News for business owners
News on what's changing in how people find a business online.
Google updates, reviews, AI search, and everything else that moves whether your business gets found. The source sits next to every number.
Google and reviews
- Where should you ask for reviews, Google or Yelp?Google holds most of the internet's review volume, but customers who arrive via Yelp call or visit the same day more often.
- How much do reviews matter to win a customer in 202697% read reviews before choosing a business, and nearly one in three people won't consider anything under 4.5 stars anymore.
- What changed in Google Business Profile in 2026AI-written Q&A, WhatsApp as a messaging option, and an algorithm that no longer rewards brand recognition alone.
- The 2026 Google core updates hit home service businesses hardMarch and May 2026 punished generic, templated city pages and rewarded a complete Google profile with fresh reviews.
Your website
- What a small business website actually costs in 2026An agency charges $5,000 to $30,000, a freelancer $1,500 to $8,000, and then there's the maintenance bill every year after that.
- Web accessibility lawsuits aren't just a big-company problem anymoreMore than 5,000 web accessibility lawsuits were filed in the US in 2025, and 64% of the businesses sued make under $25 million a year.
- How many seconds before you lose the mobile customerThe average site takes 8.6 seconds to load on mobile, and more than half of visitors are gone before three.
AI and search
- How ChatGPT recommends a business to a customerOnly 1.2% of local business locations ever get recommended by AI, according to an analysis of more than 350,000 businesses.
- Google's AI Overviews cut clicks, but reward the sites they citeGetting cited in Google's AI-generated answer brings fewer total searches, but far more clicks on the ones that do land.
Something here not matching what you see in your business? Call and we'll look at it together.