By Greg Nowak. Updated 27 October 2026.
If you last reviewed your SEO strategy in 2024, the question is where to spend the next available week of work. AI answers have expanded how customers discover businesses, and reporting has caught up with some of that activity. Meanwhile, familiar problems still deserve attention: unclear service pages, slow interactions and enquiries that nobody measures properly.
For business owners, operations leads and agency teams, the useful response is a short, evidence-based backlog. Here is what has changed, what remains essential and how to choose the work.
Where should your team start?
| What you observe | First useful action | Suggested owner |
|---|---|---|
| Important pages are missing from search | Check indexing and eligibility before rewriting content | Developer and SEO lead |
| AI visibility is unclear | Review the dedicated Search Console reports | SEO or analytics lead |
| Visits arrive but few suitable enquiries follow | Review the offer, evidence and enquiry journey | Business owner and content lead |
| Menus, filters or forms feel slow | Investigate shared components using performance data | Developer |
| Customers find incorrect opening hours | Correct the Business Profile and assign ongoing ownership | Local operations lead |
AI search adds requirements to check, not a separate website to build
Google’s current generative AI guidance says its AI features draw on the Search index and core ranking systems. Pages must be indexed and eligible for a search snippet. The guide also requires inclusion in Search generative AI features through Search Console. Check that eligibility when investigating missing visibility; meeting the requirements does not guarantee appearance.
Google does not require special AI markup or an llms.txt file. Nor does it require content to be split into tiny sections. These statements concern Google Search; other services may work differently.
Before approving an AEO or GEO proposal, ask which customer problem it addresses, what will change and how the result will be assessed. Google recommends distinctive, useful content. For a service business, that could mean explaining project constraints, showing a real process or answering a buying question with enough detail to help someone decide.
AI reporting is more useful, but it needs careful interpretation
Google’s June 2026 announcement, updated in August, confirms a worldwide rollout of dedicated generative AI performance reports. These cover impressions in Search and Discover, with page, country and date breakdowns, plus device information for Search.
This visibility is also included in the overall performance reporting. Treat the dedicated reports as another view of activity, rather than adding their figures to the overall totals.
Start with a baseline for commercially important pages. Review visibility alongside organic landing-page visits and qualified enquiries. Keep those measures separate: an AI impression does not establish that someone visited, and a visit does not establish buying intent.
For agency reporting, label observations and interpretations clearly. A page appearing in an AI answer is observable. Whether that appearance influenced a later enquiry may remain unknown.
Give buyers something they can use
Review your main service pages before commissioning another batch of articles. Can a prospective customer tell who the service suits, what the work includes, what affects the scope and what happens after contacting you?
Ask the person handling sales which questions repeatedly delay a decision. Use those questions to improve the page. Add genuine evidence where available, identify the person responsible for the advice and remove claims the business cannot support. A clear next step should explain what information to send and what response to expect.
Performance: INP changed in 2024, not 2026
Interaction to Next Paint replaced First Input Delay in 2024. It belongs in today’s baseline, rather than being presented as a new 2026 development. Google’s Web Vitals guidance sets the good thresholds at LCP of 2.5 seconds or less, INP of 200 milliseconds or less, and CLS of 0.1 or less, assessed at the 75th percentile and separated by mobile and desktop.
Use Search Console and PageSpeed Insights field data to identify affected page groups. Then ask a developer to investigate common templates, scripts and components. Test menus, filters, consent controls and forms on representative mobile devices.
A Lighthouse score helps diagnose problems, but its standard page-load test does not directly measure INP. Use laboratory testing to investigate and field measurements to assess the experience visitors actually receive.
Local search and privacy still need operational owners
Google’s local ranking guidance continues to centre on relevance, distance and prominence. Accurate categories, hours, contact details, photographs and helpful review responses remain practical work. Give someone responsibility for profile updates whenever services, locations or opening hours change. A monthly marketing meeting is too late to correct tomorrow’s closure.
Privacy is also an ongoing responsibility. Collecting information directly from a customer does not automatically authorise every later use. The European Commission explains the lawful grounds for processing, including consent and contractual necessity. Where consent applies, it must be freely given, informed, specific and affirmative, with withdrawal as easy as giving it.
Review each enquiry-form field: why is it needed, where does it go, who uses it and when should it be deleted? Assign responsibility for those decisions alongside responsibility for conversion measurement.
A realistic 90-day delivery plan
- Days 1–15: establish the baseline. Review indexing, AI eligibility and visibility, enquiry tracking, performance and Business Profile accuracy. Record the starting position.
- Days 16–45: fix the main obstacles. Address access problems, improve priority service pages and repair the most consequential shared performance faults.
- Days 46–90: review and refine. Check what shipped, compare outcomes with the baseline and account for seasonality or campaign changes before drawing conclusions.
Keep each task specific: an owner, a deliverable and a way to check completion. Ninety days is a delivery window, not a promise of ranking gains.
If the work is stuck between your agency, developers and internal team, Greg can help turn the findings into a scoped plan and coordinate delivery. Explore working with Greg as your digital project manager.
Related on GrN.dk
- Google’s 2026 AI Search Guidance: SEO Still Matters, but Reporting Has Changed
- JavaScript-Heavy Service Pages Still Lose Leads: What to Audit in 2026
- Google Can Call Your Business. Is Your Local Data Ready?
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