In this short, Joshua Albanese, founder of Spearleaf, explains how Google narrowed local results from ten blue links to a three-business map pack to a single AI Overview recommendation. He splits the work of becoming that business into on-page (how your website is structured and how easily Google can read it) and off-page trust signals like backlinks and social media, the two sides of AI search optimization for local businesses.
Read the full guide: Why Is No One Visiting My Website? Where the Clicks Went →
Video Transcript
If you're a local business owner, you're going to want to watch this. So, there is a major Google update that just happened in 2026, and I need to go over it with you. This is going to affect your business and actually your bottom line.
So, take a look at this. Google used to be a library of information. This would be the 10 blue links that you used to see when you would Google something. Well, that went away when they introduced maps on there. So, when you would search for a local business, you would always get the map pack, and that'd only be three. So, that really limited a lot of other people that were ranking and getting a ton of business.
And now they're even taking this away, and they're only going with one. And the one is AI. It's the AI Overview. And what makes the biggest difference here is if you're recommended by AI, you're 75% more likely to get all that business than everybody else. So, everybody else, when you used to be like number two and three, right here, you have to share 25%, only 25% of that revenue, and that's not enough to make your business thrive.
So, that's a big issue that we're really seeing, and there's really two ways, two things that you want to affect that you can change in your business to make sure that you become the number one recommended business and get that 75%. And that is on-page and off-page.
On-page SEO is the information that you control. That means what your website looks like, how it's structured, is it easy for Google to read? All those things make a big difference. So, you want to make sure that your on-page is on point.
And your off-page, that is anything that is like backlinks, stuff that is on social media. These are trust signals that send to Google and actually all the AI chats, and this will help boost you up and actually rise above the competition. So, it's not Google reviews anymore, it's not any of that stuff. It's on-page and off-page; that's what's mattered.
Read the full guide on finding where your website traffic went →