Anyone that owns a business will know how quickly the digital landscape can change when marketing your products or services online.
From continuous algorithm updates pushed by major search engines, to new artificial intelligence (AI) technologies redefining how people engage; staying ahead in the AI marketing arms race is essential for any Small to Medium Business (SMB).
Today our experts at Radiator Digital weigh in on new search experiences and how SEO is evolving with things such as large language model (LLM) chatbots and AI overviews. Our experts in the field discuss how to optimise for AI overviews, and by extension, how to rank in Google AI overviews to make sure your brand is front and center online with AI features.
Before we begin we need to understand;
What Is AI Overview?
For those who use Google frequently, you may have seen an AI overview box pop up when you search for something. The box that pops up, and the content that it contains, is an AI generated overview of the topic you are searching for.
Since May 2024, the US has been pushing these AI overviews for their searchers. It wasn’t until August of 2024 that UK searchers started to see them too.
But with more than a year of data to develop from, AI Overviews have gotten more sophisticated and are changing how people access information online. People that don’t opt out of using AI overviews will be getting results tailored to their search intent in real time, within the search engine results pages themselves.
This is a game-changer for searchers in helping them find what they need quickly, and for business owners in reaching their target audience!
At its most basic, an AI overview provides an answer to query-based search terms, and usually appears above the fold on the Google search engine results page.
This means it has the ability to suggest websites (via its linking to various reputable sources) above the 1st ranking position on Google. A huge win for any website that can act as a reputable source.
But it doesn’t just work for query search terms. Oftentimes, AI overviews will pop up for product searchers, informational searches, and functions almost like a search assistant to people using the Google search engine.
Read our 2-part article series on this very idea, Google Shopping using AI:
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Part two: The SMB Essentials for AI Checkout
When we discuss that products and services can show up via AI search assistance, be it AI overviews or other LLMs chatbots, this left businesses and marketing professionals wondering, ‘how do I get seen in AI overviews?’
It is a reasonable question, and anyone familiar with search engine optimisation might assume it works in a similar way to ranking a web page.
While there is some truth to this, it isn’t the full picture.
SEO is important for AI overviews, but there are a range of important considerations for businesses looking to rank for AI search features. Brand reputation, user experience, site speed, and all kinds of factors influence what AI overview picks and what it doesn’t.
A big part of ranking in AI overviews is a multi-model approach that considers not just content, but these other factors too.
A better question to ask, instead of ‘how do I rank for AI overviews?’ would be ‘does my website serve its intent and purpose?’
The core values of creating a good website pre-AI and post-AI are fundamentally the same; with a key focus on strengthening certain signals.
What is AEO and GEO, then?
Before we go any further, it’s time to dispel the SEO, AEO, and GEO myth and shine some clarity on the terms (and what they mean for businesses).
SEO is what you are likely most familiar with; search engine optimisation. SEO is the process of optimising your website for traditional search result pages. Think Google results, or Bing results pages. With SEO your website is optimised with on-page, off-page, and technical SEO best practices.
AEO is answer engine optimisation. This is the term used for optimisng your website for things like AI Overviews and the simpler search models that ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity use. AEO’s goal is to give you an immediate answer to a factual question (eg. what is 456 x 32, or, what is the capital of Chile?).
GEO is generative AI engine optimisation. This is the term used for optimising your website for deeper, research-based queries posed to LLM chatbots like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Perplexity. Think about Gemini’s ‘deep research’ mode, where it generates almost a document’s worth of ideas for you on a topic.
In a short analogy:
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SEO is the library.
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AEO is the librarian.
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GEO is the research assistant.
It is still crucial to point out, at this point, that answer engine and generative AI engine responses still need to be fact-checked! These models have been known to make mistakes, or confuse facts.
How to rank in Google AI Overviews
Content. Content. Content. I could say it a hundred times more, but content is the key to strengthening your position for Google AI Overviews. A website with good content will likely serve the searcher’s intent, and Google will be able to deduce this from click through rate, impressions, clicks, engagement rate (and a host of other KPIs) for a particular page.
