Local SEO · 6 min read
Google AI Overviews are eating your clicks. Here's what to do about it
AI Overviews reduce clicks on informational searches, but barely touch high-intent local searches like 'emergency electrician near me'. The fix is to stop writing generic explainer content, answer questions directly in the first two lines of a page, add structured data, and focus your pages on the searches where someone is ready to buy.
By Raja Wahab, Co-founder, Fixby Studios · Updated
What actually changed
Google increasingly answers a question at the top of the results page using content pulled from sites like yours. If your page existed only to explain something, that traffic is largely gone. If your page exists to sell a service in a specific place, it is mostly intact — and the AI answer often cites it.
How to get quoted rather than skipped
- Answer the question in the first 40–60 words of the page, in plain sentences a machine can lift.
- Use question-shaped headings that match how people actually ask.
- Add structured data — service, FAQ, organisation, review — so the answer engine understands what it is reading.
- Include specifics only you have: real prices, real timescales, real job examples. Generic content is not worth citing.
- Keep an about page and author details that show a real business behind the words.
Where to spend your effort instead
Shift the balance of your content towards commercial searches: 'cost of', 'near me', 'best X in [town]', 'X vs Y'. Those searches still send clicks, because the searcher wants a supplier, not a paragraph.
Raja Wahab is co-founder of Fixby Studios, a Huddersfield studio building websites, SEO, social media and business software for small, owner-managed businesses across West Yorkshire.
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