How to optimise for Google AI Overviews

The arrival of Google AI Overviews (AIOs) has been one of the most significant changes to the SEO landscape in the last twelve months. Google ramped up their frequency in the second half of 2024 and is gradually displaying them more often and for more complex queries. 

Those brands in high-ranking positions tend to be cited in the AIOs, but those in lower-ranking positions might be concerned that being pushed further down the SERPs could decrease their visibility and click-through rates.

So what should SEOs and marketers be doing to take advantage of AIOs?

How often do AI Overviews show in organic search?

While the instance of AIOs varies by study, Advanced Web Ranking’s Google AI Overview Tool (albeit based on a US dataset) gives a good snapshot by industry. 

The table below shows the instances by search intent, which generally peaks for Informational searches.

Source: Advanced Web Ranking

Steps to optimise for AI Overviews

Well, the good news is you don’t have to do anything drastically different.

For the most part, the key ranking factors for organic search have the strongest impact on AIO mentions. There are a few exceptions (as we’ll explain), but the best approach is to ensure you’re following good SEO practices.

We’re prioritising the following key optimisations:

1. Pinpoint your AIO keywords

2. Track emerging keyword opportunities

3. Improve your page rankings

4. Link building and brand mentions

5. Format your content for AI Overviews

6. The Question, Answer, Expand framework

7. Reference trusted sources

8. Optimise for E-E-A-T and YMYL

9. Regularly update content

10. Use structured data

11. Excel at technical SEO

Pinpoint your target keywords

It takes time and resources to optimise content for AIOs, so you need to prioritise the most valuable opportunities. With AIO frequency still varying so much, the sooner you start analysing the following, the better:

• The presence of AIOs for your target keywords

• AIO prevalence for keyword intents

• AIO + SERP feature combinations: featured snippets, people also ask, etc.

• Any CTR changes for searches showing AIOs

• The value of any traffic losses due to AIOs

• AIO citation CTRs

• The value of potential traffic gains from AIO citations

• Optimisation costs: time, budget, resources, etc.

Be prepared to optimise for different AIO goals, especially when it comes to keyword intent.

For example, you may find AIO citations for commercial long-tails generate the most valuable traffic while informational queries offer more in terms of brand awareness.

A few useful tools:

• Ahrefs: Go to Site Explorer, select your website, then navigate to “Organic Search” > “Top organic keywords” > “SERP features” and choose “AI Overview” to see which keywords trigger an AIO.

• Semrush: To identify keywords with AIOs, access the “Organic Research” section, select your domain, and check the “SERP Features” column. 

• SE Ranking’s Competitive Research tool: This tool contains 22 million AIO-triggering keywords. Go to the “Organic Traffic Research” section. Filter keywords by the AI Overviews feature, the table will now only display keywords that trigger AIOs.

Track emerging keyword opportunities

Competition for AIOs is strong so optimising for emerging keywords is a great way to build traction. You can find emerging keyword opportunities from several sources:

• Keyword tracking tools that automatically monitor topics and keywords by search volume.

• Social monitoring tools to track the topics your target audience is talking about online.

• Industry developments that create new keyword opportunities – eg: new rules and regulations.

• Competitor research to identify their latest target keywords.

• Content gap analysis to find keywords your competitors are optimising for, but you aren’t.

Some helpful tools for this:

• Ahrefs: Go to Competitive Analysis, select Keywords and enter your domain along with competitor domains to perform a content gap analysis.

• Bexploding Topics: Find emerging keywords related to your target topics as search volumes start to increase.

• Brandwatch: Use the Listen tool to track online mentions of topics, brands, products, etc. and access data visualisations—including word clouds and topic wheels—to find related topics.

AIOs cite an average of 7-8 sources, but the top citation gains the most visibility. The first citation is also used to provide a short, but complete, summary answer to the query.

Be the first to produce quality resources for new keyword opportunities and keep updating your content to retain AIO citations. As with organic rankings and featured snippets, it’s easier to protect AIO citations you’ve already secured that optimise for competitive ones.

Improve your page rankings

Analysis finds that 75% of AI Overview citations come from the top 12 organic rankings for the same query. 

This is currently the strongest correlation between any optimisation strategy and securing mentions in AI Overviews. Ultimately, the higher you rank for your target keywords, the more likely you are to feature in AI Overviews.

Also, every ranking position you climb increases the click-through rate and traffic volume.

Link building and brand mentions

Inbound links are one of the strongest ranking factors for organic search. Time and again, we have found that link building is the most impactful strategy for improving search rankings, especially for competitive keywords.

Link building also helps with AIOs in another key area: brand mentions. Generative AI algorithms love brand mentions, especially brands consistently associated with the topics users are asking about.

Volume is important with brand mentions, too. Generative AI algorithms get a lot of their data from online content. So, the more citations you have in that pool of data, the greater your chances of showing in AI Overviews, ChatGPT responses and other AI placements.

Alongside your link building strategy, build relevant brand mentions across the web: third-party websites, online forums, social media platforms, news publications, etc.

Format your content for AI Overviews

When optimising specific pages, you need to format your content for AIOs. This is an extension of a more conversational search experience that’s also relevant to ChatGPT search and other AI systems.

Here are the key steps we’re getting from our analysis so far:

• Format for search intent – eg, lists for “what to do in [location]” queries

• Add question-answer sections to your content – eg, definitions, FAQs, etc.

