AI Search for Med Spas: Why Google Rankings Aren’t Enough

Ranking #1 on Google is no longer the whole story. A 2026 Washington University study found that nearly 30% of the domains cited in Google’s AI Overviews weren’t on the traditional first page of search results. So your med spa or wellness practice could have strong SEO, rank well for an important service—and still be overlooked when a prospective patient asks AI who they should trust.

In this episode of Worth Your Salt, Jennifer Orechwa sits down with John Colascione, Founder & CEO of SEARCHEN NETWORKS®, to unpack what AI search means for med spas and wellness practices.

John has spent more than 25 years in search, websites, digital publishing, online advertising, domains, and customer acquisition. He’s watched search evolve from the early days of Yahoo and Google to today’s AI-powered discovery tools, including ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Gemini, Perplexity, and Claude.

And his message isn’t that SEO is dead - it’s that businesses now have another layer of visibility to compete for.

Jennifer and John explore why ranking well in traditional search doesn’t automatically make your practice an AI recommendation, what AI agents look for when evaluating businesses, and why third-party validation may matter now more than ever.

John also runs a live AI Visibility Audit on a real wellness practice to show what happens when AI knows your business exists—but doesn’t necessarily cite or recommend it for the services you provide.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why a #1 Google ranking doesn’t guarantee visibility in AI search
• What “AI visibility” actually means for a local med spa or wellness practice
• Why third-party mentions, backlinks, reviews, directories, press, and other authority signals matter
• How AI tries to determine whether your business is a credible entity
• Why consistency across your website, listings, social channels, and business information matters
• What John discovered during a live AI Visibility Audit of a real wellness practice
• Why strong content alone may not be enough if the rest of the web isn’t validating your expertise
• How FAQ-style content, comparisons, costs, risks, and educational content can support AI discovery
• Why your Google Business Profile is still one of the most important assets for local visibility
• How the frequency and recency of reviews can influence local discovery
• Why SEO still matters—and how AI visibility should complement it rather than replace it
• How to start measuring traffic and leads coming from ChatGPT, Perplexity, and other AI platforms

One of the biggest takeaways?

You can’t simply tell Google—or AI—that you’re the best practice in your market.

You need evidence across the web that helps confirm who you are, what you do, where you’re located, and why you’re credible.

For med spa and wellness owners, that means thinking beyond rankings alone and building the kind of digital authority that makes your practice easier for both search engines and AI platforms to understand, trust, and recommend.

About John Colascione

John Colascione is the Founder & CEO of SEARCHEN NETWORKS® and has spent more than 25 years building internet businesses and helping companies get found, attract customers, and grow online.

Learn more about John and SEARCHEN NETWORKS:
https://www.searchen.com/
https://www.johncolascione.com/