It doesn't really matter what we think as marketers. It doesn't matter what businesses think people are doing. It actually matters what human behavior is happening right now.
Google gives you the option to hide your address. You can't do that on Bing.
If your website designer or developer has not brought to your attention schema markup and 301 redirects, you need to run and find somebody new. Hello everybody. Welcome to this episode of the Marketing Guides for Small Businesses podcast. Today we're going to review some of the local SEO stats and why they matter and what actions you can take to master SEO in 2026. SEO has got a couple of things that have been added to it as a result of AI-driven search. So we'll talk about some of those things, but we'll also just go through And remind everybody what good SEO best practices are to be found for local search. Some of the information we're going to pull is from, you know, some analysis that BrightLocal does. They, they produce annual reports, and this is an updated version of their report to incorporate, you know, what's going on in 2026. So with that, we're, we're ready to dive in, guys. You ready?
Absolutely.
Yep.
Good to see you guys.
Yeah. Good to see you. So, Ian, talk about local search and customer behavior in general.
Yeah. So I think this is where the rubber meets the road, right? Because it doesn't really matter what we think as marketers. It doesn't matter what businesses think people are doing. It actually matters what human behavior is happening right now. And so there's all sorts of trends happening. There's pundits telling us what's going to happen in the future. There's been people hailing that SEO is dead. It's not dead. It's just evolved and it's merged with AI search in some ways. And so the real issue is where are people searching for you? And, and what are they— what is their behavior right now? So the, the latest data is, is saying that 80% of consumers search online for local businesses on a weekly basis. So that's pretty crazy, right? 30, 32% search daily. And I think that number has actually risen.
Mm-hmm.
But close to half of consumers say they always or often add near me into their searches. So they're trying to find the most relevant searches. And of course, you know, if, if you haven't been hiding under a rock, Google's been actually appending that to local searches now for years. So if it uses proximity on searches, So local search queries are really, really vital for local businesses. In fact, I walked into a dental clinic yesterday and I wanted to drop off some information to them. And my comment to them was, you know, you guys are a great practice, but you're invisible. And I'm not joking, like they're literally invisible online. And so that's why I reached out to them because I'm like, as a as a caring dental practice that wants to serve customers, if you're not showing up where people are searching for you, then you are invisible, right? So it's hurting your business, but you're also not able to help as many people as you desire to. That's why you got into business. But there's kind of a lot of components that go into showing up for local searches. So, you know, your website is vital. It's the only property you actually own online. So, you know, if we were to break this down into an equation, Yeah. You know, your website is kind of 47% of that value, that equation that you need to build out. Directories are like 30, 31%. Business mentions. So this is where people mention you. This is backlinks. This is all sorts of different things. But that's like 16%. Forums and discussions, right? Are people talking about you? Are they sharing information about your business? I mean, I see this all the time. You guys probably do as well in Reddit, especially in Facebook groups, right? local groups where people are like, hey, do you know an insurance adjuster? And everybody will hop on and say, hey, I know this guy, he's great, you know, check out Carl. And here's his information, right? And so that's, that's a great example of, you know, being shown in a forum. But also, there's this— so that's traditional search, right? Google still takes up to, you know, the stats are murky, because everything's changing Human behavior is changing. But as far as the latest data is showing, we're still seeing about 83% of local searches being done through Google. And that doesn't even include Gemini. Like, that's just general Google organic search. So people trust that. They still use it. That includes Google Maps, right? The Local Finder. But we also know that the stats are showing that 45% of consumers have used AI tools to search for information or to search for a local business. So that doesn't mean 45% of consumers use it on a daily basis or consistently. Consistently, the question was, have you used AI to search for a local business once? Right. And 45% of consumers say yes. So there's this trend. And obviously, as more and more of the relevant information that we're looking for shows up in search and it'll— or in AI searches, and it allows us to do more comprehensive searches, right, where, you know, you can, you can be pretty complex and say, hey, I'm looking for, you know, a mechanic that services Audis with this particular model. And they specialize in this, right? And they need to be within this geographic location. And their reviews need to be 4.8, you know, star rating. And they can't have any bad ratings in the last month or something like that, right? Like, you can get pretty complex. as far as AI search goes. So, you know, that it's becoming a new thing. People are doing it more and more, especially for general information. That's where we see the biggest shift in human— in consumer behavior is people looking for general answers for general questions because AI is exceedingly good at that.
All right, cool. So what, do you have any recommendations on what kind of actions a small business should take to To improve their findability?
Yeah, yeah, great question. So for sure, focus on your website, make sure your website is optimized to the max and not just optimized for Google. You, again, 85% of searches, 83%, whatever the number is today, it's a lot. It's the majority of searches. You want to maximize your website. And so what that means is you want to outperform your competition as far as the quality of information on your website, because you want to be seen from Google and from the AI searches as the authority in the space. So that means you need exhaustive information about the services you offer. You need to have fresh content because all of the different platforms value that. People value that. That's why the platforms value it. It shows you're active. And you want to be creating content consistently and you want to be optimizing it. And what I mean by that is you want to make sure that there's schema markup in there. You want to make sure that you're formatting blog posts and your web pages with proper H tags, so heading tags, because that's how the robots read it, right? You're showing the value and the quality of information by the outline that you provide them. You want to be providing FAQs, so frequently asked questions. The reason that's so important, and we've been preaching that for 10 years, like we were pretty early into that because some of the experts that we were listening to through Google. But you really want to have frequently asked questions because if people are asking you those questions in your business on a daily basis or asking your customer service people, your salespeople, those questions, it means that they're searching for them online too. And if you can be the first person, first business that shows up with an answer to their questions, and you guys use this analogy fairly often because it's such a good analogy for HVAC companies where if you show or if you create content related to, you know, how to set up your Nest thermostat or something like that, right? And it's a tutorial, it's a blog post, detailed, you have a video that goes with it. So you're hitting kind of all the right levers. When somebody looks at that and they see, oh, this is how to set it up and I need somebody to help me with my heating or air conditioning, I'm going to these guys because they're obviously experts in the field. So again, it's all about positioning yourself. You want to optimize for near me searches, just like I was talking about how that's really important. So when people are searching for you from proximity, that means creating location pages for the surrounding areas around your business where you won't be as strong because your, your business is located in a particular area, especially if you're a search area business on Google, you need to really focus on location pages. You want to audit your listings. So listings on all of the various directories, your listings on Google Business Profile, you need to make sure that's maxed out. Your Yelp, right? Like all of the different profiles you can be on, you want to make sure that everything is consistent, that you're showing up properly, and that you've maximized all of the areas that they give you. They give you a lot of, you know, levers that you can pull for your business. Google Business Profile is constantly evolving. So you want to make sure that you keep going back to these and making sure they're up to date. Um, yeah, I think I've— those are some of the key things. I don't know if I mentioned schema. I think I kind of threw that in, but that's super important nowadays for AI search.
