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November 15, 2024
by Anastasia Kotsiubynska
Google’s AI Overviews are changing the average user’s search experience.
Where, previously, you’d see a list of paid and organic links or a featured snippet, now you can get answers from Google AI.
This doesn’t mean organic traffic is obsolete, but implementing AI Overviews SEO strategies can help you succeed on modern SERP.
This article will explore SEO strategies relevant to working with AI Overviews, ways to monitor these SEO efforts, and explain how AI Overviews work.
Google’s AI Overviews (AIOs) are a new feature that appears above the organic results for some search queries and offers an immediate, extended AI-generated answer to the user’s query.
Here’s what it looks like:
Source: Google Search
Here, the generated response and the list of sources pop up on the right-hand side to create the answer. By clicking, the AI Overviews expand from a few paragraphs into a larger text. Google also allows users to like or dislike the answer and save it.
AI-generated answers on Google started in May 2023. Back then, these AI-generated answers were known as Search Generative Experience (SGE). During the annual I/O developer conference, Google announced that it was finally ready to reimagine the traditional search experience using generative AI. To get an SGE answer, you needed to sign up for Search Labs.
On May 14, 2024, an improved version called AI Overviews was introduced at Google I/O and made available to everyone in the US. Since August 2024, AI Overviews have also been available in six other countries: the United Kingdom, India, Japan, Indonesia, Mexico, and Brazil.
AI Overviews is powered by Gemini, a range of large language models (LLMs) developed by Google DeepMind. It is designed to handle complex search queries and gather information from across the web to support its answers. Using generative AI, Google learns patterns and structures from its training data to create new informative content.
Simply put, AI Overviews generates text based on multiple web sources and provides links to those sources.
A more pressing question for SEO experts is which queries trigger AI Overviews and which links are chosen to generate the answers.
Google serves AIOs for queries where the algorithm believes AI-generated answers can offer useful information. From the data we have now, those queries are mostly long and informational. They feel more like prompts, hinting that Google blends its search features with AI-assistant capabilities.
Based on a SE Ranking AI Overviews study, AIOs appear overwhelmingly for keywords longer than four words, have a low search volume (from 0 to 50), and have a low cost per click or CPC (from $0 to $0.5). These metrics basically describe an informational query phrased like a question. Single-word queries triggered AIOs only 0.8% of the time, while ten-word queries showed a trend with a 19.1% rate.
The number of AIOs in SERPs is also shrinking. In the cited research done in June of 2024, AI Overviews appeared on 8.71% of the 100,013 keywords in the study. In the research about AI Overview sources done in July 2024, that percentage was down to 7.47%. In the first research conducted in February—before the official rollout of the feature—AI Overviews appeared in 64% of searches.
It’s safe to say Google is still refining how AI Overviews work and opting to lower the instances of their appearance in SERPs.
Now that we have a bit more understanding of how AI Overviews function, let’s see how they influence people who use Google Search.
Note that these conclusions are based on the collective insights from experts in the field taken from the way AI Overviews work today. Google could change it, and we’ll have to figure out all of it anew.
For now, here is the current understanding of AI Overview’s impact on search.
For regular users of Google Search, AI Overviews are a mix of the good and bad.
Many search queries are done with the intention of getting a quick answer, not reading through a long post. Google has been working on that by introducing featured snippets and knowledge graphs.
AI Overviews act as an advanced version of that by presenting a summary of the answer above the organic results. That’s handy, as users don’t have to click through half a dozen articles to get an answer.
Source: Google Search
The downside is that all generative AI is notoriously bad with factual information. And even though AI Overviews no longer suggest putting glue in your pizza, the facts in AI-generated responses can’t be trusted fully.
For users who are looking for an authoritative opinion on a topic, AIOs are just another section they have to scroll through. Especially considering you can’t turn off AI results.
Entrepreneurs who gain a significant share of organic traffic will have to rethink their approach to marketing. AI Overviews are likely to result in a decrease in organic traffic from informational queries. You’d have to work around that by incorporating AI Overviews SEO strategies and optimizing content.
