Episode Transcript
The internet has been declaring things dead for like 30 years. I think websites were a fad, blogs
were a fad, SEO was a fad, and now everyone is panicking about AI search. Like it's just going
to burn the whole internet down, and everything's going to have to start over. But here's the
deal: the fundamentals of healthy web presence have not changed. What gets you found online
in 2026 is the same stuff that got you found online in 2017 or 2013 or even earlier. It's just that
the stakes are higher now because people have a choice in how they get their information.
Now, way back in 2017, we did a literal tour of conventions, explaining to businesses and
organizations what they needed to do to be found online, because there were a lot of moving
pieces in the internet scene back then. There was the explosion of inbound marketing, and
everybody was like, "Oh my gosh, I have to have a blog, and then Facebook Lives, oh my gosh,
live streaming video. Everybody had to be doing them, right? And they just didn't know, like,
where do we invest our time right now? What's actually going to get us found? It must be these
new bright, shiny objects. And interestingly enough, the knowledge gap then and now is about
the same. Everybody's focused on these bright new shiny objects when what they really need is
to focus on the fundamentals that are going to get the job done. And even with AI on the scene,
it's not just jumping into a whole new set of activities. Oddly enough, the things that get you
found online are the same stuff that it's always been. The only thing that has really changed is
the data points. So, what is a healthy web presence in 2026? Some people think a good web
presence means a pretty website or an active social following, and others think it's ranking
number one on Google or showing up in AI. And all of them are right-ish. Like a pretty website
with awesome content and an active social following are ways to build your online presence.
And ranking well on Google or being referenced in AI are results of a healthy web presence.
And in 2026, you just you can't have one without the other. A healthy web presence has two
jobs, and they're the same jobs it's always had-to help the right people find you, and to
convince them to work with you once they get there. That hasn't changed, but what's kind of
cool is now it's more tied up than ever, and that makes me pretty excited as a person who
builds websites and writes content for a living. It's exciting that now helping people find you
and convincing them to work with you once they get there-it's tied up. It's more related than
ever. I love it. I absolutely love it because back in 2017, I had to tell people you should be doing
this because it's the right thing to do because it's going to work. And now I get to tell people
you should be doing this because not only is it the right thing to do, but Google is actually
going to reward you for it by ranking your site better. See why I'm excited now. So in this
episode, we are going to talk about what has changed, what hasn't changed, and the individual
components that you need to address in your web presence to make sure that people find you,
and they want to work with you once they get there. Let's get to business. You're on a mission,
and you just need more people to know about it. And whether you're brand new to marketing
or a seasoned pro, we are all looking for answers to make marketing decisions with purpose.
I'm Monica Pitts, a techy, crafty business owner, mom, and aerial dancer who solves
communication challenges through technology. This podcast is all about digging in and going
digital. I'll share my marketing know-how and business experience from almost 20 years of
misadventures. I'll be your backup dancer, so you can stop doubting and get moving towards
marketing with purpose. Okay, so let's start at the top. What changed? I said at the beginning
that like it's all the same. It's all the same. But I mean, just like in 2017, with the onset of
inbound marketing and all of the live streaming video, things have changed. They are different
online, or else I wouldn't even be doing this episode, right? So, one of the biggest things that
has changed is that search stopped being the same for everyone. Like back in the day, search
used to be the same 10 blue links for everyone who typed in the same phrase, right? But that's
not how it works every more anymore, and it hasn't worked like that for a while. But it's even
more personalized now. Every person sees a version of the results shaped by their own
browsing history, the way that they phrase the words, and what AI thinks they actually meant.
