WHAT PEOPLE WANT ep-01: Leads, Not Rankings
By Juyel Rana · November 4, 2026 · Updated November 4, 2026
WHAT PEOPLE WANT ep-01: Leads, Not Rankings
Welcome to a new series. Every few days, I look at what people are actually asking for in public communities — Reddit, Hacker News, and other open tech and business communities — and turn one clear demand into something you can use.
Not what vendors say people want. What people are saying themselves, in their own questions, complaints, and recommendations.
Episode 1 starts with a demand that keeps coming up, in different words, in almost every community: people do not want more traffic reports. They want leads, calls, and customers.
Signal 1: AI search is not sending the clicks it used to
In late October 2026, Reddit told investors its search referrals had fallen by more than a million visits a week on average in October. Its CEO, Steve Huffman, tied that fall to Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, saying AI Mode does not drive traffic.
That matters even if you never post on Reddit. Reddit is one of the most searched-for sites on the internet. If AI answers can push even Reddit down the page, a small business page has no reason to expect the old click flow to come back on its own.
Other research points the same way. Pew Research found users clicked a traditional result in 8% of visits with an AI summary, compared with 15% without one. Ahrefs found a 58% lower click-through rate for the top-ranking page on queries that trigger an overview. Those figures vary by query type and study, so treat them as directional, not as a prediction for your site.
The lesson people are drawing in public discussions is not "give up on search." It is "stop judging search by clicks alone." Buyers still read AI answers, and they still remember the names in them. Being named is becoming part of the sale, even when there is no click to count.
Signal 2: Local clients want the phone to ring, not a ranking screenshot
A second, quieter complaint shows up again and again in SEO and small business communities: reports that measure what the agency did, not what happened to the business.
Citations built, posts published, average ranking improved from 7.2 to 5.8 — none of those sentences tell an owner whether the phone rang more.
The questions people actually ask on Reddit and the wider web are simpler: What does SEO cost? How long does it take? How do I tell a real agency from a report mill? And how do I hold an agency accountable?
The honest answer in those discussions is consistent: hold SEO to organic leads, conversions, and revenue first, with rankings and traffic as supporting indicators, never the headline goal. For local businesses, that usually means qualified calls, form submissions, and bookings, plus profile actions like calls, direction requests, and website clicks from a Google Business Profile.
In other words, people do not want "SEO." They want visibility in their service area, better map placement, more calls, and fewer missed opportunities from people searching nearby.
Signal 3: People want to own, not rent
A third signal is coming from Hacker News and open source communities. People are tired of subscriptions and platforms they do not control.
In early November 2026, coverage of open source clones of Adobe apps, and of clean-room open source replacements for popular SaaS products, drew heavy attention. The pitch was simple: free, no subscription, and you own the source code.
You do not have to agree with every clone project to hear the demand underneath it: own your audience, own your data, and own the thing you depend on. That is the same demand as Signal 1 and Signal 2, just in different clothes. Rented traffic, rented reports, and rented tools all break when the platform changes its rules.
So, what do people want?
Put the three signals together and the answer is clear:
Proof it works, in leads — from a presence they own, not just a ranking they rent.
That is the test to apply to your next SEO or marketing decision. Ask:
- Will this bring a qualified call, booking, or sale, or just a prettier report?
- Will this make us citable and memorable in an AI answer, or just visible on a page nobody scrolls to?
- If Google, Reddit, or any one platform changed tomorrow, would we still have a way for customers to find and contact us?
If the answer to all three is no, it is not what people want, even if it looks good in a dashboard.
What to do this week
- Pick one North Star metric. For most local and service businesses, that is qualified leads, not rankings. Agree what counts as qualified, so you are not counting wrong numbers and suppliers.
- Check your Google Business Profile like a customer would. Category, service area, hours, description, photos, and reviews should be complete and consistent. That profile is where many "plumber near me" searches end, long before a website visit.
- Make one page answer-first. Take your highest-traffic service page and put the direct answer, price range or what affects price, and service area in the first two sentences.
- Make yourself citable. Add one checkable fact per priority page — a specific price, timeline, specification, or attributed statistic — with its source linked. AI answers favour facts they can verify.
- Start an owned list. Even a simple email list or customer list means a platform change cannot take your whole audience away in one update.
What not to chase
- Do not chase a single ranking screenshot. Proximity and personalisation make single-point rankings misleading for local search.
- Do not judge AI search by referral traffic alone. Track branded search, direct visits, and enquiries too, because a name remembered from an AI answer often shows up there.
- Do not buy a new tool just because it promises traffic. Ask what it does for leads, ownership, and citability first.
The bottom line
Traffic was always a proxy. What people actually wanted was always the customer on the other end of it.
AI search, logged-in platforms, and subscription fatigue are just making that obvious. The businesses that win next are not the ones with the most traffic. They are the ones with the clearest answer, the most consistent local presence, and an audience they can reach without asking a platform for permission.
That is what people want. Episode 2 will look at the next demand the communities are surfacing.
Keep reading on heyjuyel.com
- How to Get Cited by AI Search in 2026: A Practical GEO Playbook for Small Businesses - how to become one of the sources an AI answer is built from.
- The Zero Click KPI Set for 2026 - how to measure success when fewer searches end in a click.
- 35 Modern SEO Hacks for AI Overviews and LLM Citations in 2026 - practical tactics for AI Overviews and LLM citations.
- Gartner AI Budgets Hit 15.3% of Marketing Spend, Readiness Is Lagging - why AI budgets are rising faster than readiness.
- Google Search Essentials Formalizes AI Content and Spam Rules - the content and spam rules that also apply to AI answers.