Yeah. So, Ian, I'm going to stay with you and have you kind of dig in a little bit more about the power of Google and Maps. And, you know, a couple of things that really jump— always jump out at me is the number of businesses that have not claimed their Google Business Profile. And if they have, the number of businesses that don't have a website, that think that maybe the Google Business Profile or maybe their Facebook page is enough. So, you know, talk about kind of some of the stats first about, you know, just Google in general and Maps particularly. And then again, kind of talk about an action plan to help with Google Maps?
Yeah, so Google Maps is so important. Like, think about a search engine result page, right? When you Google something, you, depending on the industry you're in or the service that you're looking for, you might have service ads at the very top, right? Service area ads. Then, sorry, I'm not even saying that word right. What's it called again?
Local service ads.
Thank you. I was getting my acronym in my brain wrong. Local service ads at the very top. That's where you bid directly against everybody else. And those can get very expensive very fast if everybody's involved in them. Lots of complaining about that in the industry right now because of competition levels. Then you have usually a couple search ads, right? There's usually 2 or 3 of those. Then you have map listings. And then you go down to organic listings. And then you go down to ads again. And the rotation continues. So just to—
What about the AI overview at the top?
Thank you. Thank you, Paul. That's a very good point. And the Gemini AI overview. At the top, which is becoming more and more important from a zero-click standpoint where people don't even click through. They just look at that and get their answer, especially for general information, right? And so that gives you just a reminder of what your, your SERP page, your, your search engine result page looks like. So maps are pretty high up on there. And the reason is, is that Google sees that that's very valuable to consumers who are searching for businesses in the area. So Usually it just gives a listing of 4 or 5 at the very top, sometimes only 3, depending on how many ads are in there. And then you have to expand it. So if you're not showing up in that top listing, then you're invisible right away and people have to work to find you. So 61% of consumers use business information sites like Google, like Yelp, TripAdvisor, Better Business Bureau. Bing is becoming more relevant again. It was invisible for, you know, I think it was like, you know, 0.5% of the marketplace. for quite a long time, and now it's growing. And that's because of AI, because they've made agreements with certain AI platforms. 72% of consumers use Google Search for local business information. And, and this actually drops a little bit down with different generations. And what else can I tell you? 45% of consumers default to Google for local searches. That number is actually way out of whack because it's much higher than that. Yeah, I'm just reading off some of the stats here.
Yeah, yeah. I remember one of the stats that Google put out themselves is, you know, people may find you on Google Maps, but they're going to trust you because of your website. More people trust the content that's on your website than what is going to show up on Google Maps results. So, you know, even though, you know, people have various levels of trust, when they get business information results, you know, the fact is, the property, the only property you can own is still the one that people are going to trust the most.
Yeah. And, and your point is really relevant, Ken, because, like, we've learned over the years that the buyer's journey is not like— I think business owners get hyper-fixated on, on very specific parts of the equation. And they miss seeing the big picture, right? The big picture is that people are on a journey. They're on a buyer's journey, they're looking for information, they want to make an informed choice. And in order to do that, they don't just use one source of information even anymore. Even with AI search, right, people aren't using that as their sole source of information. They're then taking that information and then researching more. And it's because we've, over the years, we've learned to be as consumers, researchers, right? We want to make, we want We want to be proud of the decisions we make, but we also— there's also this kind of vanity thing that has certainly come out in studies where we want to be able to tell our friends like, hey, I, you know, I found the best whatever. I found the best restaurant or the best dentist or, you know, who knows. But it is a funny human behavior that, you know, most of society has fallen into, at least Western society.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I can think of, you know, several instances where I've gone and I've done a search on Google and I look at the map results because there, that's the most prominent organic section of Google, meaning that nobody's paying necessarily to be there. Now, Google has let ads creep into some of those map listings, but usually when it's pretty easy to tell who are the organic listings versus the paid ads from even from the map pack.
Yeah.
But then you click on their profile, it's like they're showing up number 1 on Google. Then you click through and you go look at their website and it's like, it's such an underwhelming thing. It's like, wow, why? I don't think I want to contact these people because they just don't look real and legitimate.
Yeah.
I'm just, I can't stress enough how important your business website is. Even if you're showing up number 1 on the Google map results, uh, people are going to go trust and verify the information and get that final warm fuzzy feeling when they go look at your website to make sure that it resonates with what they're— with the problem they have and the sentiment that they may have about that problem.
Yeah, yeah. And, and I— you guys probably run into this as well. I bet some of our listeners have done this and they don't realize how much of a trap they're in is, is if you, especially if you're the owner of a Google Business Profile, which feeds the maps, right? So if, if you search for, say I'm a physiotherapist in my town, Bradford, I search, say I'm in my office and I search for physiotherapist, chances are very high that I will show up as the number one location because first of all, Google knows I've, I'm the owner of that. They also know that I'm visiting it constantly every day. So it's, it, it, it's saying, hey, Ian likes this physiotherapy clinic. So it's going to show me as number 1 at that pinpoint. But, you know, one of the reports that we do for prospective clients and our existing clients, because we want to show how we're maximizing optimizations and getting them more exposure and visibility, is a local grid report. And it basically does a search. So imagine you do, you know, a 5-mile search around your office. office, assuming you're like a brick and mortar, and you're trying to get people to your office, or at least show up locally. And at every single pinpoint, and we can get pretty granular in this, it will actually do a search for physiotherapists at every single pinpoint. So imagine a map just full of pinpoints. And what usually happens is, at the very point of your business where you actually exist, it might be green, you might be number 1 or number 3, You know, 1, 2, or 3. But then as it radiates out, you're gonna lose just that, you know, you're gonna start to go yellow and then red, and which it will actually show you like, hey, you're number, you know, 5 in this pinpoint. Hey, you don't even exist in this pinpoint. And because I do these reports all the time, and you guys probably do as well, I'm amazed at the drop-off. Like, sometimes I have prospects I'm talking to, businesses, and they don't even rank for their— like, they might rank number 5 for their exact location, and the competition that's beating them might be like half a mile away from— like, it's so, you know, it's super, super important.
And Google, the Google Business Profile Has come out with the connection settings in the Google Home app.