So when back in the day we would say, "Oh, where do you rank for a keyword? Well, now that's
just one trick. Biscuit because it's a different result for basically every person who searches it,
and then also obviously there's the elephant in the room, which is AI. So should everyone be
freaking out and like redoing everything to get found in this new era of search? No, that would
be a hard no. Why am I doing this episode, if that were going to be a yes, right? Okay, so AI
overviews did not replace SEO; they just changed how people consume information, and even
then, it really depends on what people are searching for. So, informational queries they are hit
the hardest by AI overviews in Google. So, the what is and the how do I searches they're
swallowed up whole by the AI answer and click through rate on those on any type of search like
that is down by 58% Here's the thing though, even though AI overviews are gobbling up the
traffic from your informational blog posts, that doesn't mean that blogging is dead. Those blog
posts are what power AI overviews, and if your blog post is used, it actually signals really strong
relevance and value to Google. It makes Google trust you. So when someone searches for a
local business to work with, if it's trusting you on your blog, then your site would also be more
likely to show up because Google considers you an authority, so that blog post is still doing its
job. The job list looks different now. Now the good news is that local searches are far less
phased by AI, so currently AI overviews are pretty scarce in local searches, which is I think
really good news because small businesses often have the smallest marketing budget, and
they're still fishing in a fairly normal pond. So, if you took a financial advisor, like a local
financial advisor, sure, people are absolutely asking AI where to put their retirement money.
But what actually matters for that advisor is not showing up when people ask those questions,
but showing up when someone searches for financial advisor in city name, and people still do
that search the old-fashioned way. And Google is serving up search results the same way that
we've seen them for years in the local pack with the map. So it's the map with all the
businesses listed down on the left side of it, but fishing in a normal pond-that doesn't mean
that you can just ignore your online presence and go about business like as 2017. You really in
2026 need to cross your t's and dot your eyes more now than ever, and I'm going to dig into
exactly how you do that in just a second. So the other thing that has changed, and I am really
excited about this, is that Google cares if people are searching for your business name now. What? Okay, so this is really cool. In 2026, Google is equating people searching for your
business name as a trust signal. Yes, it's now the strongest off-page factor influencing the
ranking of your content. So all that direct traffic, people typing in your domain name because
they know it, people searching for your business name-that used to just be proof that your
other marketing efforts were working, and now all that hard work is paying off tenfold because
Google is interpreting that traffic as you having a business that doesn't suck. So you get a
cookie for doing the right thing, for doing your marketing the right way, for having customers
that are loyal that come back to your website, for using your website to actually communicate
with people. How awesome is that, right? Sign me up! I am so excited! Yay! Okay, so those
things changed. Search is not the same for everyone anymore. There's AI, and we all know it.
And Google cares if people are searching for your business name. Boom! All right, so that's
what's changed. So now let's revisit the fundamentals-the things that have not changed, but
the stakes are higher right now. As I said before, these aren't new ideas; they're the same
things that I talked about in my 2017 conference tour. They just carry more weight now
because AI and search engines are relying on them even more heavily to determine if you're a
credible business worth surfacing. So, what Google's looking at when it's deciding if it wants to
show your business in search results are your Google Business Profile, your listings and
directory info, also called citations, reviews, your site speed and technical soundness, if you
have original content, behavior signals, so like how people act on your site and interact with
your search listings, and then if you're updating the content on your website or not. Now,
what's tricky is that where you're trying to rank changes the math. So whether you want to
show up in the local pack and maps in Google search or or geek. For local search results or in AI
search, all of these factor into your online presence. They they're all a factor in all of those
locations, but they're important shifts on where you're trying to rank. So, for example, the
information that you physically have on your site would determine 33% of your likelihood of
ranking in local search results, 24% of your visibility in AI search, and only 15% of whether you
show up in the local pack or maps. But then, how people act on your site or interact with your
search listing is more important for ranking in the local pack or local organic search results at
like nine to 10% than it is for AI search at 4% So they all matter. It's just some are easier to
attain than others, and like anything else, it depends on your competition as well. Now, before I
get started on these, I have to give you the disclaimer that any overachiever or someone
selling these services would tell you to have a good online presence or to rank well, you have to
address everything. But I'm a realist, and all I'm going to tell you is what you cannot do is go
ostrich head in the sand and ignore this stuff. Okay, that is a recipe for disaster. My advice
before we even jump down the rabbit hole of all of these things is to pick what you can handle
and do it right, right? Okay. And at the end, I'll give you a rundown of how I would prioritize
things. So let's start at the top with your Google Business Profile. Businesses love to overlook
their Google Business Profile. I gave whole presentations back in 2015 about why it was
important and how to use it back then because it was important then and people are still
ignoring it now and it was a mistake then and it's an even bigger one now your Google Business
Profile signals now make up 32 percent of what determines whether you show up in the local
pack that's up from 25% just two years ago, so it's even more important now than it's ever
been. So having a profile is non negotiable. If you're a local business, showing up in the local
pack is the number one way people find you. At the very least, make sure that your name and
address and phone number and hours are correct. Hours are more important than ever, and
they need to be accurate. Over the past year, actually interacting with your profile got a lot
more important too. So you had to post with it and interact with it and treat it like social media
now, because honestly, that might be the most important social media work you do if you're
relying on people to find you by googling you. So posting more often to your Google Business
Profile is worth 8% more than it was a year ago. Uploading photos regularly is worth 5% more.
