I had a conversation on the weekend that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about.
A business owner — smart, established, genuinely committed to growing his business — told me that his marketing strategy was posting content on social media and, in his words, ‘sliding into people’s DMs.’ He was confident this was the best use of his limited time. He believed it was helping his Google ranking.
It isn’t. And nobody had told him that.
He’s not alone. This is one of the most common misconceptions I see in small business marketing right now — and it’s costing people serious time and money. Before you invest $20,000 in an SEO strategy (or another year of your evenings on Instagram), it’s worth understanding how search actually works.
Does social media activity help your Google ranking?
No. And this isn’t a matter of debate.
Google has confirmed repeatedly — including directly from Gary Illyes at Google Search Central — that social signals are not ranking factors. Likes, followers, shares, engagement rates, and post frequency: none of these influence where your website appears in Google search results.
The reason is straightforward. Google’s crawlers can’t reliably access most social platforms. Instagram, in particular, is a largely closed environment. Even if Google could see your follower count and engagement data, that information tells it nothing useful about the quality, relevance, or credibility of your website content. Those are the things Google is actually trying to evaluate.
This matters because a lot of marketing advice — from agencies, from online courses, from well-meaning peers — conflates social media presence with search visibility. They’re different channels with different mechanisms. Being active on one does not move the needle on the other.
What about AI search? Does social media help there?
No. The same answer applies, and for similar reasons.
When ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, or Google’s AI Overviews generate an answer to someone’s question, they’re pulling from indexed web content, reviews, directories, and structured data. They’re building a picture of which businesses are credible, active, and genuinely useful based on what exists across the public web.
Your Instagram grid is not part of that picture. The AI tools that are increasingly determining who gets recommended to your ideal clients are not reading your posts or counting your DMs. They’re reading your website, your Google Reviews, your directory listings, and the content other credible sources have published about or linked to you.
If you want to show up when someone asks ChatGPT ‘who’s a good accountant in Wollongong’ or ‘what should I look for in a business consultant,’ the answer is not more Instagram content. It’s a credible, well-structured web presence that AI tools can read and trust.
To be fair, social media isn’t useless
Social media isn’t useless — and I want to be clear about that. I’m not telling you to abandon it. What I am telling you is to think strategically about your overall marketing mix and the role social actually plays in it. It cannot be your entire strategy. It was never designed to be.
This is something I’m consistent about everywhere — with my own clients, in my content, and inside Business Sweet Spot. Social media is one channel in a broader ecosystem. When it’s treated as the whole ecosystem, the foundational work that actually builds long-term visibility doesn’t get done. And that’s where the real cost shows up — not in follower counts, but in enquiries that never came.
Social media can drive traffic to your website. If that traffic leads to people spending time on your site, sharing your content, or linking back to it from their own sites, those are signals Google does pay attention to. But the causal chain matters: the Instagram post is not the signal. The backlink it eventually generated might be.
Social media also builds brand awareness, and brand awareness can show up in search over time — through direct searches for your business name, through increased branded traffic, through people mentioning you in places Google can actually read. These are real effects. They’re just slower, less direct, and much harder to attribute than most agencies will admit.
What about LinkedIn — isn’t that different?
LinkedIn is a different story.
Your LinkedIn profile and company page are indexable by Google. If someone searches your name or your business name, your LinkedIn profile will often appear on the first page of results — sometimes above your own website. LinkedIn articles (the long-form posts published through LinkedIn’s article feature) are also indexed and can rank for relevant search queries. That’s real and worth knowing.
But regular LinkedIn feed posts — the standard updates you publish day to day — are not reliably indexed by Google. LinkedIn has been inconsistent about this and has generally moved toward keeping feed content within the platform. LinkedIn engagement metrics (connections, reactions, shares) carry no weight as Google ranking factors, as they do on Instagram.
For AI visibility, LinkedIn profiles do contribute to the broader web picture that AI tools draw from. A LinkedIn profile that clearly describes what you do, who you serve, and where you’re based adds credibility signals that AI tools use when deciding whom to reference. But again, this is passive brand presence, not an active SEO strategy.
