Local SEO for LLMs in 2026: How to Get Picked, Not Just Ranked

Last Updated on February 12, 2026 by Becky Halls

Local SEO used to be fairly predictable. You’d tidy up your Google Business Profile, make sure your NAP (name, address, phone) was consistent, collect reviews, build a few local citations, and if you were better than the other businesses in your area, you’d show up in the map pack and pick up calls.

That still works but we now need to consider local SEO for LLM’s. In 2026, it’s no longer the whole game, because people aren’t only searching inside the ‘traditional’ local pack anymore. They’re asking questions like:

• “Who’s the best plumber near me for a boiler leak?”

• “What’s a good mechanic in Milwaukee that won’t rip me off?”

• “Best physio near Shoreditch for runners?”

…and they’re asking them in places where the answer is generated, summarised, and sometimes cited, rather than presented as a list of ten options.

Jeff Durante’s NP Digital post captured this shift really well: LLMs don’t just crawl your site like a classic search engine, they interpret language, infer meaning, and try to assemble your business identity from signals across the whole web.

That last part is the big change. If your local visibility feels a bit unstable lately, it’s often not because you suddenly ‘did SEO wrong’, it’s because the systems deciding what to show are increasingly trying to answer the question directly, and they need confidence to do that.

The blunt reality: AI answers reduce clicks, so being ‘included’ matters more

If you’ve noticed rankings holding steady but traffic softening, you’re not imagining it.

Pew’s research found that when Google shows an AI summary, users clicked a traditional result in 8% of visits, vs 15% when there was no AI summary, and clicks on links inside the AI summary were rare.

Ahrefs has also measured large CTR drops associated with AI Overviews, including an estimate of a 34.5% lower average CTR for the top-ranking page when an AI Overview is present, and their later update suggests the hit can be even bigger in newer data.

For local businesses, that changes the goalposts a bit. You still want to rank, obviously. But you also want to be the business the model feels confident recommending when it generates an answer.

“We’ve seen local businesses ‘do everything right’ on the website, but still get overlooked in AI-style answers because their wider footprint is inconsistent, thin, or just hard for a machine to interpret.” 3Way Social Team

How LLMs change local search

Traditional local search is option-based: here’s a map, here are the top listings, pick one.

LLM-style answers are selection-based: they generate a recommendation based on the clearest signals they can find, and if your signals are messy, you often just don’t make the cut.

Here’s the core idea: LLMs are pulling from entities, schema, reviews, citations, and high-trust signals, not just “who ranks #1”.

That’s why ‘local SEO for LLMs’ is basically a new layer on top of classic local SEO, not a replacement.

How LLMs process local intent in 2026

This is the part most people get wrong: LLMs don’t ‘think’ like Google’s local algorithm.

Google’s local algorithm leans heavily on proximity, relevance, and prominence. LLMs still care about those concepts, but they infer them in a more language-and-entity driven way. NP Digital describes it as looking for patterns in language and structured signals, including reviews that mention service areas, schema that defines business type and location, mentions across directories and social platforms, and city-specific content.

So instead of ‘the user is 0.7 miles away’, the model is often dealing with signals like:

• Do people mention you serving this neighbourhood?

• Is your address and service area consistent everywhere?

• Do your reviews naturally reinforce what you do and where you do it?

• Does your site talk like a local business, or like a generic brochure?

“This is one of the biggest pieces of advice we can give: consistency across the web creates confidence, and confidence gets you included.” 3Way Social Team

What still matters from ‘classic’ local SEO (and matters even more now)

Google Business Profile is still the foundation

Google Business Profile optimization, NAP consistency, and review generation still matter.

Even Google’s own AI features documentation says there are no special requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode beyond solid SEO, and specifically calls out keeping Business Profile info up to date.

So yes, GBP still matters, a lot.

But in 2026, GBP is table stakes, not the differentiator.

NAP consistency is not ‘old SEO’, it’s entity clarity

NAP consistency used to feel like busywork. Now it’s one of the easiest trust levers you can pull, because models detect inconsistency and treat it as uncertainty. If your business description changes across platforms or your NAP details don’t match, AI senses uncertainty and becomes less confident in referencing you.

