Ranking #1 Isn't the Win Anymore. Being Named Is.

AI Overviews now appear on 80%+ of Google searches. KN Marketing Solutions explains how CSRA businesses get named in the answer, not just ranked.

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AI Overviews now appear on more than 80% of Google searches, so for local businesses the goal is to be named in the answer, not just ranked under it. At KN Marketing Solutions in North Augusta, that means building one clear, fact-rich page per customer question and matching it to your Google Business Profile.

That 80% figure should change how every small business owner in the CSRA thinks about their website.

It comes from data Semrush, SE Ranking, and seoClarity have published, as rounded up by Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable on Oct 26. For context, it was about 50% in June of last year and roughly 15% the year before that. Semrush's own study of 400 national commercial keywords (banking, software, and ecommerce searches, tracked September 2025 through August 2026) is even starker. Searches with the word "review" in them triggered an AI Overview less than a third of the time in September 2025. By August 2026, it was about 90%. And "best X for Y" searches, the kind of search people run right before they choose, reached 96%. That's national data, not local data, but the direction is hard to ignore.

Most of the commentary on this is going to be about traffic loss. Fewer clicks, lower CTR, panic. I want to take a different angle, because I think the traffic conversation misses the real shift.

The game changed from "rank" to "be named"

For twenty years, local SEO was a ranking game. Get into the top three, get into the map pack, collect the calls.

That game isn't gone, but it's no longer the whole game. When Google writes a paragraph at the top of the page that answers the question for the searcher, the question becomes: are you in that paragraph, or not?

A #1 organic ranking under an AI answer is worth less than it used to be, because many searchers read the answer and stop. Being named in the answer is now the more valuable position.

That's a positioning problem before it's an SEO problem. And it's why I think most small business websites are about to get exposed.

What Google changed in AI Mode and AI Overviews on Oct 15

On October 15, Google announced a batch of updates to AI Mode and AI Overviews. A few matter a lot for local businesses:

• More inline links, placed higher. Links sit inside the words of the AI response itself, and Google says it's launching updates to show them higher up and more often.
• A dedicated section for official websites. Google says that sometimes there are "only one or two official places on the web" to complete a task or get the exact info you need, and it will prominently surface those links in a dedicated section at the top of the response, with context on why each link is useful. Google's post says it will be testing this display.
• Bigger, more clickable related-article links at the end of some responses.

Read that second one again. Google is building a spot at the top of AI answers for the official one or two sources on a question. If a customer is asking about your business or your service, you want your site to be one of them.

Now the honest caveat, because I won't sell you hype: Search Console has AI performance reporting, but Google still doesn't break out clicks from AI responses the way it does for regular web results. Plenty of smart people (Schwartz included) doubt searchers will click these links much. More links in an answer doesn't automatically mean more visits.

But here's my take. If AI answers are going to sit on top of 8 out of 10 searches, the question that matters most is whether your business is the one the answer is built from. Being the cited source beats being the invisible one, every time.

Why most local business websites won't get cited

AI answers are built from clear, specific facts. Most small business websites are built from vague, interchangeable claims.

"Quality service." "Family owned." "We go the extra mile." "Call today for a free quote."

Every competitor in town says the same thing. When an AI system goes looking for something it can actually quote, like what you charge, what areas you serve, how fast you can come out, what makes your process different, there's nothing there. So it pulls from whoever did write it down. Sometimes that's a competitor. Sometimes it's a directory. Sometimes it's a Reddit thread.

That's what I mean when I say this is a positioning problem. If you can't say clearly what you do, who it's for, and why you're different, no algorithm can say it for you.

How to get your business named in AI Overviews (5-step checklist)

This is the work I'd do on any local business site this quarter:

1. One page per real customer question. Not one "Services" page with seven bullet points. A real page for each thing people actually ask before they hire you. "How much does a water heater replacement cost in Augusta?" deserves its own clear answer. Write it like you'd answer it on the phone.

2. Put the facts in writing. Price ranges, service areas, hours, turnaround times, what's included, what isn't. AI answers can't quote what you won't publish. You don't have to post a price list, but you do have to give people (and Google) something concrete.

3. Make your Google Business Profile match your site exactly. In my experience, Google leans hard on Business Profile data for local results: categories, services, hours, photos, reviews. If your profile says one thing and your website says another, you've given Google a reason to trust neither.

4. Say the thing only you can say. Your process, your guarantees, the local detail you know because you've worked here for years. First-hand specifics are the one thing a competitor can't copy and an AI can't make up.

5. Track whether you're named, not just where you rank. Once a week, search your top money questions and look at the AI answer. Are you in it? Are you linked? Is a competitor? Screenshot it. That's your new scoreboard.

The bottom line

The businesses that win the next two years in local search won't be the ones with the most backlinks. They'll be the ones that are easiest to describe clearly.

Google is building a section at the top of AI answers for the official sources. My question for every business owner I work with is simple: are you building the page that deserves to be in it?

If you're not sure what your answer looks like right now, that's exactly the kind of thing I help businesses across the CSRA figure out. Let's talk.

— Kenny Flermoen, The Positioning Architect

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Sources

1. Search Engine Roundtable: Over 80% of Google searches have AI Overviews (Oct 26, 2026)
2. Semrush: AI Overviews have nearly doubled across five commercial search modifiers (Oct 21, 2026)
3. Google: More ways to connect with the web from Search (Oct 15, 2026)
4. Search Engine Land: Google updates AI Mode and AI Overview with more links (Oct 15, 2026)