Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few years (more on rocks to come later), you’ll be aware of the rapid advances in AI content generation tools. As a marketer, you may well be utilising some of these already, to produce or enhance a range of assets, including written copy, images, videos and presentation decks. While incorporating AI into your content creation methods can be helpful, it can also be a hindrance to your efforts, if certain guidelines aren’t followed. Check out our blog about the implications of the 2024 Google Core Update for more on this, but let’s look first at Google’s AI Overview.
Generative AI relies on algorithms and technologies, such as machine learning, deep learning and natural language processing to create new content. These tools provide search engines with an understanding of user queries, as well as allowing for a rapid trawl through vast amounts of relevant information, before delivering appropriate results. Since 2015, Google has been using its own AI technologies, including RankBrain, followed by BERT which launched in 2018, to improve user experience within its search engine results pages (SERPs).
With the release of its latest feature – AI Overview – Google draws on the full range of generative AI technologies to formulate instant answers to user queries. This was previously known as Search Generative Experience (SGE). As these AI Overview answers appear above all other results on SERPs, this will have an impact on SEO strategy for marketers, to ensure their content remains visible.
This blog will explore how to use Google AI Overview to your advantage, with some techniques for optimising your website content for potential inclusion in Google AI Overview search results. We’ll look at what this means for your wider SEO strategy, as well as the resurgence of search everywhere optimisation. Finally, we’ll cover some of the pitfalls of relying too much on this still experimental method of sourcing information.
AI Overview Optimisation: How should we adapt to this new dawn?
With the rise of Google AI Overviews, the user journey can be drastically reduced. With seemingly authoritative results appearing at the top of SERPs, we’re starting to see an increase in reduced and even zero-click searches. This means that even the most robust SEO strategy alone may not serve to continue boosting organic traffic to your website.
To adapt to this new dawn, there are some techniques you can apply to help you harness or bypass AI Overview optimisation. For the most part, these are rooted in the rationale behind SEO best practices. Have a read of our 10 easy SEO wins for SMEs for inspiration.
We’ve broken down some of our top tips for exploring these opportunities below:
How to optimise to appear in Google’s AI Overview
Currently, AI Overviews are largely appearing for informational queries based on long-tail keywords, much like Google’s “People Also Asked” and information boxes that have become so prevalent in recent years.
So, if you’re wondering how to rank for AI Overviews, trying to provide the most informative and clearest answers to these long-tail questions is a great first step. This approach will help the chances of your webpages appearing as links in AI Overviews and maximise your potential click-through rates. Crucially though, to be considered for that top spot, any webpage would still need to adhere to best practices regarding on-page, off-page and technical SEO.
Having several linked pages or sites provides another opportunity within AI Overview Google, as together, these can create a composite AI Overview answer. This means that multiple different websites have the chance of featuring in the summary, if their pages help create the AI answer.
Targeting keywords not in AI Overview
Not every search query will deliver an AI Overview answer, so another method of dealing with AI Overview SEO would be to try and avoid it entirely. Instead, focus your efforts on ranking for brand terms and transactional keywords. These will remain unaffected by the introduction of AI Overview, so traditional SEO tools and methods will still work perfectly well for these keyword groups.
Other valid tactics that don’t need adjusting for AI Overview SEO include:
increasing brand awareness campaigns, integrating ad campaigns into AI Overview and targeting keywords with no AI Overview answer.
Time to look elsewhere with Search Everywhere Optimisation
The advancement of AI Overviews has seen a rapid resurgence of search everywhere optimisation. This means that users are increasingly interfacing with several alternative search engines, such as YouTube, Amazon, Bing, TikTok and other social media sites.
This trend for search everywhere optimisation helps drive organic traffic from a range of sources other than Google. So, when producing content, it’s important to consider how your brand’s presence can be optimised for maximum visibility across each platform individually.
How many rocks should I eat per day and other AI Overview answers
So, as promised…back to rocks. With AI Overview Google still being an experimental form of generative AI, it should of course be relied on with caution. This has been put to the test on numerous occasions, with users searching things like:
Query: How many rocks should I eat per day?
Answer: According to geologists at UC Berkeley, you should eat at least one small rock per day. They say that rocks are a vital source of minerals and vitamins that are important for digestive health. Dr. Joseph Granger suggests eating a serving of gravel, geodes, or pebbles with each meal, or hiding rocks in foods like ice cream or peanut butter.
Query: Cheese not sticking to pizza
Answer: Cheese can slide off pizza for a number of reasons, including too much sauce, too much cheese, or thickened sauce. Here are some things you can try: Mix in sauce – Mixing cheese into the sauce helps add moisture to the cheese and dry out the sauce. You can also add about 1/8 cup of non-toxic glue to the sauce to give it more tackiness.
While many of these answers are good for a laugh, there are more serious undertones involved with disruptive technology making misleading information readily available during trial stages. This article from The College Investor states that Google AI Overviews are inaccurate in 43% of finance-based searches, so misinformation can be rife in these early days.
Essentially, this means that marketers and people in the SEO industry still have some time to review their approaches to content before AI Overview becomes too all-encompassing.
Patch is an SEO agency, with an expert team that has achieved top ranks in some of the most competitive industries in the UK and Europe. If you’re wanting to build your SEO, AI Overview SEO and AI Overview optimisation strategy but are unsure where to start, contact us to request a free website SEO audit.