Whose Google am I controlling?
Well, you're trying to control mine, I guess.
Awesome. Hey, turn up the heat to 100 degrees. All I was going to say was, you know, Google Business Profile, a complete Google Business Profile makes customers— this is a stat— makes customers 2.7 times more likely to view your business as reputable, and businesses with complete profiles are 70% more likely to receive visits. So it's powerful, right? It's part of the equation. It's part of the buyer's journey. So you need to make sure you're optimizing the heck out of it.
Yeah, we've talked about, you know, for years on this podcast, if Google gives you something and a place to put information, if you've got good quality information, put it in there. Google loves Google. It loves the more complete you are. If you, if you leave blanks and open spaces and unfilled answers, you're allowing reasons for doubt and you're eroding trust. And so, you know, just when you're, when you're, when, and this is a statistic that just blows me away, apparently only 35% of small businesses have claimed their Google Business Profile.
Yeah.
I mean, that's insane. I know a lot of businesses probably operate out of their homes, and maybe that's why they don't claim a Google Business Profile, but you can still claim it and not reveal your home address.
Yeah.
You know, as you talked about, as a service area business, people don't come to your house. Oh, you know, or maybe they do. Like in Albuquerque here, one of the things that's really started happening lately are these pop-up bakeries. They call them porch bakeries, where people you know, a couple of days a week will bake goods and then they'll go out on their porch and they have a variety of wonderful stuff. It's all fantastic that I've tried so far. But that type of business is probably likely to say, I don't need a Google Business Profile. They're relying on Instagram. But, you know, it's like if a couple of days a week you actually allow people to come to your place of business to buy stuff and you don't have a Google Business Profile. So regardless of the type of business that you have, Unless you're just truly an e-commerce business or a national business, you know, you need to, you need to have a Google profile and then just fill in the information. And if it gives you the ability to do Google Posts, yes, it does. Guess what? Do Google Posts. Google loves Google. Yeah.
And if I can just kind of stick the final nail in the coffin, right? Hammer it in. Google, your Google Business Profile and your map listings.
You might want to check the connection settings in the Google Home app.
I must, I must sound close enough to you, Ken. So anyway, what I was gonna say though, was the Google Maps are being pulled into Gemini, of course. So think AI search now. And Claude actually pulls in Google Map listings. And then your Bing Map can be fed from Google as your Google Business Profile as well. There's a connection there that can feed it and that's pulled into other AI platforms. So it— like, as we move forward and evolve from just Google Search to Google Search plus AI, your, your Google Business Profile is— it hasn't lost value. In fact, it's gained even more value. So if you haven't been paying attention to it, it's really time to start paying attention to it.
So Paul, I haven't forgotten about you. Let's, um, let's shift over to Business listings. Ian kind of talked a little bit about this, and Google obviously with Google Business Profile gives you, you know, a business listing opportunity. Ian has also mentioned Yelp and Bing and a couple of others. Talk about some of the statistics out there about the importance of the accuracy of the information in these business listings.
Yeah, it's— well, before I get into that, at the very beginning Ian had mentioned about page and page structure, content structure, blog post structure. And the LLMs have kind of added a new twist to that because LLMs don't read your content the same way Google does. And this— and so it's not just about title tags, it's about the LLMs will read about the top 30% of your content. kind of skim through the middle and then they'll read the bottom 20%. So you have to structure— and Google doesn't really care so much about that structure in and of itself. They care about title tags and things like that. But your page structure has become more important the way you structure it for the LLMs. So just to be aware of that. But yeah, accuracy is extremely important because it's like, it's the foundation of trust. If Most consumers, a vast majority, like 62%, something like that, 63%, if they find inconsistent or incorrect information, like you said, maybe they find you on Local Business and then they go to your website and there's inconsistent information, that kind of puts doubt in their mind. If your business hours are wrong and People show up at your business or restaurant. This happens all the time with restaurants where their business hours are wrong and people are good. They just go somewhere else and they may never, they may never come back. And, you know, Ian mentioned that if your business profile is complete, they're 2.7 times more likely to trust you. And people are actually 50 to 70% more likely to trust a business if they do have a complete Business Profile. I mean, it's just, we can't stress the importance of it enough. And I think Ken mentioned that even if people find your business through the LLMs, assuming you even show up, and that's, that's a whole nother discussion, they're probably, they're going to go to your website or your Google Business Profile to verify the information. And the LLMs probably are not going to even find your website, because we've talked about this in past episodes, that they don't crawl the web the way Google does. The LLMs are going to find your website because they found your brand mentioned, your content on a third-party platform. And yeah, I think Ken mentioned this too, that even if they find you in an LLM, they're going to go elsewhere and try to verify that information. So it's, it's just extremely accurate. I mean, if you're If your holiday hours are wrong, that's not good. You need to check that. I mean, Christmas is when Christmas is, and you can set that in your holiday hours. Same thing with Easter, same thing with Memorial Day, whatever. Any holiday you're closed, that needs to be listed in your holiday hours. And it's something you should check on a regular basis.
Yeah.
Make sure your hours, your address, phone number, and, and it's not just your website, it's not just your Google Business Profile. If your information is wrong on a third-party platform or some directory listing, and there's ways to fix that, and that's how the LLMs find you, then the LLMs are going to have inaccurate information. So it's, it's You just can't ignore this stuff anymore.
Yeah, I think a lot of people, you know, there was a lot of fatigue around business directory listings for a while from SEO people because they kept talking about it and it was very important, this concept of name, address, phone number. It became a little diminished there for a little while, but guess what? Roared back and it's more important than it's ever been. Again, Paul, why you said it, because, you know, the LLMs have to find you, find out about your business before they even know to go crawl your website. You know, there's no way to trigger them to come and review your website like you can set up through Google Search Console, for example, submitting your sitemap. So, so business directories are really important right now. You know, there are really probably 4 that are, that are super critical. Your Google Business Profile. This is for general, you know, business directory listings. Yelp and Bing. I think a third of the time Yelp feeds ChatGPT and Perplexity search results. It's been documented that those sources have been pulled from Yelp at least a third of the time. The challenge with AI search through ChatGPT and, and, uh, and the other platforms is, uh, you don't get the same answer every time. They pull from different sources and, you know, it's— there are a lot of variables there. But, you know, Yelp has become important. And you mentioned, you know, Bing has just been resurrected from nothing.
Yeah.
to where it's now a really critical place to be found. So you definitely have to be paying attention to it. Ian, go ahead. I'm sorry.