Google’s structured data guidelines echo the same general principle: don’t mark up things that aren’t visible, keep info accurate and up to date, and avoid misleading markup.

In our experience, one mismatched phone number on a high-visibility directory can cause more confusion than people realise, especially when a model is trying to ‘resolve’ your business identity across sources.

Reviews are no longer just ‘social proof’, they’re training data for local relevance cues

The language inside reviews helps AI understand your services and your location.

This is why review strategy in 2026 is not just “get more 5-stars.” It’s also:

• encouraging customers to mention what they got done

• encouraging mention of the area or neighbourhood (naturally)

• making it easy for customers to leave reviews on the platforms that matter (Google, but also niche platforms for your industry)

You can’t script reviews, and you shouldn’t try. But you can nudge the prompt you give customers so the reviews contain real detail instead of “Great service!”

We’ve seen review profiles with fewer reviews outperform bigger competitors because the reviews were specific and locally grounded, and that specificity shows up in how models interpret the business.

The part that’s new: LLMs build a ‘whole web’ business profile

LLMs analyse your entire digital footprint (not just your site) and they compare how consistently your brand appears across social platforms, directories, local orgs, review sites, and community publications.

This changes the practical definition of ‘local SEO’:

• your website matters

• your GBP matters

• your citations matter

• but also your broader online presence matters more than it used to, because LLMs use it to validate identity and relevance

And there’s a real-world reason for this. OpenAI’s partnership with Reddit includes access to Reddit’s Data API (real-time, structured content), explicitly to bring enhanced Reddit content into ChatGPT and help users discover and engage with Reddit communities.

So when people ask local questions, the model may be influenced by what it sees across community discussions, not just business listings.

Best practices for ‘Local SEO for LLMs’ in 2026

Really, we need to think about one theme: build clarity, context, and consistency so the model doesn’t have to guess.

Here’s what that looks like in practice, with a few extra 2026 upgrades.

1) Write local content that actually sounds local

Generic city pages are fading in value, and LLMs prefer businesses that demonstrate real understanding of the communities they serve. You should think about writing about neighbourhood-specific issues, local climate/seasonal challenges, local regulations, and other grounded details.

So instead of “Plumber in Manchester,” you write like a plumber who actually works there:

• “What causes low boiler pressure in winter in older terraced houses?”

• “Emergency plumbing in Didsbury – what we can usually fix same-day”

• “Hard water limescale problems in [area] and what it does to your taps”

That content is better for humans, and it gives models more context to connect you to the place and the problem.

2) Structure content in ways LLMs can parse easily

This doesn’t mean robotic bullet lists everywhere. It means you stop hiding the answer – think straightforward headers, short sections, natural-language FAQs, and sentences that mirror how people ask questions.

Google’s AI features guide says the same thing in a different way: make content easily findable via internal links, keep key content in text, and keep structured data aligned with visible text.

A simple ‘LLM-friendly’ local page structure:

• A clear H1 that includes service + area

• A short intro that says who you help and where

• 3-5 question headings with direct answers

• A short FAQ at the bottom (real questions, not fluff)

• Strong internal links to related services and locations

We’ve seen local pages perform better when they stop trying to rank for ‘keyword blobs’ and instead answer the exact questions customers ask on the phone. Ian Naylor, 3Way Social

3) Use entity-based schema and local markup properly

Focus on entity-based markup and specifically LocalBusiness schema, service area definitions, department structures, and product/service attributes, because structured data is one of the clearest ways to communicate your identity to AI.

This is also where you should keep it boring and correct. Google’s guidelines are clear that you shouldn’t mark up content that isn’t visible, and your structured data should fully represent the page content.

Basic schema stack for local businesses in 2026:

• LocalBusiness (or a more specific subtype)

• Organization

• WebSite

• BreadcrumbList

• Service (where appropriate)

• FAQPage (for clarity, even if rich results are limited in many cases)

4) Standardise your brand presence across platforms

We recommend spreading and standardising your brand presence across social, directories, local organisations, review sites, and community publications.