While there are still other important factors to consider (that we’ll go over), without good content you won’t be able to rank very well in SEO, AEO or GEO.
Content that matches your user’s search intent is worth its weight in gold!
But when we mention content, we don’t mean stuffing the page full of just anything. As an SMB you’ll need accurate, precise content that provides everything a user needs to make an informed decision. And it’s not just the content itself, but how the content is structured.
Having a page structure that makes sense visually to a human searcher might not always translate well to the machines that run the LLM chatbots like ChatGPT or Google Gemini. These machines scan the structure of the page and the meta data of a page, as well as the written content, to decide about where the page should rank (and why it should rank there). This concept also applies to LLM chatbox replies and answers in Google AI Overview.
What AI search tools do for SMBs is give them a chance against larger competitors that might be trying to monopolise the search engine results pages. Unlike traditional SEO, performing succinct AEO and GEO best practices on your website can help in getting you a placement in the LLM chatboxes over huge companies. It all depends on how the LLM chatbots understand your content, and how that content satisfies a searcher’s query.
LLM chatbots and Google AI Overviews function almost like an academic. What matters isn’t just the amount of citations a paper gets, but the content of the paper and how relevant that is to their research. More citations can help with exposure, but they aren’t the sole deciding factor an academic uses to assess the paper’s validity.
Just like an academic, LLMs and Google AI Overviews will function the same way. It’ll choose the links that best aid the searcher with their query, regardless of if it is a huge company blog or a fledgling start-up.
Best-Practices Checklist for Ranking in Google AI Overviews
Below is a simple bullet-point checklist of best practices to consider for improving your AEO and GEO:
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Create high-quality, fact-based, well-researched content for your landing pages and your blog. Observe E-E-A-T & YMYL when writing content.
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Work on developing a backlink and referring domain network graph that is accurate and curated for your industry niche.
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Structure your pages correctly using HTML mark-up.
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Create detailed and accurate schema mark-up and structured data for your web pages.
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Created detailed and accurate meta data for a web page, including image alt tag attributes that reflect accessibility needs.
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Be sure to link out to trusted 3rd party domains when citing facts, and when the cite is relevant (such as academic papers).
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Be sure to have a detailed FAQ section where applicable, with the appropriate formatting and mark-up.
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Optimise your business listings, such as GMB, or any local directories you are listed on.
This is not, by any means, an extensive checklist. However, it is a great place to start for those with little-to-no experience with AI Overviews or LLM Chatbots.
Trust in the AI SEO Experts
Staying ahead of the curve when it comes to digital marketing, and specifically the recent AI advancements, is no easy feat. But our experts at Radiator Digital are here to help. Our decades of experience in digital marketing methods are at your disposal. As an extension of your team, our expertise and succinct attention to detail will help elevate your business above the competition.
Looking to expand your online sphere of influence? Reach out to us today!
Ranking in Google AI Overviews: FAQs
Any other quick tips on how to appear in AI Overviews?
When it comes to Google AI Overviews in particular, there are a few factors you can influence right now to better your chances of showing up. Keeping your page information up to date is a huge one. Too many people leave articles for months after publishing them without any updates. Another key tip is to make your information easily accessible for the reader. Think bullet point lists and tables where the information is dense.
How to get cited in AI Overviews? (as a source)
When it comes to being a factual source of information cited in Google AI Overviews, you’ll need very well research content that is factually immaculate. For companies and businesses, the easiest way to do this is case studies or developing original research in-house and publishing this research publicly.
Does the AI Overview lie?
Not on purpose. While Google does its best to create an AI tool that doesn’t output errors, occasionally, LLM chatbots and AI Overviews can output false information. This was definitely more common in 2024 when the tools were first launched, but as a rule of thumb, you should always fact-check the replies you get from any of these AI tools. Better safe than sorry!
