9 SEO and AI Search Challenges UK Businesses Want to Overcome

Key takeaways

• 48% of UK businesses in our 2027 State of Marketing Report named SEO and AI search visibility among the first three areas they’d improve, up from 38% last year and more than any other area of marketing.
• Among those businesses, keyword research and strategy is the most common of the nine SEO challenges (57%), followed by understanding Google algorithm updates and E-E-A-T (52%).
• 72% of businesses with an SEO strategy optimise for AI-generated search results, while only 12% count AI Overview appearances among their top three SEO metrics, which shows measurement is still catching up with the tactics.
• Most businesses face several of these challenges at once, and the quickest progress comes from starting with the one holding your visibility back the most.

When did you last Google your own business? Most owners we speak to have done it at least once, usually late at night, and come away slightly baffled about why the shop two streets over sits above them. It’s a very normal feeling at the moment, because search keeps changing shape. Google now answers plenty of questions itself, and more people are asking ChatGPT who to call.

If that feels familiar, you’re not alone. In our 2027 State of Marketing Report, 48% of UK businesses named SEO and AI search visibility among the first three areas they’d most like to improve, up from 38% last year and more than any other area of marketing. We asked those businesses which SEO challenges they most want to overcome, and the results were as follows:

(Businesses could choose more than one challenge, so the percentages overlap).

In this blog we’ll explore each of these challenges and provide practical tips from our SEO team that you can start to implement this week.

Table of contents:

• 9 SEO Challenges
  • Keyword research and strategy
  • Understanding Google algorithm updates and E-E-A-T
  • On-page optimisation
  • Optimising for AI Overviews and AI-generated search results
  • Understanding how AI search affects visibility
  • Local SEO and Google Business Profile
  • Competitor analysis
  • Technical SEO
  • Link-building and off-page SEO
• How to Prioritise Your SEO Challenges

1. Keyword research and strategy (57%)

Keyword research means finding the words and phrases your customers type (or say) when they’re looking for what you offer. It’s the most common of the SEO challenges in our survey, and it shapes almost everything else on this list.

Why it’s difficult
Free tools make keyword research look easy, but most of them lean on national search volumes. The terms with the biggest numbers are rarely the ones that bring a small business its best enquiries. Searches are getting longer and more conversational as well, because people now ask AI tools full questions, which our guide to prompt research covers in detail.

What it looks like in practice

• Pages written around the words the business uses internally, like a solicitor’s page called “Private Client Services” when people are searching “how much does a will cost”.
• Plenty of visits from broad terms like “plumbing” and very few from “emergency plumber Swindon”, the search that brings in a job at 7am on a cold Monday.
• Two of your own pages chasing the same keyword and holding each other back.
• Blog posts written about topics your customers never search for.

How it affects your visibility
When the keyword strategy is off, you can rank well for terms nobody searches or attract visitors who were never likely to buy. Both look fine on a traffic report and do very little for your enquiries.

Where to start

• Write down the 20 questions customers ask your team most often on the phone or by email. These are keyword ideas in your customers’ own words.
• In Google Search Console, open the Performance report and look at the Queries tab to see what people already search before finding you.
• Group your keywords by intent, keeping people researching a problem separate from people ready to buy, and give each group its own page.
• Make sure each page targets one main topic.

2. Understanding Google algorithm updates and E-E-A-T (52%)

Google adjusts how it ranks websites all the time, and a few times a year it rolls out a bigger “core update” that can shift rankings across whole industries. E-E-A-T stands for experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness, and it’s how Google’s own guidance on helpful content describes the kind of content it wants to reward, with trust carrying the most weight.

Why it’s difficult
Google has confirmed three core updates in the past year alone, plus a run of spam updates, and lists them all on its Search Status Dashboard. Keeping track of them can feel like a second job, and most owners already have one of those. E-E-A-T adds to the confusion because it isn’t a single ranking factor you can switch on. Our explainer on what E-E-A-T is and why it’s important for SEO breaks it down further.

What it looks like in practice

• A sudden drop in traffic after an update, with no obvious cause.
• Thin service pages and blog posts that say the same thing as dozens of other sites slipping down the rankings.
• Rankings that wobble for a couple of weeks while an update rolls out, then settle somewhere new.
• Healthcare providers and law firms facing a higher bar, because Google holds YMYL content (“your money or your life”) to a higher standard.