Answering your Q and A section is worth 4% more. So basically, now in addition to the first
optimization of your Google Business Profile, you need to continually add photos, respond to
reviews, and post occasionally. This is about as close to free money as local SEO gets, and I
know for a fact that most businesses are leaving it on the table. Go check your Google Business
Profile. Do it right now. Okay, the next thing that's actually really easy to do is your listing and
directory info. You don't need more listings. You just need the ones that you already have to
say the exact same thing. Your business is listed all over the web, whether you know it or not.
It's on Google, Apple Maps, Bing, Yelp, Facebook, industry directories-probably 15 places you've
never thought about. And SEO folks call these things citations. And in 2026, they account for
6% of your local pack ranking and 13% of your AI search visibility. What? Yeah. Okay. So that's
a lot. And here's the deal: your name, address, phone number, and category need to match
everywhere. Businesses with 95% plus consistency across all the data sources rank 2.1 times
higher in the local pack results than businesses with 80% consistency. Two times higher. What?
I know, right? That's what most people say when I explain this. Your stuff needs to be the same
all over the web, down to the way that you abbreviate your office suite. Because even if you do
all the other stuff right and your information is inconsistent, another company with consistent
information can outrank you. That is gross, right? Okay, so I mean, just a few months ago, I had
a client that called in and she was upset. She was like, "I don't understand. I'm not getting any
calls. And so I looked into it, and she had the wrong phone number listed in multiple directories.
That is, that's egregious, right? Like obviously, but it had just never gotten updated when they
changed the phone number. She just didn't realize that it was in all these other places, and so
someone's phone was ringing. It just wasn't hers, and. That's the kind of thing that seems small
until you realize it's been quietly costing you leads for months. So if you have recently moved
offices, changed phone numbers, or just don't have a good handle on your online listings, which
is basically everyone, go out to Moz Local. There's a free listing checker, and it will let you know
how accurate your listings are, and for businesses with inaccuracies, we use their paid service
to go out and correct information across the board. It fixes a lot of listings automatically, but
Google, Apple Maps, Facebook, things like your local chamber of commerce and other
organizations that you might be listed in on their website-they will all have to be done by hand.
