For owners deciding where next year’s marketing money goes
Three things are genuinely shifting, and the work that wins a local search has barely moved in five years.
A report on your own business, showing where it ranks today and what the businesses above you are doing.
By Reece Rainer
spareday, Newcastle NSW
Last updated
13 September 2026
Read time
2 minutes
Since it went live my phone hasn’t stopped ringing.
Excellent in all facets of web design with particular expertise in SEO and email marketing. Online visibility has skyrocketed since working Reece which translates as flawless customer relations, new leads and new customers.
He created a stunning website for us that captures and nurtures leads with an automated email marketing system, which has filled a huge gap in the business and saved a lot of time (and money!).
Most predictions about search are written to sell something. This one separates what has actually changed from what is still the same job it was in 2022.
For a local Australian business, the second list is longer than the first.
Answers written above the results, more searches finished without a click, and buyers checking a business across several places before they ring.
Each of these changes where a business is seen, rather than what makes it worth choosing.
The map still decides local work, reviews still separate two businesses with the same service, and a page for each service still does most of the earning.
This is the unglamorous half, and for a local business it is where the enquiries come from.
Answer questions in plain sentences a machine can quote, keep the listing accurate, and stop measuring visits alone.
Four practical changes, none of which costs anything beyond attention.
Related reading from us: technical SEO.
No. Local searches still end on the map or on a website, and the written answers above the results are quoting pages that somebody wrote.
No. The listing, the reviews and a page for each service still carry most local enquiries, and none of those has changed.
More searches finish without a click, answers appear above the results more often, and buyers check several places before they ring.
By calls and form enquiries rather than visits. Visit counts fall for reasons that have nothing to do with how a business is performing.
One monthly fee covering everything, month to month, no lock-in. The number depends on the business and gets given on the call.