How it affects your visibility
Pages that don’t show real experience become easier for Google to replace with someone else’s after an update. The encouraging news is that 91% of businesses with an SEO strategy told us their content shows real expertise and first-hand experience, and 71% say competitors couldn’t easily copy it. The work is in making that expertise easy for Google to see.

Where to start

• Add author names and short bios to your guides and blog posts, linking to a page about each person’s experience and qualifications.
• Include details only your business could know, such as real project examples, photos of your own work, typical price ranges and answers to the questions customers ask you.
• When traffic dips, check the Search Status Dashboard and compare the update dates with your Search Console data before changing anything.
• Read our guide to non-commodity content for ideas on making pages harder to replicate.

Take a physiotherapy clinic in Leeds. Adding its physios’ qualifications and its own advice on common running injuries gives Google far more reason to trust it than a page that only lists “sports massage and injury treatment”.

3. On-page optimisation (48%)

On-page optimisation covers the parts of each page you control directly, including title tags, headings, copy, images and internal links.

Why it’s difficult
There’s a lot of it, and it never feels finished. Most small business websites were built in one go by a designer focused on how the site looked, and the pages have been edited by several different people since. Plenty of businesses know the work needs doing: among those with an SEO strategy, updating existing pages (51%) and strengthening internal linking (53%) are among the most popular SEO tactics in our report. The hard part is knowing where to begin on a site with dozens of pages.

What it looks like in practice

• Several pages sharing the same title tag.
• Headings chosen for their font size, with no thought to what they say.
• Important service pages buried four clicks deep with hardly any links pointing to them.
• Images with file names like IMG_4471.jpg and no alt text.

How it affects your visibility
Each of these makes it harder for Google to work out which page should rank for which search, and harder for visitors to find what they came for.

Where to start

• Search Google for site:yourdomain.co.uk and read your own title tags as a customer would, checking that each one describes the page clearly, with the main keyword near the start.
• Give every page one H1 heading that says what the page is about.
• Link to your most important service pages from your homepage and blog posts, using descriptive link text like “boiler servicing in Bath”.
• Add alt text to your images that describes what’s in each one.

A common quick win is replacing a homepage title tag like “Home | Smith & Sons” with “Electricians in Cardiff | Smith & Sons”.

4. Optimising for AI Overviews and AI-generated search results (43%)

This challenge is about the steps you can take to improve your chances of appearing in AI-generated answers, like Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode or tools such as ChatGPT and Gemini. It’s already the most popular SEO tactic in our report, used by 72% of businesses with an SEO strategy, and 57% of businesses plan to do more of it in 2027.

Why it’s difficult
The advice online is loud and often contradictory, and two-thirds of businesses told us conflicting opinions online leave them feeling overwhelmed. Some of it promises special files or secret formatting tricks. Google’s own guidance on AI features is refreshingly plain, saying there are no extra requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode and that standard SEO best practice still applies. Our AI marketing glossary explains terms like GEO if they’re new to you.

What it looks like in practice

• Pages that hide the answer under three paragraphs of introduction.
• Long blocks of text with no subheadings, which are hard for an AI tool to pull a clear answer from.
• Business details that differ between your website and your directory listings.
• No FAQ content, even though customers ask you the same questions every week.

How it affects your visibility
In our experience, the businesses that get cited tend to have clear, well-structured pages that answer specific questions directly, on a site Google already trusts. When your page makes the answer hard to find, a competitor with a more direct page is more likely to be the one named.

Where to start

• Open each key page with a direct answer of one or two sentences to the question it targets, then add the detail underneath.
• Add an FAQ section built from real customer questions, phrased the way people would ask them out loud.
• Use clear subheadings and short paragraphs, so each section makes sense when read on its own.
• Keep your business details consistent across your website, Google Business Profile, social profiles and directory listings, because AI tools can draw on information from several places.

Take a garden centre in Kent with a page on when to plant tulip bulbs. If it answers “October or November” in its first line, it gives an AI tool something clear to quote. Our guide to optimising for AI-powered search goes into more detail.

5. Understanding how AI search affects visibility (43%)

Where optimising for AI search is about getting into the answers, this challenge is about knowing when you’re there and what it’s doing for your business.

Why it’s difficult
It’s the newest of the nine SEO challenges, and it shows in the data. Most businesses with an SEO strategy say they track how their brand appears in AI search, but very few have built it into their formal reporting yet:

• 12% count appearances in AI Overviews among their top three SEO metrics.
• 4% do the same for mentions or citations in AI tools.