It is genuinely simple work, though, and it has such a big payoff. Now, while listings don't carry
that same enormous weight as your Google Business Profile, they still are really easy to go out
and fix, and they really do weigh into whether or not you're going to get found in Google. So
the next thing that Google looks at to determine if it's going to share your content is reviews,
and it's not just Google AI search as well. So, 20% of the weight of whether you show up on the
local pack and maps in Google search is reviews for local organic search in the listings, 6% is
based on reviews, and for AI search, this is this was really surprising to me. 16% is based on
reviews. That that is surprising. So it's still one of the most important local signals. Now, what
changed is that Google got smarter. It's on the lookout for spammy looking reviews and review
consistency, and in 2026, steady beats bursty. Okay, so a handful of new reviews every month
outperforms 10 in one week, followed by 10 weeks of silence, and we suggest building review
requests into specific moments in your process rather than sending one giant mass email to
your whole client list at once, so make sure to ask for those reviews right after a key moment
happens, and the client is likely to leave a favorable review. Right, so a moment when they're
really happy. For a lot of businesses, that's right after an office visit or at the end of a
successful project. Most client management platforms even allow you to automate an email
asking for a review, so that way you don't forget. And some of them even allow you to
automate it via text. But building it into your workflow like that helps you keep your review
velocity steady instead of all feast and famine, and then you won't get stuck where Google's
depreciating your views because they feel spammy. Okay, so a huge gatekeeper, and and it's a
gatekeeper not because Google's going out and testing your site over and over again. It's a
gatekeeper because it impacts the behavior on your site, is site speed and technical health, so
your site can't load like a turtle. Yeah, we all know this. Slow websites suck. They suck for users
and for your online presence. And Google made page speed a ranking factor back in 2021. And
now, with all of the other behavioral factors on the pages, it's even more important. Which is
why we run tests on every single website we build before we call it done. But here's something
that people don't think about: your homepage is almost always the slowest page on your site
because it's got the most stuff crammed onto it, and it's also the page that people visit the
most. It's the page that they're most likely to enter in through, so it's also the page that they're
most likely to abandon. Yeah, so that really sucks. That combination makes it the most
important page to get right. And your secondary pages, they usually load faster simply because
they don't have as much extra fluff on them. So really keep in mind page speed as you plan out
your homepage. You might really want that cool video or the social feed for the experience that
it gives visitors, and I get that. The scrolling testimonials-they're super cool, right? But if it
tanks your load time, then Google isn't going to reward you for it. So you have to ask yourself
as you're planning out your homepage components: Is this component more important than a
potentially lower ranking, and if yes, fine, okay, keep it. But if not, you can find another way to
make the page engaging that doesn't kill your speed. You can use tools like Page Speed
Insights or GT Metrics to show you exactly what's slowing you down, and they're free. You can
go out and run a report on them anytime that you want, and the other thing that you need to
make sure that you do is keep up with broken links and 404 errors, because that's part of your
site's technical health. And Google is tracking that stuff, whether it's set up in Google or not.
You can track it yourself using Google Webmaster Tools, and it's free, and it'll let you know. All
of your 404 errors, your broken links you may have to manage through a plugin. We use the
Link Checker plugin by WP Mu Dev, and it gives a list of broken links as well as what page that
they're on and what they're linked to. So it makes the process of updating them really
straightforward. Now 404 errors. are less straightforward to fix. 404 errors are when a page
isn't available anymore, and a site that's reporting 1000s of random 404 errors reads as
neglect to Google in the same way that it would to a visitor, right? Because Google is sending
people to your site for information that it thinks exists, and people are getting an error page,
and that's pretty much the equivalent of sending them to your office only to find out that you're
closed or that you don't actually offer the service that they went there for. We've all been
there, right? So, if you rename a page or combine the content from two pages and delete one,
you can really easily create a 301 redirect to the new content, and if you're just retiring
content, like a staff member leaves and you're taking down their bio page, or you don't want to
offer a service anymore, then you would just leave those alone, and Google will resolve them
and drop them from its index eventually. Now, there's all kinds of other reasons why 404 errors
can start building in your site, and I'm not going to go into those right now because that could
be a whole other podcast. But just like everything else with website maintenance, if you have a
protocol to handle the content that's coming on and off your site, then you can redirect it
effectively, and then not have to fix it after months of negligence because it's super tedious to
do it then, and a 404 error mountain will inevitably lose trust with Google. Now, while it is
important not to have a mountain of 404 errors on your site or broken links, and that it loads
great, the most important thing on your site is the next item, which is original content. It is the
only content that actually wins now. That's it: original data, an actual case study, a process
explained by someone who's actually done it, not just summarizing it. I mean, that is the stuff
that's going to win in search results in 2025? Content quality accounted for 23% of what the
search algorithm was looking for when determining if content would be valuable to visitors, and
it's on the rise. It's on the rise. On-page signals for local organic search, 33% of of whether or
not you show up, and personalization-it's-I mean-it's another six to 9% So, original content is
huge, and the quality of your content is largely dependent upon what's now called information
gain. Basically, like how much unique value a page adds beyond what's already sitting in
Google's index, and it's the strongest predictor of whether a page will actually rank in 2026. It
has nothing to do with how long your article is. You can write a thesis over a topic that's
already been covered by all the sites in your genre, and you will not get ranked, no matter how
clever your keyword strategy is. And if you're just publishing something that ChatGPT could
write in 10 seconds, it is now working against you, not just failing to help you. Original content
is the money spot, and we have talked about that a lot recently. So I will not beat it to death.