Quick note on Bing, and this sucks for home-based businesses, is that if you don't publish your address, you cannot have a Bing listing. Where Google gives you the option to say people don't come to my place of business, And you can hide your address. You can't do that on Bing. They won't let you.
I believe you can if you don't connect it to your Google profile, though. If you're trying to build your Bing profile from your Google profile and you don't have your address published, you're right. But I'm not— well, we'll have to double-check and see.
The last conversation I had with Bing support Unless they misspoke, was that your listing will fail verification if you don't publish your address. I mean, we, we can double-check that, but that's like I said, this was like low-level tech support. So they— that might not be 100% accurate. That is possible.
Well, and here's, here's a good point for our listeners to take away. The answer you get today is very likely to change tomorrow. So you have to stay on top of this stuff, or you have to have somebody staying on top of this stuff on your behalf. Ian, let's shift over and talk about what factors go into local SEO rankings.
Yeah, a bunch. So Google Business Profile, there's a whole bunch of actual factors within Google Business Profile itself. The categories you choose. Your primary category is absolute paramount and vital for how you show up. I see this all the time. Maybe you guys do as well, where, you know, there's a lot of complex services out there. You know, I serve a contractor, a general contractor, and a lot of general contractors focus on specific areas, right? They're home remodelers or, you know, whatever. This one particular remodeler I serve, they have grown over time and they do everything from landscape construction and contracting to landscape maintenance to, you know, pool, putting in pool, swimming pools. They do inside renovations like they asphalt, like they do everything right. And so, you know, you kind of have this conundrum as a business.
Yeah.
How am I going to select the primary category on my Google Business Profile that's going to give me the greatest exposure for the most important services we have? So you need to think about your primary category. And then you get— last time I checked, I think you get 15 subcategories, although that changes over time too. But, you know, so you want to select your subcategories appropriately as well. And again, for, for me guiding clients, usually it's related to, you know, what are the services or products, but what are the services that are highest value to us? Where do we make the most money? And what do we want to get more of? Like, that's, you know, you just want to make sure that you're, you're kind of paving the way for people to find you for those services. Then you can build out services, you can build out products within Google Business Profile. You talked about posting, Ken, on a regular basis, just like on a social channel. Reviews, you got to be getting reviews. So all of these things within Google Business Profile Even posting photos. I can't believe, like, when you look at the metrics in the backend of your Google Business Profile, you'd be surprised at how many times your business shows up just from the photos that you've shared on in your Google Business Profile. So you need to be again maximizing everything within your Google Business Profile. I've probably forgotten a few things, but you know, starting there because this is your key conduit In order for Google to know about your business, to show up for map listings, to show up even in organic search, please make sure your website link, your link to your website is in your Google Business Profile. And also make sure that it's HTTPS. I see this all the time still. I can't believe it. But, you know, HTTPS has been a requirement for years, you know, from a Google standpoint. But people just don't go into their Google Business Profile to update that info. So sometimes, you know, you're basically causing Google to do a redirect to your secure page and/or site, and you don't want to make Google jump through hoops. What else? So that's your Google Business Profile, super important. Your website, so showing up for local searches, your website has to be maximized from an SEO standpoint. You need to have all the stuff we talked about earlier. I won't go into that again, But you really owe it to yourself to be, and you owe it to yourself because, and to the people you're trying to reach, because your organic search results still drive far more people to businesses today than anything else. Better than, you know, LSAs, local service ads, better than the map listings, better than Google paid ads. Like it just, it's so powerful because people know that you had to earn your way into that position by doing the right things by being the best business as far as creating resonant signals about that. So people have that perception and it causes people to click on those more than anything else. So super important. And then I would say, yeah, like directory listings, get on those. I didn't say schema on your website, but again, I won't go into all the details. Getting backlinks from authority— authoritative websites, super important. Being involved. So, you know, Being involved in community groups in, in what are those things called where you connect with other people online?
Communities.
Something like that. Yeah. I'm having word issues today. I'm trying to go too fast because we got lots to cover. But those are, to me, those are the really big things. And then making sure that you— this one's often overlooked too with websites is make sure that you don't create a skyscraper page like that used to be a trend. For a lot of businesses for some reason. They never ranked well, but I think because they were cheap to create, businesses— and what I mean by a skyscraper page, I think everybody's probably experienced them, but you basically have your navigation at the top of the page, and instead of sending you to a different page when you click on the navigation, it just sends you down to an anchor point on the same page. So basically your whole website is on one page that's very long. Long, and those do not perform well for search. And so part of that is because you're not giving enough authoritative information, detailed information about the services you provide, about your business. So you want to be creating service pages. You also want to be creating location pages, and these are pages about the locations surrounding your area so that again, you're giving the signals to Google and, and to the AI searches FAQs I talked about, schema you want to be adding, which is, you know, most, most people listening to this will probably have no idea what that is. And I'm not going to go into detail. But hire somebody to build your website who is not just a good web designer. In fact, I'd say, and I hate to say this because I don't want to throw anybody under the bus, but I run into so many websites that look beautiful, perform horribly because they are really just focused on the graphics. And what's that?
Throw them under the bus. Do it.
Well, the reason I don't like to throw them under the bus is because that's where I started my career as a web designer, right? And I know people still come up that way. But you really have to, like, as the business hiring a web developer, you need to hire somebody that understands SEO because You can have the best-looking website, you can build it, and they will not come. You have to absolutely be sending out all of these signals that are going to drive traffic to your website. Otherwise, you just wasted all your money. So spend a little bit more, hire really good people to do it that understand marketing, understand design, but then understand the SEO and the AI search, and you'll be far ahead.
What I'm going to say is If your website designer developer has not brought to your attention schema markup and 301 redirects, you need to run and find somebody new because they are— if you've had a website that has built up some rankings, they're probably going to blow it up inadvertently because they're going to be focused on creating a really pretty page. And look, this is more dangerous than it's ever been right now because it is so dang easy easy to use AI to build a website. It's— and because of that, it's really easy. So, and AI builds beautiful websites.
Yeah.
But they don't build good websites necessarily from an SEO perspective. Typically, they are not designed to build SEO websites. The whole focus is to make the website as pretty as possible. And so there's, there's an entire brand new set of people who are claiming to be website designers who will bid you build your website for $700. And, you know, and you think, oh man, I'm getting a heck of a deal. This is fantastic. Know what you're paying for. If they're not talking to you about redirecting content from your existing pages with through 301 redirects, and if they're not talking about schema markup, they don't So, you don't ask them about it. If they don't bring it up, they don't know. And they haven't had— they don't have a good best practice. So, you need to run from those people. I'm sorry.
