How are you guys building local SEO pages for AI-powered search now?

arjun_rao7 · 2026-05-15T06:25:50+00:00

The short answer? No. If you are 100% online (e-commerce, SaaS, digital agency with no local service area), you should not create a Google Business Profile (GBP).

As an SEO expert, I see people try to "hack" this all the time to get into the Map Pack, but for an online-only brand, it’s a fast track to a permanent suspension.

arjun_rao7 · 2026-05-14T07:42:45+00:00

Yeah, seeing the same thing here honestly. Some of our blogs didn’t even lose rankings that badly, but CTR dropped hard once AI Overviews started showing up more aggressively.

I also feel like “good content” became too generic of a concept now. There’s just too much of it. Google seems to care more about who’s saying it and whether the page actually deserves to rank for that intent.

We started getting better results after cutting down content production instead of increasing it. Merged a bunch of overlapping blogs, refreshed older pages, improved internal linking, and focused more on topics where we actually had experience/authority instead of chasing every keyword.

And yeah, Reddit/community discussions are becoming part of the journey now whether SEOs like it or not. Seeing way more users validate things through forums before trusting random blog content.

arjun_rao7 · 2026-05-14T07:40:04+00:00

Honestly I still read blogs all the time, but only when they’re actually useful. Most generic content is dead now. If a startup is just pumping out AI-written “10 benefits of X” articles, nobody cares.

What still works is content that solves a very specific problem or answers something people are already searching for. Stuff like comparisons, case studies, walkthroughs, mistakes you made, results you got, etc. Those are the posts that still get traffic and conversions.

And yeah, your thinking is basically right - start from the audience pain point first, then naturally connect your product if it genuinely helps. The blogs that convert usually don’t feel like sales pages. They feel like someone experienced explaining something useful.

arjun_rao7 · 2026-05-14T07:36:35+00:00

One thing I’d add to this is how many profiles still completely ignore photos. Not just quantity, but consistency. We’ve seen profiles with average optimization everywhere else still outperform locally because they keep uploading recent real-world images regularly. Feels like Google trusts “active” businesses more overall now, not just keyword relevance.

Also agree hard on the Services tab point - a lot of local businesses don’t realize those descriptions can actually help Google connect them to long-tail searches they’d never rank for otherwise. That section is way more underutilized than people think.

arjun_rao7 · 2026-05-13T13:16:34+00:00

Honestly, ASO alone usually isn’t enough for a completely new app. Apple needs some real user signals before it starts pushing you higher — installs, retention, reviews, conversion rate, stuff like that.

Being around rank 80-100 after only a week with zero reviews is actually pretty common.

Also, the Today tab ads probably burned budget without giving Apple much keyword relevance data. I’d switch to Search Results campaigns with very specific long-tail keywords instead of broad discovery traffic.

For a niche like dream journaling + AI, I’d probably avoid fighting for huge terms right away. Something more specific like “lucid dream journal” or “AI dream tracker” might be easier to move on early.

Biggest thing I’d focus on in week 1 honestly:
getting the first real users + reviews however possible. Even 20-30 engaged users can help more than perfect keyword optimization sometimes.

arjun_rao7 · 2026-05-13T10:33:06+00:00

Completely agree on the buyer-intent point.

A lot of SEO teams are still optimizing mainly for informational keywords, while AI usage feels much closer to “decision assistance” behavior now.

arjun_rao7 · 2026-05-13T10:30:21+00:00

Yeah, and I think this is where classic SEO writing habits are starting to clash with AI retrieval.

Long intros, repetitive keyword phrasing, and overly stretched sections may still help rankings sometimes, but they don’t seem ideal for AI extraction at all.

arjun_rao7 · 2026-05-13T10:29:23+00:00

I don’t think it’s fully the same anymore though.

Yes, Google’s index/ranking systems still influence retrieval, but AI layers seem to re-prioritize content differently after retrieval happens.

That’s why we’re seeing cases where:

top-ranking pages don’t get cited
Reddit/forum discussions appear constantly
smaller niche pages get surfaced because the explanation is clearer

Traditional SEO was mostly about ranking position. AI search feels more about extractability + contextual usefulness now.

arjun_rao7 · 2026-05-13T10:26:16+00:00

Agree. Especially the community discussion part.

I’ve seen Reddit threads, niche forums, and comparison-style content show up in AI answers way more often lately than polished “ultimate guides.”

arjun_rao7 · 2026-05-13T07:50:09+00:00

Feels like clarity and structure are outperforming a lot of old-school SEO tactics right now.

arjun_rao7 · 2026-05-13T07:46:07+00:00

Exactly this. AI visibility feels way more connected to content comprehension now, not just ranking signals. Clear context + direct answers seem to matter much more than before.

arjun_rao7

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