SEO in 2027: a plan for small business websites

AI answers now sit at the top of many searches

By May 2026, Google said its AI Overviews had more than 2.5 billion monthly users, and AI Mode, its conversational search, more than one billion. AI Mode has been open in more than 200 countries and territories since October 2025. Bing answers with Copilot, which cites its sources, and in February 2026 Bing rewrote its webmaster guidelines to cover it.

They don't show on every search. In Ahrefs' study of 146 million desktop results pages (September 2025 data), AI Overviews appeared on 20.5% of them, and on only 7.9% of local searches.

ChatGPT had 900 million weekly users in February 2026, as TechCrunch reported OpenAI's figure. It finds pages for its answers with a crawler called OAI-SearchBot, and OpenAI says sites that block it won't be shown in ChatGPT's search answers. Perplexity and Claude have search crawlers of their own.

Fewer clicks from questions

When Google shows an AI answer, fewer people click through. In Pew Research Center's study of 900 US adults (March 2025 data), people clicked a normal result in 8% of visits when an AI summary appeared, against 15% when none did. Google says the total number of clicks it sends to websites has stayed "relatively stable" (August 2025).

Being the page an AI answer cites is worth a lot. In Seer Interactive's data from 53 brands (January 2025 to February 2026), pages cited inside an AI Overview got 120% more clicks per impression than pages that weren't. For most small businesses, the searches that matter most are the ones people make when they're ready to call, book or buy.

Local search is moving too

Google Maps now answers questions typed in everyday words, first in the US and India, and Google can phone some businesses for customers. The local SEO page covers what that means for a business that serves an area.

New reports and settings for site owners

Since 31 August 2026, every site in Google Search Console has a report on how often its pages appear in Google's AI features and a setting to include or exclude the site. Include is the default, and an excluded site gets no traffic or impressions from those features. Since February 2026, Bing Webmaster Tools has shown how often a site is cited in Copilot.

Two smaller changes from Google's documentation updates: the question-and-answer drop-downs it used to show under some results stopped appearing on 7 May 2026, and its spam policies now apply to its AI answers as well.

The only change I found dated for 2027 is in the UK, and it matters most to publishers. The Competition and Markets Authority gave Google nine months from 3 June 2026 to give publishers controls over how their content feeds its AI features.

What still works

Google's own documentation says its AI features need no additional requirements or special optimisation, and no new files or special markup. Bing says Copilot uses the same crawling, indexing and ranking as its normal results. So the basics still decide whether you're found: pages that answer real questions from first-hand knowledge, facts in plain text, a site that's quick and easy to use, and listings that match your site.

The plan, steps 1 to 4: get found and listed

1. Add your site to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, which are both free. Submit your sitemap and fix the pages they say aren't indexed.
2. Check that search engines and AI assistants can reach your site. Your robots.txt file and your host's bot settings should let in Googlebot, Bingbot, OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot and Claude-SearchBot. Some hosts block AI crawlers unless you change a setting, and Cloudflare made that its default in July 2025. Leave Search Console's AI setting on include. If you'd rather your words weren't used to train AI models, block only the training crawlers, such as Google-Extended and GPTBot, which Google and OpenAI keep separate from search.
3. Claim and complete your free listings: your Google Business Profile first, with your real business name, the right category, your hours and real photos, then Bing Places and Apple Business. If you go to your customers, hide your address and show the area you serve. Google says a Business Profile can help you show up in its AI answers as well as its normal results.
4. Ask every customer for a review, with a short link or a QR code, and reply to each one in your own words. Never offer anything in return, which Google prohibits. Google says the number of reviews you have feeds into local ranking, and in BrightLocal's 2026 survey of US adults, 74% looked for reviews from the last three months and 89% expected owners to reply.

Steps 5 to 8: make the pages work

5. Give each main service its own page, written from your own work and in the words your customers use. Google's guide warns against pages that only repeat what others have said and against separate near-copies for every way of searching. Google says AI tools can help with research and structure, and Bing says large amounts of content made without editorial review may be left out of its index, so check every fact before a page goes live.
6. Put the key facts where people and machines can read them: a clear, different title on every page, one main heading, and near the top, in plain text, what you do, where, and how to book or call. Google asks for important content in text form, so don't leave key details only inside images or PDFs.
7. Add structured data that matches what the page shows, such as LocalBusiness markup with your name, address, phone and hours. There is no special markup for AI. If you sell products, keep a Merchant Center feed so they can appear in Google's free listings.
8. Make the site quick and easy to use on a phone, forms included. Check your Core Web Vitals in Search Console or PageSpeed Insights: the main content should show within 2.5 seconds, the page should react to a tap within 200 milliseconds, and the layout should barely move (a shift score under 0.1). Use HTTPS, skip pop-ups that cover the page (Google's page experience guide), and build forms with real buttons and labelled fields. My website design guide covers speed and phone layouts in more detail.

Steps 9 to 11: keep it current

9. Tell search engines when something changes. Link every important page from your menu or other pages, keep your sitemap current, and switch on IndexNow so Bing and other engines hear about new, changed or deleted pages straight away.
10. Earn real mentions and links where your customers already look: trade bodies, suppliers, partners, local news and community pages. Google says links to your business count towards local prominence. Never buy links or reviews; Google's spam policies rule it out, and Bing says links should be earned.
11. Keep your details current, and open the reports once a month. Update prices, hours, services and photos on your site and every listing when they change, and fix what Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools flag. One weak month is no reason to rebuild: Google changes its ranking systems several times a year, and Bing notes that fewer clicks don't always mean less visibility.

What you can skip

Google Search doesn't need an llms.txt file, and its guide says there's no need to break your pages into small pieces for AI. Google Search ignores the keywords meta tag, nobody can pay Google for a better local ranking, and hidden instructions aimed at AI tools can cost you visibility in Bing.

If you'd like a hand

I do this work on small business sites as SEO, GEO and AEO for small businesses, and as local SEO for businesses whose customers are nearby. Send me your site's link for a quote made for your business.