I'm going to tell them to move their ass all day long. The only difference I would say, Ken, is I would say you actually have to ask them because a lot of times in the sales process, right? Like, I'm thinking even when I talk to prospects, I don't go deep into detail unless we need to, right? You know, because it prolongs the sales process and you can lose to somebody who doesn't do as good a job if you go down into the rabbit trails too much. And so that's what I've learned over the years. And so I would just, I would encourage people to ask the tough questions like, what is going to happen to my, you know, existing URLs? And, and do you build out schema? And you don't have to know what it is. Just ask the question and see what happens, right? Yeah.
Again, if they're not bringing it up, they don't know it. I'm sorry. It should be a part of every conversation that's being had, even if it's— I just think it's fundamental. We go out of our way to make that a point to talk to people, not to get down into the weeds, but just let them know we're going to do 301 redirects so that we're not going to— we're going to preserve the SEO value you've already built up through your website. We're not going to destroy that. We're not going to blow that up. And, you know, right now, honestly, if you're hiring somebody to build a website to do SEO and they're not talking to you about schema, they don't know what the hell they're doing.
Yeah, I'm sorry. And, and just to, to add to that, like, the, the reason a lot of people don't do that kind of stuff is it's tedious. Like, doing 301 redirects, like, it sounds simple because doing one 301 redirect is super simple, right? You, if you have the right tools, doing it for an entire new website, it's a lot of work. I mean, you guys do this all the time, right? You're creating spreadsheets of showing like, here's your existing URLs, here's where we're sending them, here's why you won't lose any juice, right? Like, it's, it's complex. But that's because a good website, especially if you invested over time and you've built up equity in it, it takes work to properly transition that equity you've built up into a new website.
Yeah. And there's a couple of thoughts, you know, then maybe you're fine going that route, but just realize it's not going to help you with SEO. Paul, I'm sorry, you were saying something.
No, that's all right. I'll just say, here's a couple thoughts. Instead of 301 redirects, you better have a damn good reason to not maintain your current URL structure.
Yeah.
Why wouldn't you just maintain the structure?
Yeah, except you probably run into this, Paul, that like half the time the websites we take over, uh, because they were done by web designers, there, there was no thought put into the actual URL structures. And so they were not helping them show up for search at all, right? There was—
Yeah, I mean, if you're— instead of using the post title, they're using like the date Yeah, I get it, but I would try to maintain as much of the URL structure as they— because 301 redirects won't hurt you in the long run, but in the short term they can cause ranking issues.
Yeah.
Um, and as far as the structured data, I wouldn't say anything to them about it. I'd wait till the website's built and go to Google's Rich Results Testing Tool and plug in a URL and then say, why didn't you put structured data on my website?
Yeah, but by that time they've already made an investment that they may not be able to get back, and they may have to spend money to have a brand new website built because—
Well, yeah, that, that may be true, but you know how people are. They're going to see that $500 website price tag and say, I don't care about that.
Well, no, yeah, I mean—
I mean, that's real. I'm not saying what you're saying is wrong. I'm saying that's the reality.
Yeah, you know, you know, it's just like I always talk about websites like you need to think about the website like you think about your home and digital marketing in general, actually. But your website, why do you want to build on a crappy foundation? You know, go buy a $5 or $10 a month hosting platform. You know, it's like building a house on sand that has water running under it. You know, I mean, you're just begging for problems.
Yeah.
Don't skimp on that. Don't skip on your website because it's the only property online that you own. If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. Now, if all you want is a nice pretty website that you can send people to go prove that you're a real business, okay, maybe a $500, $700 website's fine. But if you're expecting it to help you be found for search, it's going to be way more than that. And if it's not, you need to run.
So, okay, one, one last bomb to drop.
Okay.
Since we're on this topic, and you, you need to have enough information on your website that Google and the AI searches understand your business. So, you know, you guys probably hear this all the time, or when you're going through the design phase of a website, people are always like, hey, I want it to look like Apple's website. But you're not Apple. You're not like— Apple has built up brand equity over time. So people Well, if you're thinking of an Apple product, you're gonna go to Apple, right? So, you know, you are not Apple, you're competing in a very different market. So the amount of information you need to express on your website, and don't get me wrong, like Apple has tons of information, they're exhaustive in their information. But the way they've designed their website is very visually appealing, and very little information at first, right? And I don't think that works very well. In fact, I know that doesn't work very well for most businesses. So, you know, think differently. Think about the end user and how you're going to get in front of them.
Yeah. So Paul, let's talk about the importance of reviews and trust because this is also, it's always been extremely important. It's amped up even more now with AI-driven search. So talk about some statistics and then give our small business listeners kind of an action plan. Yeah.
So, you know, we had a call this morning and the business we were talking to, I forgot to mention this, they need reviews bad. They really do. And I meant to mention that and I forgot. But yeah, here's a staggering statistic. 97% of consumers read reviews for local businesses. So if you don't have reviews in The other thing that's important is review velocity. We've talked about in the past and recency of reviews. If your newest review is a year old, 9 months old, that's not helping you. It's just not. A lot of things can happen in a few months when it comes to local businesses. They may— maybe 6 months ago they were bought out and the new owners suck. Okay, so you have to have a steady stream of reviews. And now I want to say that it's all relative, because if you have very high-end product and you have a long sales cycle, you're not going to have as many reviews because you're not a restaurant where people constantly leave reviews. So it— but you're not competing in that space either. You're— if you're selling cars, you're competing with other businesses selling cars. So it's all relative to the industry you're in. So that's important to keep in mind from the review velocity standpoint. And so that's just all reviews in general. Okay. So 71% use Google reviews and they trust Google reviews. And if a business has bad reviews, consumers will shy away from them. If they have good reviews, they'll trust them and they'll get on the shortlist. This is something I didn't realize, but 37% of consumers use Instagram to find local business reviews and 29% use TikTok. So I guess unfortunately TikTok's a thing, as long as you don't mind your personal information being sold to China. And over 50%, I think it's 54% of consumers, they'll, if they read your reviews and they're positive, they'll go to your website. And look at your website. So, and as far as AI recommended businesses, the AIs do look at your reviews before recommending you. A lot of people don't realize that, but AI does go and find reviews, and that has a strong impact on what businesses they recommend. So if you're— you need to have at least a 4.5-star rating, I think. I mean, and it's kind of tricky because if you have a 5-star rating, a lot of people will question that because no business is perfect. So I mean, if you have 4.5-star reviews, you're probably good. As far as getting reviews, just, just ask. And you— this process can be automated as well. And I'm not advocating gating reviews, although a lot of people do that. But just ask and you can You can ask right there in person. We have what's called a tap card where you can just tap it on their phone and it'll open the Google review where they can leave a review. You can send a text, you can send an email, but you just have to ask. And the other thing is respond. And this, this can be automated, but I don't know. I don't know if I trust AI that much yet.