Another challenge is that this very same AI will serve up information about your company, and it might contain inaccuracies. This means you’ll have to work on brand awareness and digital PR to counteract that.
AI Overviews are changing the way the search engine works, so SEO strategies need to be reworked to work with and around this feature. Since this feature eliminates the need for a user to skim through your SEO-optimized articles to get a quick answer, your traffic numbers are likely to go down.
However, it’s not a catastrophe.
Search Engine Land co-founder Barry Schwartz said in a recent webinar that even with massive changes in SEO approaches, there isn’t anything SEOs can’t adapt to. The key to success is to monitor how AIOs work and change your results to implement new strategies to amend that.
AI Overviews is still in its infancy as a technology and might change in the future. However, you can make educated guesses on what AI Overviews SEO strategies to incorporate into your marketing.
Below are the six things to consider when improving your SEO strategy based on the data on the current state of AIOs.
Be more precise in your approach to AI Overviews SEO and monitor how exactly AIOs appear for the keywords you target.
Monitoring at least these three data points will give you an understanding of how to optimize content for AI Overviews.
After identifying which keywords trigger AI Overviews, analyze the websites cited by AI Overviews. Look at their structure, topics covered, text length, and other details. We’ll explore these points in more detail.
Google’s AI prioritizes well-structured content that is highly relevant to the user’s query and offers authoritative, reliable information. If a website’s content is frequently cited, it likely meets these criteria better than other available content.
An AI Overviews SEO strategy impacts certain types of keywords more than others and adjusts your keyword strategy accordingly. You have two major choices here.
The first is to focus more on middle- and bottom-of-the-funnel keywords. The recent SE Ranking AIO study shows AI Overviews significantly impact top-of-the-funnel informational keywords, which means you may lose some of that traffic.
So, focus your SEO efforts on optimizing the keywords that are more likely to result in a conversion and almost don’t have AI Overviews. These are commercial and transactional keywords. They are used when a user wants to find information about a product or buy it, such as “best dress shoes” or “buy dress shoes.”
The downside of focusing on them is that you’ll be up against decent competition. Those keywords are highly competitive even now and will likely become more so as other marketers look for strategies to adjust to AIOs.
The second is working on top-of-the-funnel keywords with AI Overviews in mind and trying to dominate.
To achieve this, you’ll need to:
Creating great content is a pinnacle of SEO. You might have to work harder if you still want top-of-the-funnel keywords to contribute a large part of your organic traffic and drive sales.
An important thing to do with content to stand a chance against the AI Overview summary is to make it more informative. Try to understand the search intent by analyzing the top-ranking content and AIOs answers.
You will still lose a portion of traffic due to some users wanting a fast answer, but these tips make your content more appealing to those looking for more quality information.
To improve your odds of appearing in AIOs-linked sources, audit and improve on-page optimization.
Work on the basics:
This alone isn’t the deciding factor in whether you get an AIOs mention, but it will certainly help.
Another point is to optimize your product feeds. AI Overviews sometimes show shopping results in the answer, and if you ensure the basics of optimization, like using keywords and keeping information about availability updated, you have better chances of appearing there.
Source: Google Search
AI Overviews and featured snippets are similar in nature, so it’s no surprise they often appear together in SERP. In fact, they do so more frequently now. In the June study mentioned earlier, they appeared together 45.39% of the time. That figure is up to 63.67%, according to the July study.
This means optimizing your page to appear in the featured snippet is important for AI Overviews SEO. Even if a particular keyword that has an AI Overview doesn’t have a featured snippet, it’s worth optimizing for it in case it appears in the future or if Google uses similar algorithms to feature your link in AIOs.
To increase the odds of your page appearing in the featured snippet:
Once you’re satisfied with the overall quality of your content, copy a short paragraph intended as the featured snippet and try to experiment with it. Your goal is to answer the main search intent fully and in a summary.
If there’s a featured snippet in SERP already, keep experimenting until your page gets featured there.
