I started Eighty6 because I thought something was fundamentally unfair.
Small businesses — the painting contractors, the title companies, the family-owned shops — were out here delivering genuinely great service. In many cases, better service than the big national brands. But they had terrible websites, terrible online presences, and terrible user experiences. Meanwhile, the companies with all the money had polished digital presences that made them look trustworthy and professional, even when the actual service didn’t back up that impression.
The playing field was tilted. Not because big companies were better, but because they could afford to look better online.
That's what Eighty6 set out to fix. And everything I've built this agency around comes back to one idea: follow the eyeballs. Wherever people go to find what they need, make sure your business shows up there and looks like it belongs there.
What "Follow the Eyeballs" Actually Means
It’s not a tactic. It’s a mindset.
When I started in this industry, there was no Google Maps. Social media barely existed as a marketing channel. The way people found local businesses looked completely different than it does today. And it’s going to look completely different again in five years.
The agencies that chase tactics and build their whole model around one platform, one algorithm, one method, have to reinvent themselves every time something shifts. The businesses that think in terms of “where are my customers going to find what they need, and am I there?” never have that problem. The platforms change. The goal doesn’t.
Right now, that means showing up on Google. On Maps. On AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, and Claude. Wherever someone is going to look for a painting contractor or a title company in New Jersey, I want my clients to be found there. That’s the whole game.
The Conversation I'm Actually Having With Clients
Here’s something worth knowing: most of my clients aren’t tracking website traffic. They’re not sitting there watching Google Analytics. What they’re tracking is leads. Inquiries on the website. Appointments booked. Phones ringing.
So when something changes in the search landscape, the conversation I’m having isn’t usually “your traffic dropped.” It’s “your leads dropped.” Or “inquiries are down.” Or “the phones are quieter than they were last quarter.”
That’s the real metric. And when that conversation comes up, my job is to look at the whole picture, assess what’s changed, lay out the options, and give them a clear direction. Not panic. Not a sales pitch. A reassessment and a plan.
The Honest Truth About AI Search and Local Businesses
I want to be straight with you on this one: there isn’t a ton of hard data on how LLM searches are converting for local businesses yet. There’s no industry standard for tracking it. Anyone who tells you they have definitive numbers is probably stretching the truth.
What I do know, from 15 years of watching how people find and choose local service businesses, is this: even when someone uses an AI tool to find information about a business, they’re still moving on to that business’s website, still clicking through, still becoming a lead. The zero-click problem is a real issue for e-commerce and national content brands. For a local plumber or a Bergen County title company, someone still has to make a call. Someone still has to show up.
The AI tools are changing the path. They’re not eliminating the destination.
The Prediction Nobody Wants to Hear
Here’s where I’ll say something that might be unpopular.
Right now, a lot of businesses and agencies are pumping out AI-generated content at scale, trying to game the algorithm. And some of it is working, for now. But the thing about AI content is that eventually it’s going to be so available, so ubiquitous, that it becomes the baseline. Everybody has it. Nobody gets an advantage from it. The signal disappears because everyone’s producing the same kind of content.
When that happens, organic search is going to get a lot harder. The businesses that have been relying on content volume to rank are going to find themselves in a very difficult position.
My honest prediction: they’re going to have to run ads. That’s not a bad thing. Ads work, and they’ve always worked when they’re done right. But the idea that you can build a sustainable, long-term lead generation engine on organic SEO alone, without any paid strategy, is going to become increasingly difficult to pull off.
The businesses that win are the ones who build a real, diversified presence now, while organic still works, and use that time to build an audience, a reputation, and the foundation that carries them through whatever comes next.
That’s what “follow the eyeballs” has always been about. Not chasing the current platform. Building something that travels.
– Jay Eagleson, Managing Partner & Head of Growth
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