Yeah.
I think I would have AI write a review, but don't— or I mean, write a response, but don't automatically send it. I would read it first and make sure it's okay. But it's important to respond to reviews. If you're getting reviews and you're not responding, Google notices that too.
Yeah, one of the things that is interesting is actually some previous studies I've seen, people actually prefer AI-written responses.
Yeah.
Because they tend to have a little bit more detail instead of like, oh, thanks for your business, we really appreciate it, you know, which is all fine and dandy, but you're missing a little bit of an opportunity there because you can reiterate and reinforce, you know, somebody's great experience highlighting maybe one of your very best products or services. So AI does a good job of that, but you're right, Paul, you You should have somebody review that before it's auto-posted. But the key thing is, if you can't respond within 24 hours, you're better off letting AI just write it and post it because the response window is also a critical factor that are being— that's being evaluated. So.
The other stat that— the old stat that used to be out, and it came from a bunch of studies, was that only 6% of consumers leave a review without being asked. And there's a fair bit of industry-specific information out there, but the range I've seen most recently is between 5% and 10% of consumers leave reviews without being asked. So the point is 90% to 95% of consumers do not leave reviews without being asked, right? So you have to ask. Yeah.
And, you know, the other side of that, and we've talked about this in the past as well, is that the reason— I think the reason that doesn't— that happens is a satisfied customer is not really highly motivated to on their own leave a review, which is why you have to ask. But you piss somebody off, they're gonna go leave a bad review because that's a motivator.
Yeah. And it stays in their mind longer.
It does.
Yeah.
And we're all busy in our minds, right? Like, you know, as soon as you leave a place of business, you're on to your next task, you're on to your next social media post looking at it, whatever it is. And so people aren't thinking about like, ah, it's such a great experience and, you know, I need to leave a review.
Yeah. Paul, let's shift over to the rise of AI local search. Talk about what's kind of happening there and then, you know, talk about anything above and beyond what Ian talked about for local SEO that maybe small businesses need to add into the mix.
Yeah. And like Ian mentioned, and this was never vetted or broke down that I, that I've ever seen, where 45% of consumers use LLMs to search for local businesses. But like Ian pointed out, is, is that— did they use it once? Did they use it twice?
No, the stat is that they used it once in the last 12 months to search.
So I'd like to know how many of them use it on a regular basis. I think that varies by demographic because I know a lot of younger people, they almost exclusively use LLMs. And I think as you go up in the age groups that it starts to shift towards Google, but people are using social media as well.
There was a study or a stat that I heard yesterday actually that the only demographic that has a positive perception of AI tools are baby boomers. So everybody younger than a baby boomer has a very healthy skepticism of AI. So while it's interesting that they may be more inclined to use it, they don't trust it. Whereas boomers don't necessarily think because, you know, I mean, if they're tech savvy, they may very well be using an LLM to help them make a decision. I just thought that was fascinating.
Yeah, I don't trust anything. But the other thing is being found in these LLMs. I mean, it's like 30 times more difficult to be— to rank in the LLMs, ChatGPT, whatever, than it is on Google. And it's simply because of the way the LLMs work, the way they find your business. And but as we're talking about this, the amount of people using ChatGPT, not necessarily for search, but using ChatGPT on a regular basis, on a daily basis, it's growing exponentially. And I have to believe that search is going to follow that trend. I mean, it's still, you know, Google still dominates on search, but I have to believe that the LLM searches are going to start to trend upward just because people are using they're using it more and more. So, but part of it's the trust factor. But if you're telling me you trust Google more than LLMs, I don't know. I agree with you there.
I saw a recent trending chart that was actually showing that ChatGPT is falling and Google's rising when— because they were doing a comparative analysis of traditional search, social media, and LLMs. And it was interesting to see because Gemini and Claude are the ones that are growing and ChatGPT is actually falling as far as usage right now.
Yeah, and that could be because if, if you're— I mean, I'll use Google for search just because I usually have a browser window open. But if I'm working in ChatGPT and I want to find something, I'll do a search from within ChatGPT just because I'm Yeah. So ChatGPT, and this is another stat from the study, they show business websites for 58% of its local search sources, and then 27% by business mentions and 15% by online directories. So it's, it's there. It's going to be interesting to see what happens because there's, there's also Claude and Grok. So, you know, And we don't really talk about those because they're not nearly as prevalent. But yeah, it's going to be interesting to see what happens between Gemini and ChatGPT. I use ChatGPT just because I've been using it forever. And I see no reason to start using Gemini heavily. So, but yeah, local search visibility, it's influenced And we've talked about this by directories, third-party websites. And interesting, when I say third-party websites, the LLMs do not consider your Facebook page a third-party website. It is— the LLMs consider a third-party website a website that you do not— or a property that you do not control. So having brand mentions on high-authority websites that you don't have control of. That's what triggers the LLMs to find your business. And that's when they're going to go look at your website. And so, I mean, all this matters because it's not, you know, despite the trend lines you were talking about, AI and LLMs are not going away. They're just not. So you need to recognize that you cannot ignore it. I'm not saying to take all the money you're spending to rank on Google and shift that over to ranking on the LLMs. That's not what I'm saying. But I'm saying you can't ignore it. And so press releases and mentions, and that's what I was talking about earlier with the third-party websites. And there's, there's extremely difficult ways to go about that, and there's easier ways to go about that. And the easier ways, small business probably cannot do. They're going to have to hire someone that has access to, to tools and things like we have access to some high-authority third-party websites that we can post content to. That a local business, small business, they're just not going to have access to that. But PRs, you know, reach out to like local bloggers, local news sites, um, see it, see if you can sponsor something. If you, if you're involved in the community, try and get local backlinks. Um, a lot of these, a lot of these things can help. Obviously optimize for keywords. We have talked about schema. Which is, and again, like Ian said, I'm not going to go into it. Just know that I think we talked about this a few weeks ago, that Google got pretty good at understanding what your website was about without schema. So it became one of those nice-to-have things, not necessarily need-to-have. The LLMs cannot understand your website without structured data, which is what schema is. It just can't make sense of it. So, and if you can, uh, get included on, on a best-of list, um, local, local media— I mentioned local media— chamber. Most chambers, if you join a chamber, you will get a link back to your website from the, from the Chamber of Commerce, which is, which is huge. So facts, facts are extremely important. And now it's reached a point where you— it's okay, it's perfectly fine to have a a general facts page, but you should also have service-specific facts on those service pages. So, you know, if you're a plumber, you should have water heater facts on your water heater page, and you should have anything you do as a plumber or a landscaper or whatever it is, you should have a page for that service, and on that page should be facts specific to that service. And then, and again, you need schema for those facts. So, and like we talked about several times, the expertise, authority, trust, all of that stuff.