One more thing — your website structure matters more than you think
The business owner I mentioned at the start had something else working against him beyond his social media strategy. His website was a single page. One scrolling page covering everything: who he is, what he does, and how to contact him. He’d made a deliberate choice to keep things simple and avoid drop-down menus.
I understand the instinct. Simple feels clean. Drop-down menus can feel complicated. But for a service business trying to be found through search or AI tools, a one-page website is a visibility problem, not a design preference.
Google needs enough content, structure, and specificity to understand what you do, who you serve, where you’re located, and why you’re credible. A single page with a brief overview of services rarely gives it that. Each service you offer, each audience you work with, each location you serve, deserves its own page with its own content, its own keywords, its own FAQs. That’s how Google builds a picture of what your business actually does.
AI tools face the same problem. When ChatGPT, Perplexity or Claude is deciding whose business to reference in an answer, it’s drawing on the breadth and depth of what exists about you across the web. A single-page website gives AI tools almost nothing to work with. There simply isn’t enough content, structure, or specificity for them to understand and confidently recommend you.
A one-page website isn’t a bold design choice. For a service business trying to be found organically, it’s a visibility problem. |
There is one context where a one-page website makes complete sense: as the destination for a specific, separate campaign. A product launch. A live event. A paid ad funnel where the traffic source handles the targeting, and the page just needs to convert. In that context, simplicity is exactly right.
But as the permanent home for a service business relying on organic search and AI visibility? It’s working against you from day one. If your website has been built around what felt easiest to manage rather than what Google and your clients actually need, that’s worth revisiting before you spend anything on SEO.
So what actually helps your Google ranking and AI visibility?
The things that move the needle in SEO and AEO in 2026 are not glamorous. They don’t generate likes. But they work.
| What it is | Why it matters |
| Indexed website content | Blog posts, service pages, and FAQs that answer the questions your clients actually ask. Google ranks pages, not social profiles. |
| Google Business Profile | An active, complete GBP is one of the strongest local search signals available. Post weekly, respond to every review, and keep your details up to date. |
| Client reviews | AI tools draw on Google Reviews when deciding whom to recommend. Reviews that mention your specific service, outcome and location carry the most weight. |
| Backlinks from credible sources | Links from relevant, trusted websites signal to Google that others vouch for your content. This is where social media can occasionally help — by driving someone to your site who then links to it. |
| Technical foundations | A fast, mobile-friendly, well-structured website that Google can crawl and index. If Google can’t read your site properly, nothing else matters. |
| Consistent directory listings | Your business name, address and phone number appearing consistently across Google, Yellow Pages, True Local and industry directories is a trust signal for both Google and AI tools. |
| Schema markup and FAQs | Structured data helps AI tools understand and accurately represent your business. FAQ sections on service pages significantly improve your chances of appearing in AI-generated answers. |
| Sitemap submission | Submitting your sitemap to Google Search Console tells Google every page on your site exists and should be indexed. Most businesses have never done this. |
Why this matters before you spend $20,000
SEO is a legitimate investment. Done well, with a clear strategy and the right foundations, it compounds over time and builds visibility that paid advertising can’t replicate. Done badly — or sold as something it isn’t — it’s an expensive lesson.
Before you commit to any significant SEO spend, ask your prospective agency three questions:
- Which specific activities will directly influence my Google ranking or AI visibility — and how?
- How will you measure progress, and what signals will you report on?
- What does my website’s current Google Search Console data show about how Google sees my site?
If the answer to the first question includes social media posting as a primary SEO tactic, that’s a problem. If they can’t answer the third question at all, that’s a bigger one.
Google Search Console is a free tool that shows you exactly how Google sees your website — what queries you’re appearing for, which pages are indexed, and where the gaps are. Any agency doing serious SEO work should be in there regularly. If yours isn’t, ask why. Want to chat to one who does focus on this without over-promising? Book a call with me here now.
Want to understand search properly before spending a cent?
On 14 May, I’m running a 90-minute live session — WTF is Search Now? — covering exactly this. What’s changed in search, how AI tools decide who to recommend, how to use Google Search Console to see what Google actually thinks about your website, and the practical steps that build real visibility for a service business.
No jargon. No AI Armageddon. No selling you activity without results.
Thursday 14 May | 12:30pm AEST | Zoom | $65 + GST