That gap looks to us like measurement still finding its feet. Many reporting tools are still catching up with AI search, and the five metrics businesses lean on most (organic traffic, rankings, impressions, click-through rate and leads from organic search) were all designed for a page of ten blue links.

What it looks like in practice
Impressions climb in Search Console while clicks stay flat or dip. That can mean your content is appearing in AI Overviews and answering the question on the results page, which still puts your name in front of customers. It’s only one possible explanation, so check it against changes in your rankings and search demand. 64% of businesses with an SEO strategy have already adapted for more searches ending without a click.

How it affects your visibility
Without a way of tracking AI visibility, it’s easy to read that pattern as a failure and start changing pages that are doing their job. It also makes it harder to show what your SEO work is achieving for the business.

Where to start
Our report suggests three checks you can run without any new tools, and we’d add a fourth, the monthly report at the end:

• Visibility in Google’s AI search: Google includes AI Overview and AI Mode appearances in the standard Search Console Performance report, within the “Web” search type. They aren’t shown separately, so review impressions and clicks over time for the question-style searches you’d expect to trigger an AI answer.
• Brand mentions in AI answers: Ask ChatGPT and other AI tools five to ten questions your customers might ask, like “who’s a good accountant for small businesses in Norwich?”, and note how often your business appears. Repeat the same questions each month.
• Citations in AI answers: Check if AI tools link to your website as a source, and record which pages get cited for which questions.
• Your monthly report: Add a short AI visibility section to your marketing report and look at it next to your enquiries for the same period.

Our guide to checking AI search visibility explains how ChatGPT and other AI platforms find the sources they use.

Have you experienced a few of these challenges within your own business? Our SEO specialists can show you which one to fix first. Talk to our SEO team today.

6. Local SEO and Google Business Profile (34%)

For businesses serving a particular town or area, local search is often where most enquiries begin. Google’s local ranking guidance names distance from the searcher as one of its main factors, and that’s the one you can’t change. Relevance and prominence (how well known your business is) are where the work goes.

Why it’s difficult
The local results page keeps changing shape. AI Overviews can now appear above the map for some local searches, and the businesses named there aren’t always the ones that sat in the old 3-pack, as our article on the decline of the local 3-pack explores.

What it looks like in practice
Usually, it’s a Business Profile set up years ago and left alone:

• Opening hours that haven’t been updated since before the bank holiday.
• A primary category that’s far too broad.
• Photos of the shopfront from before the refurb.
• A last review reply from sometime in 2023.

How it affects your visibility

An out-of-date profile gives Google less reason to show you, and it gives customers less reason to call when you do appear. Only 40% of businesses with an SEO strategy are working on local SEO, such as managing their Google Business Profile and reviews, which leaves plenty of room to stand out.

Where to start

• Log in to your Google Business Profile and check your name, address, phone number and opening hours match your website exactly.
• Choose the most specific primary category available (an Italian restaurant will do better with “Italian restaurant” than “Restaurant”).
• Ask happy customers for a review with a direct link, and reply to every review with something specific to that customer.
• Add new photos and a post every couple of weeks, so the profile looks active to customers and Google alike.
• Check your details are consistent on Bing Places and the main UK directories (this is something our business listings service takes care of).

7. Competitor analysis (27%)

Competitor analysis means looking at who’s showing up where you want to be, and working out why. Only 19% of businesses with an SEO strategy analyse their competitors’ SEO, making it one of the least used tactics in our report. It’s also one of the SEO challenges where a couple of hours’ research can show you exactly what to fix.

Why it’s difficult
Your search competitors may not be the businesses you think of as rivals. Imagine a wedding venue in the Cotswolds. It might lose clicks to a national directory and a wedding blog, neither of which it would call a competitor. Most of the detailed analysis tools are built for SEO specialists, with a monthly subscription to match.

What it looks like in practice
A newer competitor starts appearing above you for your most valuable searches, and nobody’s sure why. The answer is often sitting on the competitor’s own website, if you know where to look.

How it affects your visibility
Without looking at what’s ranking, it’s hard to know what Google and AI tools expect from a page on your topic. You can end up improving pages in ways that don’t close the gap.

Where to start

• Search your five most important keywords in a private browser window, and note who appears in the organic results and the map and which businesses any AI Overview names.
• Look at what those pages have that yours don’t, such as more detail, pricing guidance, FAQs or reviews on the page.
• Ask an AI tool which businesses it recommends for your service in your area, and note who comes up.
• Pick one gap to close at a time, starting with the page that brings in your most valuable enquiries.