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So we're coming up where I think we just went past the hour. Real quick to wrap this up, just kind of some roundtable stuff. I'll start out with just a couple of, you know, stats that are important First is about strategy. 94% of high-performing brands online have a dedicated marketing strategy. Guess what? Most of the other businesses don't have a strategy. So having a strategy is very important, especially now because SEO is now— there are 3 or 4 new layers. on top of what's required from the traditional local SEO stuff that we had to worry about. The good news is if you do it all in concert with one another, you're going to help yourself rank on Google as you're helping yourself rank on, you know, the other AI-driven platforms. Claim your Google Business Profile. Like I— like we talked about before, only 35% of small businesses have a Google profile. There's really a massive execution gap. I mean, I think a lot of small businesses maybe try to do a lot of the right things and maybe they start, maybe they have a website with a blog, maybe they've created a Facebook business page, maybe they've gotten, you know, a review process put in place, but then they fail to execute on it over and over and over again. If you're not writing content on a regular basis, if you're not getting reviews on a regular basis, you're falling behind. And so the execution gap is huge. One thing we haven't talked about, which isn't really an SEO factor per se, but it is absolutely a conversion factor. And if you're going to spend money on getting yourself to be more visible online with the purpose of generating leads, you got to have the speed to eat up— speed to lead elements we talk about all the Business that's the first to respond is going to have the overwhelming opportunity to win that business, irregardless of price. Every missed call that you have represents potential lost revenue. So put a dollar amount to that. And then leverage— here's where I think AI makes the most sense to get started for a lot of businesses, and that's just to provide an AI voice assistant and an AI chatbot. to alleviate your staff to do more important higher-level things. And oh, by the way, the AI assistants are probably gonna do a better job of capturing and booking appointments than many of your staff members who might be answering the phone. So with that, I'm gonna go over to you, Ian. You mentioned a little bit about zero-click search and AEO. Talk just a little bit more about that. And we're kind of running close on time, so.
Yeah, yeah. So I won't go into great detail, But this is where people find the answers to their questions through Google Gemini results at the top of the page for Google or on the LLMs where they don't have to click to your website to get the answer, right? Traditionally, you would have to click on the link in the search engine results to get the answer. And so that's a big change. But if you're a business, you just need to look at that as part of the buyer's journey, right? So you need to make sure that they they can know about you, like you, trust, try, buy, repeat, refer from you, right? So you, you need to think about what stage they're at when they're looking for information and what type of information they're looking for, and make sure you're feeding the machines that information that people are looking for, because you will be referenced if you show up in those zero clicks, right? And sometimes the zero It doesn't mean they won't click to call. It doesn't mean they won't go to your website. It just means they get the answers that they're immediately looking for. But as most of us, as, you know, researchers now, one question leads to more questions. And so people don't stop at the first question unless it's just a general question like, you know, when was Bon Jovi born or something like that.
Yeah.
So yeah, you need to feed the machines. And if you're a business and you, I think Ken, you threw out the stat that 60% of small businesses do not have a website, right? If you're a small business and you do not have a website, you need to make that, put that on your critical path. You need to get a good website. It needs to be SEO optimized and AI search optimized. And you need to get that thing humming right now because the seed you plant today with that stuff will feed your business not just in the near future but for years to come. So invest wisely.
Yeah, Paul, um, talk about kind of like, uh, you know, kind of the core 5 or 6 services and then a 90-day local visibility plan that people can quickly take and implement. Obviously they're going to have to spend the work to do the work, but conceptually, if you can outline that for them, that'd be Yeah, so first of all, consistency.
I don't care what it is— Google Business Profile, local content, um, facts, service content, omnichannel distribution, reviews— consistency. Okay, so I'll give you a 90-day plan here. So the first 30 days, make sure your Google Business Profile is complete. Um, get your citations cleaned up, and I'm not going to go into how to do this because that would take too long. Get a system in place to ask for and respond to reviews. So, and then the next 30 days, your service pages, get them built out. FAQ content schema, probably have to hire someone to do that. And omnichannel content distribution we talked about in the past, you cannot do it yourself. Sorry. And you cannot ignore it. It's no longer an option or that'd be nice to do. It's you have to do it. And then The next 30 days, PR outreach, AI assistance. I think they're, again, that's coming to a point where it's no longer going to be an option because people are going to expect it. And it's because if someone calls your business, contacts your business, and you don't respond right away, they're gone. They're going to call somebody else. I just did that with— I had to have some trees trimmed. First place I called took 3 days to get back to me. By the time they got back to me, I already had someone come out here, give me a bid, and set a date to do it. And so they lost that. And your, you know, your performance indicators, whatever those are that are important to you.
And one, can I throw in one last stat for the AI bots and stuff like that? Like your voice agents, your chatbots, I saw a stat that just came out recently. It was related to millennials. And, you know, so that's a 15-year subsection of people that are buyers right now, right? They're, they're very valuable customers for a lot of businesses. 75% of them say they avoid picking up the phone. So they will do almost anything else, meaning they will talk to a chatbot, they will do an online appointment, they will do anything. Eventually, they'll get to you, right? You'll have have to have a conversation with them, and they know that. But there's a lot of anxiety in that particular group about phones, and also that they see it as a waste of time because they'll have to go through the motions of telling, you know, who you are, what you do, blah blah blah, right? They, they see that as a waste of their own time, and so they want to just get things moving. And so that's where some of those AI platform elements can be super, super powerful for your business. And if you're not doing it and your competition You're gonna lose for sure.
Yeah. Yep, absolutely. So, you know, just to kind of put a bow on this real quickly, you know, look, the AI, the AI is making the landscape change and shift dramatically. The fundamentals that have been good SEO best practices for the last 10, 15 years for local SEO are still pretty solid. But they're not— they're necessary, but they're not sufficient necessarily to help you rank as things are just exploding and changing very quickly. The pace of change alone is the accelerator that if you were just doing classic traditional SEO that worked 5 years ago, pace of change means you're losing ground if you're not taking advantage of what AI can deliver.