Practical checklist:

• same business name everywhere (no random variations)

• same address formatting everywhere

• same primary phone number everywhere

• same opening hours everywhere

• consistent service descriptions and categories

Also, something many local SEOs forget: if you care about ChatGPT visibility, Bing still matters because ChatGPT’s browsing and search capabilities have historically been tied to Bing in various forms.

So yes, check:

• Bing Places

• Apple Maps listings

• Waze and other map ecosystems

5) Build citations that look like real-world validation, not a directory blast

Citations still matter because they’re one of the clearest “this business exists and operates here” signals.

But quality is the differentiator.

A smaller list of relevant citations (industry + local) usually beats 200 generic directory listings that haven’t been updated since 2018.

6) Treat local backlinks as ‘prominence signals’, not just SEO points

Links still matter because trust still matters. The trick in 2026 is making sure the links reinforce local relevance:

• local sponsorships

• local charities

• local press coverage

• local event partnerships

• hyper-relevant industry publications

If you’re a local service business, ‘prominence’ is often built through real-world relationships, and the web is just the documentation trail.

“In our experience, the best local links come from things you’d do anyway if Google didn’t exist – they just happen to leave digital footprints that models can see.” Becky Halls, 3Way Social

How to measure local visibility when clicks are shrinking

This is where a lot of agencies get stuck, because reporting hasn’t caught up to behaviour yet.

Google’s AI features doc says sites appearing in AI features are included in Search Console’s performance reporting (they’re not broken out cleanly, but they’re there).

So you track:

• impressions (are you being surfaced?)

• branded search growth (are people searching you by name after seeing you?)

• GBP actions (calls, direction requests, website clicks)

• conversions, not just visits

And if you’re doing any testing, watch for the ‘shape change’ effect: rankings stable, impressions stable, clicks down, conversions unchanged or sometimes even up (because the fewer clicks you get are more qualified).

A simple 2026 playbook you can run in 30 days

If you want something you can execute quickly:

Week 1: Clean up identity

• GBP audit

• NAP audit across top 20 citations

• Bing Places + Apple Maps check

• Fix inconsistencies

Week 2: Build local clarity content

• 1 core local service page upgrade

• 2 neighbourhood-specific Q&A pages

• 1 ‘pricing / process’ page (customers love this)

Week 3: Add schema and internal links

• implement LocalBusiness schema properly

• tighten internal linking between service pages and location pages

Week 4: Add real-world prominence

• one local partnership or sponsorship

• one community mention or local publication pitch

• one industry citation upgrade

If you keep that loop going, you usually see compounding results, because you’re improving both classic local SEO signals and the broader footprint LLMs use to build confidence.

FAQ

What is local SEO for LLMs?

Local SEO for LLMs is the process of making your business easy for AI systems to recognise, understand, and confidently recommend for local queries, using consistent entity signals across your listings, website, reviews, and wider web presence.

Do I still need Google Business Profile optimisation in 2026?

Yes. It’s still foundational. NP Digital explicitly calls out GBP as part of the core local data LLMs rely on, and Google also references keeping Business Profile info up to date for AI features.

Do reviews affect AI-driven local search?

Yes. The language inside reviews helps AI understand your services and location, which can influence whether you’re included in answers.

What schema should a local business use in 2026?

Start with LocalBusiness (or the closest subtype), then add Organization, WebSite, and BreadcrumbList, and extend with Service and FAQ markup where it reflects visible content. NP Digital calls schema a key way to communicate identity to AI.

Why do rankings feel fine but traffic is down?

AI summaries and AI Overviews can reduce clicks even when rankings remain stable. Pew’s data shows lower click rates when AI summaries appear.

Does Bing still matter for LLM visibility?

Often, yes. ChatGPT’s web browsing and search capabilities have been tied to Bing in various implementations, and NP Digital specifically notes Bing Places as a priority for presence.