The final piece of the puzzle is digital PR. First, you need the links and mentions to rank higher in SERPs. This isn’t just good for SEO in general—it can improve your chances of having your page linked in AIOs sources.
Try to earn mentions from high-authority sources like industry blogs and news media. According to SE Ranking’s research, the most frequently linked websites—including youtube.com, linkedin.com, healthline.com, verywellmind.com, forbes.com—in AI Overviews have strong backlink profiles. Moreover, out of 7,475 cases where AI Overviews showed up in search results, 93.67% were linked to at least one of the top 10 organic search results where Google also typically favors authoritative domains.
Write opinion pieces for authoritative sites or give comments as an expert. Give interviews and participate in podcasts if you get the opportunity. One great technique you can use to improve AI Overviews SEO is to be a source of information rather than a simple commenter. Your content is more likely to be linked in the sources if you can provide unique factual information.
You can either create opinion pieces that share a unique outlook on a common problem or publish the results of your own research.
With AI Overviews SEO entering your digital marketing arsenal, measure and analyze your performance to know how to adjust your strategy. Here are the four things you’ll have to add to your marketing workflow.
One of the most important things to track is branded keywords. AI Overviews might display information about your brand that is either inaccurate or paints you in a bad light, and it’s important to counteract it.
Track branded keywords and focus on long questions about your brand. A good way to get those keywords is through Google’s “People Also Ask” section.
Source: Google Search
When tracking those keywords, check whether they have AI Overviews and look at what they tell about your company.
If there’s an AI Overview answer that shows misinformation, track the source down in the linked sites and reach out to the editor to change that information. Or you can try to get another page with better information to replace it.
You’re already tracking all of these metrics. For AI Overviews SEO, it’s important to track the pages ranking for keywords that trigger AIOs to gauge what the impact is. If your traffic is only slightly down and the number of conversions is not impacted, you can leave things as is.
Keep tracking these metrics, as they might change.
If you see a huge negative effect, start implementing a new strategy. Find a way to approach this keyword with a strategy provided in this article. If it is an important source of traffic for your business, consider engaging another traffic channel. For instance, search ads that appear above AI Overviews.
Source: Google Search
Search ads that appear next to AI Overviews should also be a subject of your analysis. If you run ads for a particular keyword and see an AI Overview appear, note how the click-through rate (CTR) changes.
Source: Google Search
If the CTR does change, counteract that by experimenting with the ad’s text. Focus on conveying that clicking the ad will provide more value than reading through the AI answer.
The final thing to monitor is changes in how AI Overviews operate. This is a relatively new feature, but it has changed significantly since February 2024 – it started appearing in fewer searches and providing more sources.
It can still evolve, and there’s no guarantee Google won’t change it drastically. So, be one of the first SEO strategists to notice that.
Keep tracking AIOs’ performance, stay tuned to Google’s blog announcements, and listen to podcasts featuring experts.
This might result in getting an opportunity to be one of the first to implement new strategies and outcompete others in AI Overviews SEO.
SEO is challenging on its own. When you add AI into the picture, it becomes even harder.
Here are the three major challenges of AIOs SEO:
AI Overviews SEO is a difficult activity to handle. It’s full of uncertainty, incomplete information, and experimentation.
Don’t let this discourage you. Approach it not as something you know nothing about but as something you can learn from first-hand experience and use to outcompete other websites.
Use the strategies from this guide as a starting point and monitor how they impact key metrics. Stay updated on how AI Overviews function and adjust your strategy if Google makes an update that changes it.
Want to strengthen your SEO strategy? Dive into our step-by-step guide on conducting an SEO audit, complete with a free checklist to ensure you’re covering all the bases.
Edited by Shanti S Nair
Anastasia is an enthusiastic SEO specialist at SE Ranking with solid content marketing, analytics, and tech SEO expertise. She consistently keeps her eyes on the latest SEO news, Google updates, and insights from the AI industry. She seeks to apply innovative approaches to work and improve processes by using the latest technology. In her leisure time, Anastasia travels across Europe and learns languages.
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