But ultimately, you need people to remember you. They have to remember you. Now another
another thing that we need to think about is behavior signals. So one of the reasons that
original content is super powerful isn't just the content itself; it's in the results of publishing
that content. Because it's original content, Google will be more likely to show it, and AI will
reference it. And as a result of that, people will be more likely to click on the search results, and
visitors will actually stick around to read it. And those two signals-the clicking on the search
results and visitors actually reading it-signals back to Google that what you have on your
website is high-quality content, and Google is watching what people do on your site and how
they interact with your search listings, and it has been for a really long time. It just cares about
it now more than ever. Between 2024 and 2026, behavior signals have jumped 23. Like that's a
lot. Okay, so return visitor rate, people coming back to your site, that as a strength indicator
has gone up 28% Time on page gone up 19% Pages per session up 15% Click through from
search pages up 22% and scroll depth is up 18% Now I don't mean that. People are spending
longer on sites, or that they're scrolling down pages more. That's not what I mean. What I mean
is that Google is looking at the behaviors that people have on your content, and it is weighing
that heavily into its decision as to whether or not the content is quality and if it should show it
to more people, which is awesome because it's just one more cookie for doing the right thing, a
site that's easy to use and it provides quality content and it keeps visitors coming back is
actually being rewarded with high visibility in search results, which is awesome. And that
original content concept, it doesn't just need to be applied to a blog post; it needs to be applied
to all the pages in your site. So when you're building your services page, don't just give people
a bulleted list. You need to explain what they need to know to make a buying decision, down to
the philosophy of why you do it that way, and include a list of the frequently asked questions
that they're most likely to ask. We see this play out every time we rebuild the site, our own site
included. We go through and we rethink all the content, and we make sure that it's framed
right, and even when it's covering similar ground to what was there before, it reads better and
it loads faster and it's organized more logically because we looked through it again and it's
more modern. And so people stick around longer and they scroll further and then Google
notices and starts showing it more and the traffic creeps up. We see a real spike within months
of a new site launching on our site and our client site, both. So it's not a fluke. It's just what
happens when the fundamentals are actually done right. And now Google's actually rewarding
us for it. Ta-da! It's exciting. Okay, so we've got one more thing to factor in, but first let's recap.
The first one was your Google Business profile. Then we've got your listings and directory info,
followed by reviews, the site speed and technical soundness, original content, and then those
behavior signals that we just talked about. So last but not least is updated content. Back in the
day, it was super important to add content to your site regularly, so Google would index the
site more often, and you could build out entry points for visitors by covering different topics
that are relevant to their buying journey. That's what inbound marketing was all about, right?
And that reason still stands. It's just measured a little differently. See, we used to look at traffic
to a page as a marker for success, or the beginning of a marker for success, and while the
practice is still equally important, the payoff is just far less tangible now. It shows Google that
you are a topical authority, and it improves your content freshness and your trustworthiness.
