Google's AI Overviews Are Changing SEO for Local Businesses. Here's What to Do If You're in Hampshire or Surrey

If you see this post, it means our SEO worked.

And that's exactly the point of this article. Showing up in search results right now requires a different approach than it did two years ago. If you're a business in Aldershot, Farnham, Guildford, Camberley, Fleet, or anywhere else in Hampshire or Surrey, here's what's changed and what to do about it.

What Google AI Overviews Are and Why They Matter

Google started rolling out AI Overviews (the generated summaries that appear at the very top of search results) significantly in 2024 and they're now a fixture across most searches in 2026. What they do is answer the user's question directly on the search results page, before they ever click on a website.

The result is that organic search rankings that used to drive steady traffic are now delivering less of it. You can rank number one for a term and still get fewer visitors than you did at position three two years ago, because Google is answering the question before anyone clicks.

This is genuinely bad news for content that exists to answer generic questions. It's much less of a problem for local businesses, and in some ways it's an opportunity.

Why Local Businesses Are More Insulated Than They Think

AI Overviews are good at answering factual, generic questions. They're not good at replacing local intent. When someone in Farnham searches "web designer near me" or "IT support Aldershot" or "cybersecurity company Hampshire", they're not looking for a generated summary. They're looking for a specific local business they can actually contact and trust.

Google maps results, local pack listings, and locally-relevant organic results still drive significant traffic for this type of search. And the businesses that show up there are the ones doing local SEO properly.

What Local SEO Actually Looks Like in 2026

Google Business Profile is non-negotiable. If you haven't claimed and fully completed your Google Business Profile, do it today. It's free. Add every service you offer, use the description to include the towns and areas you serve, add photos, and post updates regularly. Businesses with active, complete profiles appear more prominently in local search and on Google Maps.

Get local citations right. A citation is any online mention of your business name, address, and phone number. Consistency matters. If your address appears differently across Yell, Bing Places, Apple Maps, and your own website, Google treats that inconsistency as a signal of unreliability. Audit and fix every major directory listing you have.

Build locally-relevant content. Pages on your website that specifically mention the areas you serve, not in a spammy list-of-towns way but with genuinely useful content relevant to businesses in those areas, rank better for local searches than generic service pages. This blog post is an example of that approach.

Schema markup for local businesses. If your website doesn't have LocalBusiness schema markup, it's missing a clear signal to Google about what you are and where you operate. This is technical but straightforward to implement, and it helps Google understand your business accurately.

Reviews. Businesses with more recent, genuine Google reviews rank better in local results and are clicked more often. Make asking for reviews a part of your process. A simple follow-up email after completing work for a client asking them to leave a Google review takes 30 seconds to set up and compounds over time.

What Doesn't Work Anymore

Keyword stuffing location names onto pages. Thin content pages that exist only to target a search term. Buying links. Ignoring page speed and mobile experience. All of these have declining or zero impact in 2026, and some actively harm your rankings.

What We Do

At Joro Services we handle local SEO for businesses across Hampshire, Surrey, and the wider UK. That includes technical SEO audits, Google Business Profile optimisation, local citation building, content strategy, and schema implementation.

We also offer a free SEO audit. We'll look at your current search presence, show you what's working and what isn't, and give you a clear picture of what would actually move the needle.

Get your free SEO audit. Based in Aldershot, Hampshire.