If the accountants ranking above you each have a dedicated page for Self Assessment tax returns and you’ve got one line about it on a general services page, you’ve found a clear gap to close first.

8. Technical SEO (18%)

Technical SEO is the behind-the-scenes work that helps search engines crawl and understand your site, covering things like page speed, mobile performance, site structure and structured data.

Why it’s difficult
The problems are mostly invisible. A site can look perfect to you and still have pages Google can’t index, or old addresses that lead nowhere since the last redesign. It’s joint lowest of the nine SEO challenges, and in our experience that may partly reflect the fact that many businesses hand it to their web developer and don’t think of it as SEO at all. Even so, 51% of businesses with an SEO strategy are using structured data and technical SEO, and 45% are working on site speed and Core Web Vitals.

What it looks like in practice

• Pages missing from Google altogether
• A mobile layout that jumps around as it loads
• Broken links left behind after a redesign
• Service pages that take several seconds to appear on a phone

How it affects your visibility
A page Google can’t index won’t rank in search results or appear in AI answers, however good the content on it is.

Where to start

• In Search Console, open the Pages report under Indexing to see which pages aren’t indexed and the reason Google gives
• Run your site through our free SEO audit for a quick read on speed and mobile performance
• Load your main service page on your own phone over 4G and time how long it takes
• After any redesign, check that old page addresses redirect to the new ones

Our guide to technical SEO explains each area in plain English.

9. Link-building and off-page SEO (18%)

Off-page SEO covers the signals beyond your own website that tell Google and AI tools your business is credible, and links from other trusted websites are the best known. It’s the least used tactic in our report, with just 15% of businesses with an SEO strategy earning backlinks through digital PR or guest blogging.

Why it’s difficult
It’s hard to do alone. Earning a link means persuading a journalist or editor that your business is worth mentioning, and old shortcuts like buying links can do more harm than good. Plenty of businesses tried link-building years ago, ended up with a pile of low-quality directory links and decided it wasn’t for them.

What it looks like in practice
Your pages are well written and well structured, and you still sit behind competitors with more established reputations online.

How it affects your visibility
Links remain one of the ways Google judges credibility, and AI tools draw on information from across the web, so being mentioned on trusted sites can help your business appear in their answers.

Where to start

• Look for data or expertise you already have that a local paper or trade publication might want, like a customer survey or a seasonal trend you’ve spotted.
• Join your local chamber of commerce or trade association, and make sure your member listing links to your website.
• Offer expert comment to journalists covering your industry.
• Find existing mentions of your business online, and politely ask for a link where there isn’t one.

Our digital PR and link-building team earns coverage and links for UK businesses, and our article on some of our standout digital PR results shows what that looks like in practice.

How to prioritise your SEO challenges

Most of the businesses we work with recognise themselves in three or four of these. Working on all nine at once spreads the effort thin and makes it hard to tell which changes made a difference, and a simple order of work helps.

1. Find your biggest constraint: Work out which challenge is holding your visibility back the most right now. A site Google can’t index needs technical fixes first, while a well-built site attracting the wrong visitors probably needs keyword work.

2. Set a baseline: Before you change anything, note where you stand, including organic traffic, rankings for your main keywords, enquiries from organic search and how often AI tools mention you.

3. Choose two or three connected actions: Pick actions that support each other. Rewriting a service page around better keywords and linking to it from your blog posts both strengthen the same page, and you’ll see the combined effect sooner.

4. Review leads alongside rankings: Check enquiries and sales from organic search next to your rankings, clicks, impressions and AI mentions. Only 32% of businesses with an SEO strategy track leads from organic search as one of their main SEO metrics, yet it’s the closest figure to the commercial result. Add “How did you hear about us?” to your enquiry form and phone script too, because someone who finds you through an AI answer may call or search your name later, and your analytics won’t credit that lead to AI. In our experience, most SEO changes take three to six months to show their full effect, so give each round of work time before you judge it.

See what other UK businesses are planning for 2027

Our 2027 State of Marketing Report shares what hundreds of UK businesses told us about their budgets, AI use, search strategies and plans for the year ahead, with practical takeaways in every section.

Meet the Author

Hamish Lister

Hamish Lister is a digital marketing content writer with eight years of experience across SEO, paid media, brand and content strategy. Having worked with clients from Google Cloud and Unilever down to early-stage startups and local businesses, he has a broad understanding of what makes digital marketing work for businesses of different sizes and budgets.

Other posts by Hamish Lister