• Ask questions in your h2 and h3 headings

• Provide short, but complete, summary answers in the first paragraph of each section

• Include numbered, step-by-step lists for “how to” and other instructional queries

• Use bulleted lists to summarise key points

• Add rich media types (images, video, data visualisations, etc.) where appropriate

• Cite trusted sources for statistics, facts, definitions, etc.

If you analyse the AIOs showing for your target keywords, you should see clear patterns in the format and key elements Google includes.

Finally, ensure that your content is concise, conversational, and scannable. Get to the point, keep sentences and paragraphs short, and use page elements (headings, lists, images, etc.) as visual cues to break up the page.

Use the “Question, Answer, Expand” framework

Google wants to deliver short, concise answers to user queries with the option to access more in-depth information. Think of this as the Question, Answer, Expand framework and apply it to your content.

At the page level, your title addresses the question or query and the first paragraph of your introduction provides the short summary answer. Then, the main body of your content expands upon the introduction in greater depth.

You can apply this framework to each section of your content, too. Use h2 and h3 headings to address related questions. Then, provide a summary answer in the first paragraph of the section and expand in the following paragraphs.

Again, keep your paragraphs and sentences short and conversational.

Reference trusted sources

Information accuracy is generative AI’s biggest weakness. Google found out the hard way when its Bard launch was riddled with inaccuracies that knocked 9% off Alphabet’s market value.

Google simply can’t afford for AIOs to devalue the accuracy of search results.

Above all, make sure all information in your content is factually accurate. You should already be doing this for E-E-A-T, but it’s equally important for AIOs.

Reinforce key points with statistics, analysis, insights and references from trusted sources. Keep all references up-to-date and check they’re still accurate with every content update.

If possible, produce your own statistics, analysis and other insights – unique references AIOs won’t be able to get anywhere else.

Optimise for E-E-A-T and YMYL

Building on the concept of information accuracy, Google has increased its emphasis on E-E-A-T and YMYL in recent years. Google says trust is the most important factor in E-E-A-T and information accuracy is integral to this.

Google uses a human team of quality raters to manually assess the expertise, authority and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T) of content. It also asks raters to be especially strict when assessing Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) topics where inaccurate information could negatively affect people’s lives.

Optimising for E-E-A-T is crucial for organic rankings, but it’s proving equally important for AIOs.

Earlier, we looked at AIO frequency across industries and core YMYL topics, including health, legal and finance, are among the top industries. Elsewhere, analysis finds Google is mostly citing a small selection of highly trusted sources in AI Overviews for YMYL topics.

“In the healthcare category where accuracy and trustworthiness are paramount, Google is increasingly showing search results from just a handful of websites. Content from authoritative medical research centres account for 72% of AI Overview answers, which is an increase from 54% of all queries at the start of January.”

Search Engine Journal

This suggests that Google values E-E-A-T criteria highly and does not take many risks when citing sources for YMYL topics.

Regularly update content

Content quality and information accuracy degrade over time. You have to update content to keep it fresh, relevant and accurate – not only for search engines but your target audience, referring domains and AI Overviews.

In the case of AI Overviews, pay special attention to the following:

• Maintain or update information accuracy

• Cover any new developments relevant to the topic

• Address any new questions your target audience is asking

• Update statistics, references and other sources

• Add more depth where suitable

• Re-evaluate E-E-A-T for the page

• Analyse the latest versions of competing content

As a general rule, you want to update your most important content every 6-12 months, but some pages will need updating more frequently, especially for topics that are constantly developing.

Add structured data to your pages

Structured data provides Google with contextual information about your page and its content. It applies code to your content that helps Google understand the relevance of your content to more intricate queries.

Given that AIOs mostly show for long-tail keywords, this contextual information is crucial.

Structured data can also make your search results more prominent in the SERPs for queries that don’t show AIOs. For example, Google might prioritise recipe pages for the query “how to make Thai curry paste,” over AIOs.

By applying the recipe structured data markup to your pages, you can appear as a rich result under the Recipes section for relevant queries.

Excel at technical SEO

Recent research finds that Google fails to crawl around 50% of pages on larger websites, due to technical SEO issues.

As the report explains, even if you have the best answers on your website, they’re not going to show in AIOs if Google can’t crawl and index them.

The most important technical SEO factors for AIOs include:

• Crawling and indexing

• Link maintenance

• Internal linking

• Structured data

• XML sitemap

• Core Web Vitals

• Mobile optimisation

Google’s John Mueller reaffirmed the importance of technical SEO in the age of AI search in a recent interview. He explains that generative AI’s large language models need access to online information to train their algorithms – and this access relies on the foundations of technical SEO.

Is your SEO strategy ready for the age of AI search?

Optimising for AI Overviews is a priority for SEOs this year, but the techniques we’ve discussed today will also help you optimise content for ChatGPT mentions and citations in other AI search tools like Perplexity.

Early research finds that optimising for AI search can increase visibility by up to 40%. Crucially, the same research also finds that lower-ranking websites can benefit the most from optimising for opportunities early.

Generative AI is transforming search and it will continue to carve out fresh opportunities while also raising new challenges. Optimising for AIOs is the first step in adapting SEO strategies for a new age of search, powered by AI technology.

About the author

Michael Carden-Edwards is SEO Strategy Lead at Reddico. A seasoned SEO and digital marketing expert with 13+ years of experience, Michael has directed SEO strategies for major brands like British Airways and O2 as well as conducting countless public and internal SEO training sessions. Based in Sevilla, he joined Reddico in 2021, enjoying the flexible working and unique culture from a sunnier climate.