitates what it already knows.
For digital music to remain sustainable, creators must be fairly compensated, not just reproduced.
Proposals like licensing APIs for AI services exist, but who sets value, and how do you distribute payouts fairly? remains unclear.

4. So… Is There Anything Musicians Can Do?

Yes—but smart, niche-driven strategies only.

Traditional SEO is still viable—some SaaS companies have grown organic traffic by 17% since late 2022 ([campfirelabs.co][4]). That means good content can thrive.

But most success now comes from:

Community (newsletter, Discord, Patreon)
Social-first presence (TikTok, Instagram)
Playlists & curated services
Live shows, direct merch sales
Innovative formats (like podcasts, video storytelling)

The golden age for albums may be gone—no one rolls spliffs on vinyls anymore—but that's not the end. It's a turn toward direct fan connection, not algorithmic dependence.

Conclusion (Based on the Data)

Despite the decline in organic traffic (18–32% in top results) and rising zero-click searches (40–60%), SEO isn’t dead. But it needs to be smarter, more niche, and better integrated with direct audience strategies.

Yes, the battle feels lost—but musicians who adapt to community-first, fan-driven models (not just search-first) can still thrive. If you're open to it, I can also draft a section on “niche SEO strategies for musicians” (e.g. long-tail keywords, lyric searches, local venues), to give readers practical next steps.