LSG Interviewed in Forbes On How SMBs Are Affected By AI Search

I was interviewed by Brandon Kochkodin of Forbes for How Small Business Can Survive Google’s AI Overview. The whole article is worth a read, but this section nails a hard truth about being an SEO in the age of AI (actually not much different than how it’s always been, I guess):

Research shows people increasingly trust AI summaries, and that can change how they eventually select businesses. So showing up in a summary presumably has a halo effect. Those companies that do show up in these summaries may get fewer clicks than before AI, when they simply appeared high in search results. But they also may be getting higher quality leads, since those who click after reading a summary may be more serious about a subject, or closer to the point of buying, particularly from a source that has been validated by the AI summary. The problem is that the quality of a lead is hard to measure. Clicks, on the other hand, are easy to count. As Shotland concedes, trying to sell clients on the idea that fewer clicks might be better clicks is a hard pitch to make.

Shout out to Ben Fisher of Steady Demand who referred Brandon to us.