And those three factors alone make up 23% of what Google's algorithm looks for when sharing
content in search results, but here's the tricky part: it's not one and done. You actually have to
update the stuff that you already have out there. Pages updated in the last 90 days hold their
rankings noticeably longer than pages that nobody's touched in a year. So that means that as
you add content to your site and it gains Google's affection, you have to keep that content
current, or you're going to lose traction. And again, this isn't just on your blog; it's on your
whole site, right? So, is your pricing still right? Are your FAQs current? Are there more things
that you could add to them? Are your hours correct? If you give any type of health or medical
guidance, is it reflecting where your expertise actually is today? Like, if there's new things that
you're doing in your business or new technology that's coming out in your industry and you're
using it, do you talk about it on your site? Those are all things that need to be updated. Now
most businesses maybe do an annual review of their website content, like maybe, but the new
2026 data says that quarterly is actually closer to right, at least for anything that's likely to go
stale. So, I feel like the most practical way to approach this without completely losing your
mind is just keeping a running list of stuff on your site that expires quickly. If you've got
tutorials that are going over softwares that change regularly, or or maybe you don't have that. Maybe your stuff really is evergreen. Then you probably don't have to worry about it. But if you
do have things that are changing quickly with technology, then make yourself a list, and then
you could review that list on on the schedule quarterly instead of just trying to reread your
entire website four times a year because that is that's a lot of work. Okay, so the bottom line is
that AI is definitely changing search. Yeah, and it'll keep changing. But for most of the
businesses and the nonprofits that we work with, it's not demanding and urgent action. What
actually matters for AI search, for regular search, and frankly for having a website that does its
job, is that your business is easy to find, and that your information is correct everywhere it
lives, and that your content actually answers the questions that your audience is asking. And
that's not new advice; it's just more true now than it's ever been. And like I said earlier, you
don't have to do all of this at once. You can pick. What you can actually manage, and just stick
with it. So, if I had to tell you where to start, I'd say first fix up your listings, especially your
Google Business Profile. Remember how important that was. Do not let those go. They're easy
to fix. Okay, and then walk through the content on your website. Make sure it represents you
the way that it should, and it's written in your own voice, original, original, original. Right? Tell
your own stories. Make it yours. Start with your home and services pages because they're the
ones that are most often visited. I would run a page speed insights report, and if it's not
tracking in the right direction, then talk to your web developer about ways to make sure that
everything is loading quickly, is technically sound, and doing what it's supposed to do because
that's another fix, right? Like you can fix that once and then set it aside for a while. It's not that
you won't ever have to fix it again, but kind of like with your listings, you can fix it once and
then move away from it, right? And then after you get all those fundamentals down, then if it
makes sense, you could start doing more posts and pictures out into your Google Business
Profile. You could start a review campaign, a blog, or a podcast, or another path to add content
to your site regularly. But first, work on the foundation. Work on the bricks, the listings, the
business profile, the content on the website. Make sure the website's sound, and then move on
to the other more time-consuming continual things. You just can't go full ostrich on this one,
right? Waiting does not make any of this easier or cheaper to fix. Leaving these things alone
and not touching them if they're not set up right is only going to depreciate your site in the
eyes of Google. It's just going to keep sliding down, and unfortunately, you don't always know
that it's happening until it's too late, and then it takes a long time to fix. Now, I mentioned a lot
of resources when I went through this podcast, and we have a fully formatted blog post with
the entire podcast written out for you and links to all of the different things that I talked about,
so you can use them, and they're all free. Okay, and another free resource that you have is me.
I do free 15-minute video reviews of websites, and so if you want me to take a look at yours, I
can totally do it. I can use all those free tools, and I'll record a video and send it over to you,
and you can see exactly what I see, and you can just get a gut check on where you stand. And
then, if you need something deeper, our in-depth reviews cost more, but it's usually because
there's actually something that's worth digging into. If you enjoyed this podcast, or if you
learned a thing or two, you could subscribe, and then you won't miss our next episode. We're
going to talk about website planning for associations. We're getting specific here. We actually
work with a lot of associations that mayecreate, and there's a lot of nuances for associations
and any type of membership organizations. Nonprofits can overlap a little bit there too, and we
just want to talk you through a checklist of what you need to know before you build your new
site, subscribe so you don't miss that one. Thank you so much for hanging out with me today,
and until next time, go forth and market with purpose.
