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Written by: Leonard Parker | Uncategorized | November 19, 2024
Google’s latest change to search engine results pages (SERPs), AI Overviews (AIOs), has stirred up a storm in the search engine optimization (SEO) world. Should you be worried about your site’s rank, clickthrough rate (CTR), and visibility due to AIOs? Read on as we discuss what AI Overviews are, how they affect your SEO, and how you can tweak your content strategy to cater to them.
Let’s discuss how AI Overviews function so you can refine your adaptive SEO efforts accordingly.
With Featured Snippets, Google had already emphasized its intention of providing comprehensive answers to users immediately in search results.
Google’s AIOs are previews of a topic containing information synthesized from multiple websites. This AI and Gemini-enhanced snapshot immediately provides a comprehensive overview to users while encouraging them to explore related websites further. As a result, individuals who need quick answers do not have to sift through multiple websites, and those who need in-depth knowledge get better, high-quality results.
Let’s talk about a few modules you’ll find in AIOs:
a. Answer text. May include:
b. Text citations in answer text (pictured above) to show the sources of every bit of information
c. Source panel to the right of the answer box that lists all the sources cited in the AI answer and more, displaying up to three up front and 10 on expansion
d. Additional information, such as further guidance, explanations, warnings, and disclaimers
e. Hero images (always sourced from websites)
For e-commerce queries, AIOs include product views that can look like any of the following:
BrightEdge Parser has been monitoring Search Generative Experience and AIOs since last year. As per their data:
As for when AIOs appear, BrightEdge notes that they:
More data from BrightEdge Parser reveals that URLs featured in Google AIOs are not ranking in traditional results 66% of the time (as of August 2024). However, this greatly varies across niches, with sensitive industries like insurance and healthcare getting the highest overlap between traditional and AI results. This is because, in YMYL niches, Google trusts older, well-established, high-ranking websites to provide more reliable information than newer, less-cited content.
Understanding the current situation in your industry will equip you to adapt your SEO strategy accordingly:
| Industry | Organic Rank (1–10) Overlap with AI Results | Organic Rank (11–100) Overlap with AI Results | Organic Unranked Overlap with AI Results |
| All industries | 17% | 17% | 66% |
| Healthcare | 31% | 34% | 35% |
| B2B | 20% | 23% | 57% |
| Insurance | 15% | 16% | 69% |
| E-commerce | 13% | 12% | 75% |
| Entertainment | 9% | 3% | 88% |
| Finance | 5% | 5% | 90% |
| Education | 4% | 3% | 93% |
Keeping in mind the structure of AIOs and industry-specific data, let’s analyze their impact on SEO. Before proceeding, it’s worth remembering that AIOs are only displayed for complex queries—less than seven precent of total search queries (as per BrightEdge data leading up to August 2024).
With AI compiling answers for users, zero-click searches can only be expected to increase after AIs. We’ll argue this is nothing to worry about because users in a hurry to find information often do not contribute any value to a website. In fact, they may not even read your domain name!
Meanwhile, you’ll find that the traffic you get through AIOs is more filtered and valuable. It will include people looking for in-depth reading and resources—high-quality, engaged users with lower bounce rates and longer session times. Consequently, you can expect user engagement to increase.
Overall, AIOs are (mostly) great news for everyone’s visibility.
Users hardly ever go past the first page of Google, so, previously, sites ranking on the second page were almost undiscoverable. Meanwhile, page 1 mostly featured long-form, keyword-rich content from websites with high DA and many backlinks, making it incredibly competitive.
Now, AIOs are getting their information from millions of sources, including lower-ranking and unranked results, to cater to nuanced audience queries. Consequently, the chances of previously obscure pages being cited in position 0 have increased overnight (given that they feature high-quality content). So, if you have been building in-depth, well-structured content that is yet to rank in the top 10, AIOs may feature you at position 0.
The catch is that organically ranked websites and featured snippet pages may suffer a slight decrease in visibility due to AIOs taking up pixel space above organic results and offering alternative links for people to browse.
The effect on a web page’s CTR will vary depending on whether it is in the AIO, Features Snippet, or organic search results.
It is also worth noting here that Google is trying to avoid repeating information on page 1. If you are in the Snippet section already or prominent in the classical search, you may not be in the AIO. Of course, a lot of these dynamics are a little uncertain because AIO is still in its experimental phase.
The basics of SEO, whether local or enterprise SEO, remain the same, but now content structure or quality compromises will push your content further down than ever before. You must strategize and refine your efforts.
No matter what industry you fall into, here are some general adaptations for AIO SEO:
With AIOs, identifying and understanding user intention behind queries has become more important than ever before. Focus more on optimizing for individual long-tail keywords by using them in headings and titles. Make sure your keyword strategy accommodates all intents: informational, transactional, and commercial. Voice searches will also feature significant AI content now, so you must also redouble your efforts in targeting natural language and conversational queries.