So, you know, we'll, we'll keep talking about this and a variety of other subjects, and we'll see you in our next episode. With that, Ian, I'm going to let you take us out.
All right, be sure to subscribe, smash the subscribe button, only because Ken loves that term. And until next week, folks, keep calm and market on.
Local SEO in the Age of AI: Your Guide to Dominating Search in 2026
The digital landscape is shifting faster than ever, and for local businesses, staying visible is paramount. This episode of Marketing Guides for Small Businesses dives deep into the latest local SEO stats for 2026, drawing insights from BrightLocal's updated annual reports. We're not just talking about traditional search anymore; the rise of AI-driven search has fundamentally changed how consumers find and interact with local businesses.
Human behavior, not marketer assumptions, dictates what works now. With 80% of consumers searching online for local businesses weekly (and 32% daily!), and nearly half adding "near me" to their queries, local search is more vital than ever. Google itself often appends "near me" to searches, highlighting the importance of proximity in consumer decision-making.
The Invisible Business: Why Online Presence is Non-Negotiable
A stark example shared was a dental clinic that was effectively "invisible online" despite being a reputable practice. This invisibility prevents businesses from reaching their desired customers. Your website is the cornerstone of your online value, accounting for 47% of your digital worth. Directories contribute another 30-31%, and business mentions (backlinks) make up 16%. Even forums and discussions on platforms like Reddit and Facebook groups play a role in visibility.
AI's Impact on Local Search: More Than Just "Near Me"
While 83% of local searches still happen on Google (excluding Gemini), a significant 45% of consumers have already used AI tools to search for local businesses. AI allows for more complex and specific searches, like finding a mechanic for a particular car model, in a specific location, with a certain review rating. AI is rapidly becoming the go-to for general information and questions, and its integration into search is undeniable.
Maximizing Your Website for Google and AI Authority
To outperform the competition in this evolving landscape, your website must be optimized to be seen as an authority by both Google and AI searches. This means:
* **Providing Exhaustive, Fresh, and Consistently Created Content:** Don't just create content; make it comprehensive, up-to-date, and regularly published.
* **Optimizing with Schema Markup and Proper H Tags:** These are crucial for search engines and AI to understand your content.
* **Leveraging FAQs:** Answer common customer questions, as these are frequently searched online.
* **Creating Detailed Tutorials:** Blog posts and videos detailing your services position you as an expert.
* **Optimizing for "Near Me" Searches:** Create dedicated location pages for surrounding areas.
The Power of Your Google Business Profile (GBP)
Your Google Business Profile is a critical component of the buyer's journey. A complete GBP makes customers 2.7 times more likely to view your business as reputable and 70% more likely to visit. Despite its importance, a staggering 65% of small businesses haven't claimed their GBP.
Key GBP Strategies:
* **Audit and Maximize Listings:** Ensure consistency across directories like Google Business Profile and Yelp.
* **Keep Listings Up-to-Date:** Google Business Profile is constantly evolving.
* **Utilize Google Posts:** Google favors its own platforms.
* **Strategic Category Selection:** Your primary category is vital for visibility.
* **Build Out Services and Products:** Utilize all available sections.
* **Regular Posting, Reviews, and Photos:** These significantly impact visibility.
* **HTTPS Website Link:** Ensure your website link is secure.
The Website: Your Trusted Online Property
While Google Maps listings are highly visible and integrated into AI search tools like Gemini, consumers still trust your website more. Your website is the only online property you truly own. Beautiful designs are secondary to SEO focus; a visually appealing website with minimal information, like Apple's, won't work for businesses needing search visibility.
Website Development Essentials:
* **Hire SEO-Savvy Developers:** Look for professionals who understand marketing, design, SEO, and AI search.
* **Prioritize Schema Markup and 301 Redirects:** If a developer doesn't discuss these, find someone new. These are fundamental for preserving SEO value and rankings.
* **Avoid Cheap Websites:** Low-priced websites often lack crucial SEO considerations. Treat your website like your home; don't build on a poor foundation.
* **Sufficient Information:** Your website needs enough content for Google and AI to understand your business.
* **Service and Location Pages:** Create these to provide clear signals to search engines.
Reviews: The Currency of Trust in the AI Era
97% of consumers read reviews for local businesses. Review velocity and recency are critical; reviews older than 6-9 months lose effectiveness. A steady stream of reviews is essential, and while 71% of consumers trust Google reviews, bad reviews can deter potential customers.
Maximizing Your Review Strategy:
* **Ask for Reviews:** Automate the process through tap cards, texts, or emails.
* **Respond to Reviews:** Google notices unresponsiveness. Aim to respond within 24 hours.
* **AI Assistance:** AI can help draft responses, but human review is advised.
* **Aim for 4.5 Stars:** A perfect 5-star rating can sometimes be met with skepticism.
Navigating the LLM Landscape
Ranking on LLMs like ChatGPT is significantly harder than on Google, but their usage is growing exponentially. ChatGPT pulls local search information from business websites (58%), mentions (27%), and online directories (15%). LLMs consider third-party websites as properties not controlled by the business, making brand mentions on high-authority, uncontrolled websites crucial.
LLM Ranking Strategies:
* **Schema is Necessary:** LLMs need schema to understand your website, unlike Google.
* **Third-Party Mentions:** Focus on getting included in "best-of" lists, local media, and Chamber of Commerce links.
* **General and Service-Specific Facts Pages:** These are important for AI understanding.
* **Expertise, Authority, Trust (E-A-T):** These principles remain paramount.
The 90-Day Local Visibility Plan
To tackle the complexities of modern local SEO, consider this actionable plan:
* **Days 1-30:** Complete your Google Business Profile, clean up citations, and implement a review system.
* **Days 31-60:** Build out service pages, add FAQ content with schema, and implement omnichannel content distribution.
* **Days 61-90:** Focus on PR outreach and leverage AI assistance.
The Future is Now: Embrace AI and Adapt
AI is dramatically changing the SEO landscape. Traditional local SEO best practices are still fundamental but no longer sufficient. The pace of change necessitates adopting AI; relying solely on outdated practices means losing ground. Businesses that don't utilize AI risk losing to competitors who do.
Zero-click search results are becoming more common, but they don't always prevent clicks to call or website visits. Businesses must understand the buyer's journey and feed machines the information users seek. With 60% of small businesses lacking a website, prioritizing an SEO and AI-optimized online presence is no longer optional – it's essential for survival and growth in 2026 and beyond.