You may have noticed something in the last year or so. It probably looked something like this:
You Googled (the most common search engine with 91% of market share) something, and Google answered your question for you right then and there. Awesome, right! Super convenient. But let’s pause for a second and consider where that answer came from. In case it’s not obvious, the red arrows might help. That’s right, Google and other AI companies take the data they’re using to answer your question from content creators. Thankfully, most of them now at least include a link to where they got it from in case you want to peek into the reliability of the information or learn more, but the truth is that you and I don’t click those links very often.
As a result, content-focused web traffic is down 15%-50%, 25% on average. It depends quite a bit on how much of a website’s traffic came from search engines previously. That’s a serious disincentive to provide content for free on the internet. Less traffic means fewer clicks on ads, fewer sales, and less monetization for those content creators.
One website broker tracked 100 successful blogs over four years and found the median traffic fell by 85%. Only 21 of those 100 continued to grow over that time period. I know of a successful blog sold a few years ago that is on the market at something like 1/10 the original selling price. The larger your website, the less this affects you. Small blogs have been crushed.
What does that mean for the future of the internet? It probably means fewer websites like this one. Recent grads and new readers may not realize there was a time, about a decade ago, when about 100 physician financial blogs existed. It was obvious to me back then that there were really only enough monetization opportunities for about 3-5 of them to become financially successful enough to justify the time doctors were putting into them, but it was still pretty shocking to see 90%+ of them completely disappear over the next five years. And that was before AI.
Now, WCI’s traffic is not down 85%. Depending on how you measure, it’s hardly down at all. But that’s because many of you don’t come here every day from Google. You click on your bookmark like I do or you type in “Whitecoatinvestor.com” or you click on a Facebook or Instagram link or you click on a link in an email we sent you. That’s great. For you. We do appreciate you and the loyalty of our community in supporting what we are trying to accomplish here.
And we’re doing fine, too. Despite AI, we’re on track in 2026 for our best year ever as a company and for what we’re trying to accomplish. The problem isn’t you. You already know about The White Coat Investor and how paying some attention to your finances reduces burnout and helps you be a better partner, parent, and professional. The problem is the next generation. You see, if we survey you about how you found out about all this the FIRST TIME, this is what you say:
See the problem? Nearly 40% of you originally found WCI by an internet search. Not all of you, of course. Some of you were given a book by a mentor or via our WCI Champions program. Many of you were referred by a friend or colleague. Some of you first came from social media. We’ve bought a few ads on Facebook or Google over the years. But mostly it’s all about search engines, friends telling friends, and those little life-changing books.
What We’re Going to Do
We’re not planning on going anywhere. WCI as a business has pivoted before, and it will pivot successfully this time. We’re going to continue to optimize our website for the search engines like Google and hope they use our information to answer your questions. A few people actually will still click on those little links to learn more. But we’re not going to rely on Google to help us spread this message. We’re going to double down on those other methods instead.
The books work, so we’re going to continue the WCI Champions program for first-year professional students. We’ve already given away 112,000 of those WCI student books over the last few years, a value of $3.3 million. I’ve even written The White Coat Investor’s Guide for Residents, and as we announced a few weeks ago, it will have its own Champions Program. We’re going to ask you to pass on your copy of our books, or even buy a few copies for your peers and trainees (for 25+ copies, we offer bulk discounts).
We’ve hired additional help on our social media team, and they’re putting out more and more compelling content all the time. They’re collaborating with physician influencers and our partners to answer your questions even without leaving Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, or wherever. We’re curating and moderating and putting more effort than ever into our online communities. (You can even have these conversations face to face at WCICON.) AI might get you the answers (by stealing them from us), but it is not going to help you feel like you belong or inspire/motivate you to do what you know you must. The WCI community will!
More information here:What You Can Do
So, what do we need from you? We need that referral part. We need you to talk finance with your friends, family, colleagues, trainees, students, and others. If you don’t want to be the bad guy, let me do it (just send them a link to a blog post or podcast telling them about the huge mistake they’re making). Something as simple as “there’s a list of doctor mortgage lenders (or student loan refinancing companies or contract review folks or insurance agents or whatever) on The White Coat Investor” or “you should spend more time reading The White Coat Investor, and then you wouldn’t stress so much about money” can go a long way. It might be worth millions to your friend. And if there’s ever a time you don’t feel like you can make a full-throated endorsement of what we’re doing here, we want to hear about it so we can course correct.
Thanks in advance. Both from me and from your friends who might soon be sending you emails like they send me:
“This email is long overdue, but I wanted to thank you and your team for the impact you’ve had on our family. Over the past month we’ve had a string of major expenses—a cross-country move, buying a minivan, and I broke my phone walking into a night shift. None of it was stressful. That’s when it really hit me.
I’m eight years out of residency. A coworker pointed me to your podcast right after I finished, and we’ve been building ever since. Since then, I have listened to every released podcast and read most of the blog posts. I’m lucky that my spouse is naturally frugal—working as a teacher before we met and had already saved significantly. We paid off $150,000 in student loans our first year out.
My first attending salary was $275,000; it’s now $380,000. My spouse stayed home to raise our kids and managed to squeeze in part-time work. Our household income has grown from around $300,000 to $500,000. Our investable net worth has grown from roughly $100,000 (thank you to my parents for telling me to invest in a Roth IRA and my residency for telling me to do the 401(k)) at graduation to just over $3 million (excluding the house or 529s).
Thank you for helping make that possible.”
It’s fun to get these emails. You can get them, too. All it takes is a sincere “testimonial” that won’t take you 15 seconds to deliver.
We love this community. You are what gets us up in the morning and in front of our computers to try to make an impact. Let’s make sure The White Coat Investor is still around when our grandkids and great-grandkids get accepted to med school.
What do you think? How many people have you referred to WCI over the years? What else can we do to get people here if Google won’t help?
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