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Service industries vs Blogs vs SAAS
Posted by on May 17, 2026 at 6:17 amEverybody is talking about how AI results are taking away traffic, and I imagine that might be true for some blogs probably – if your blog is about "what is chachacha", then AI can answer that quickly.
But if your business and website is some service, I don't understand how AI could take away your traffic/clientelle? If user needs his tire changed, how would AI help?
OK – AI can suggest the best service providers in area, so somebody out there is going "oh, we gained so much clients because of AI?"
But all the discussions, suggestions, tips, articles etc & etc are as if SEO/GEO is some one-size-fits-all/singular entity with no differentiation. Even from Google's documentation and communication: web = many blogs about topic X.
What about shops, service businesses, marketplaces, directories, SaaS products, local providers, booking platforms, comparison portals, B2B suppliers, clinics, agencies, job boards – nah, create a blog about them or at least make page as bloggy as possible.
/rant over 😄
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1 Reply
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Yeah, informational traffic is getting squeezed way harder than transactional stuff. “How to fix X” is easy for AI to absorb. “Find me a reliable roofer near me today” still needs actual businesses underneath. Feels like local and service SEO just shifted more toward trust signals than pure content volume.
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When people ask a question on Google, 40% of them are happy with the AI generated answer. As someone with a recipe blog, that has hit my traffic hard. My information was used to train that LLM to be able to answer those questions but I don’t get any credit or traffic for it.
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Exactly right and it extends to how AI answers work too. When someone asks an AI for the best plumber or dentist in their area, the AI pulls from review signals and GBP data heavily. So for local service businesses the play is not more content, it is more consistent reviews and a well-maintained GBP profile so you show up in those AI recommendations confidently. The tire shop that has 300 reviews with responses beats the one with 50 stale reviews every time, regardless of blog strategy.
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