The better structured your content is, the easier it will be for AI engines to make sense of its information and relate it to queries.
Keeping the AIO format and modules in mind, ask yourself if the information your content provides fits within those sections. Pay special attention to the following:
In the case of e-commerce websites and affiliate marketplaces, this also translates to providing product features in the form of lists and tables alongside a deep dive into the specs.
As AI scours through content to answer complex questions, you must shift your focus from definition-based or single-answer topics to in-depth content. Write for humans, not search engines. Remember that, ultimately, the intention behind SEO updates is discovering top-quality pages that answer user queries. Content quality is the most solid way to fool-proof yourself against all updates in search engine guidelines.
Conduct an SEO audit, go through older blogs, and revamp them by providing more comprehensive information, incorporating more relevant keywords, and structuring content in a user-friendly manner. Differentiate between “who,” “what,” “why,” etc, clearly to answer queries precisely. Analyze, interpret, explain, and link to credible sources to build your site’s trustworthiness. Above all, ensure your content delivers on the areas promised by the title and headings.
Whereas the basics of technical SEO—speed, indexing, responsiveness, mobile optimization, etc.—remain the same, we’d recommend paying special attention to image optimization and schema markups to optimize for AIOs.
Images in AIOs, when present, are always sourced from websites. To increase your chances of being featured there, add keyword-optimized alt texts and image descriptions.
Schema markups provide signals about product features, like ratings, prices, fees, etc, playing a crucial role in optimizing e-commerce websites, stores, and affiliate marketplaces. With AIOs’ product views and combined offer carts, it’s imperative you send clear signals regarding your products’ data using markups. Create detailed markups for each product and add offers to sub-schema pages when you have sales and discounts to increase your feature and CTR rates.
The chances of AIOs’ appearance and the overlap of conventional and AI results vary per industry, so marketers in different niches must adapt their strategy accordingly:
Given Google’s high priority for featuring trusted information, your chances of being featured in AIOs increase if you get in the top 10 for these YMYL niches. Focus more on informational queries and enhancing your FAQs. Work toward experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness, cite high-quality sources, and get more backlinks to establish trust in your website.If you’re a newer website, getting featured in an AIO may be tough, but you can optimize for Featured Snippets and user follow-up questions. Link to high-quality, traditionally high-ranking sources to benefit from the increase in their visibility.
For now, a large percentage of AIO results are taken from the top 10, but this is likely due to content quality rather than trust concerns. Long-form content is the key to winning AIOs here. Make sure to come up with adjacent queries, follow-up questions, and relevant long-tail keywords.
In the education section, Google infers some follow-up questions to provide a more detailed answer while citing multiple websites. Interestingly, they refer users more to job-based sites like Indeed and LinkedIn.
To win in this sector, incorporate more UGC, like LinkedIn content, into your strategy. As audiences generally ask more questions in this industry, AIO will likely appear frequently. Anticipate FAQs and keep tracking keyword data to create timely content.
As your audience can have both informational and transactional intents, you must understand the nuances of a query to optimize for it. Use schema markups for offers and discounts, and list product specifications, benefits, limitations, and comparisons. Optimize for conversational long-tail keywords separately to make sure you are staying on top of voice-searching trends as well.
Whereas AIOs aren’t appearing for entertainment queries, for now, it’s prudent to stay prepared. Target long-tail keywords starting with “best,” as they have the highest chance of getting AIOs.
AIOs are a major change in SERP structure, but their benefits may outweigh their drawbacks in terms of discoverability.
But we get it—tracking SEO metrics, algorithm updates, and devising content strategies is complex.
Book a discovery call with us today, and let us handle your visibility concerns!
AIOs have a strong potential to increase your visibility and discoverability.
Whereas the positions of ranking pages won’t change, the visibility and traffic for organic results and Featured Snippets will decrease as AIOs appear above them. However, now, all webpages—whether ranked in the top 100 or not—can be cited in AIOs, greatly increasing your chances of getting featured if you have relevant, high-quality content.
AIOs were introduced in May 2023 for users who opted in for them in Search Engine Labs. In May 2024, Google started rolling them as a permanent feature for everyone in the US, with plans to expand to the rest of the world by the end of 2024.
The best ways to optimize for AIOs include:
Whereas you can’t track the effect of AIOs directly, it’s best to track the trends in traffic of individual pages.
For pages ranked one through 10 and Featured Snippets, you may notice a decrease in visitors. Meanwhile, if you’re seeing an inexplicable surge from a previously undiscovered page, it’s likely due to an AIO citation.
Monitoring the traffic from pages with question keywords, long-tail keywords, and listicles (e.g., Best of X) over time is also viable, as AIOs appear for these queries the most.
Websites with high organic ranks face the most challenges with the introduction of AIO, as now position 0 has other websites ranking above them. This can be addressed by striving to become often-cited sources by:
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