8 Steps to optimise your website for AI Overview
How we interact with search engines is changing. According to Google, AI Overview now has over 1.5 billion monthly users, with high satisfaction rates driving a 10% increase in the usage of queries that show AI results.
What we search, and how we search, is being influenced by the popularity of AI Overview, and brands with a digital presence need to follow suit.
As OpenAI looks to launch an AI-powered web browser to compete with Google Chrome, websites need to update their digital strategy to ensure they are ranking for AI search.
What are AI Overviews?
AI overviews are AI-generated responses to search queries, created by summarising information from the most reputable online sources into a concise answer.
Links to the websites that provided this information, alongside other credible sources, appear alongside the AI Overview results.
AI Overviews appear before all other traditional search results, including snippets, sponsored and organic content, and maps.
Appearing in an AI Overview can therefore have a significant impact on your brand’s digital visibility, credibility, and organic traffic.
So, let’s look at how we can secure your spot in an AI Overview.
1. Produce high-quality content
Google will continue to prioritise authoritative, high-quality content that provides useful information from credible sources.
Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines (that’s Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) remain in place as a measure to assess the value of web content and to rank both traditional search engines and AI overviews accordingly.
To achieve this, write well-researched, accurate and useful content that highlights your experience and draws on real-life experience where possible.
2. Write question-oriented content
AI Overviews originally appeared as a response to questions. And, as the use of AI Overview grows, we are seeing a rise in question-led searches. AI-generated results are designed to provide concise, digestible information that answers specific queries, and your website should be optimised as such.
Revising your content to answer common and relevant user questions, in addition to writing around the topic and addressing other related search queries, will help boost your visibility on AI ranking.
3. Optimise your content for search intent
As mentioned, AI Overview prioritises content that directly answers user queries, paying close attention to the intention behind each search and selecting the most relevant information.
Search intent is most often broken down into the following categories.
- Informational – Looking to learn about a topic or gain more information on a subject.
- Navigational – Looking for a specific page or website
- Commercial – Researching a product or service before making a purchase. This could include comparing different products.
- Transactional – Ready to make a purchase or complete a transaction.
AI Overviews do not often appear for navigational queries, and are most likely to feature in informational searches, where it is required to provide relevant information on a specific question.
Understanding what users are looking for when they search and aligning your content to address this need is key to appearing in AI tools.
4. Search engine optimisation
52% of websites appearing in AI Overview rank in the top 10 results of the Search Engine Results Page. So, if you’re thinking you can do away with your SEO strategy, think again.
SEO still matters; 36% users skip AI-generated results in favour of traditional search engine results, and not all searches are currently eligible for AI results. And while this is expected to change, the fundamentals that matter most to search engines (authoritative, unique and credible content), also matter to AI search.
Ultimately, optimising your website for search will continue to strengthen the user experience, enhance your brand’s credibility and trustworthiness, and gain organic traffic, all of which can support your website’s positioning on AI results.
5. Don’t overlook the format of your content
AI Overview consistently favours bullet point style content, lists and short summarising paragraphs, with data to suggest 78% of AIO results feature lists of some kind.
Reflecting this format in your website’s content is beneficial for user experience, providing clear, easily digestible information that can be read and understood quickly, while also supporting the site’s AI Overview ranking, as it suits the short-form, digestible answers the platform displays.
Structuring your content with headings, lists, concise paragraphs, and using simple language also makes it easier for Google to interpret and navigate your website data, to be drawn from in AI and search engine rankings.
6. Update your content regularly
Frequently updating your website’s content signals to Google your site is live and active; not only this, but it allows you to incorporate the latest data, answer new user questions, and incorporate expert voices within your content.
Producing regular content and optimising old content should therefore play a key part in your Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) strategy. A website with an archive of high-quality content is much more trustworthy to Google, bolstering your position on both traditional and AI results.
7. Review your site’s technical elements
In order for your content to appear in AI Overview, Google needs to be able to crawl your web pages easily and efficiently. Using Google Search Console, you can see whether any of your site pages are not indexed and why, and the relevant action to take.
Ensuring your site is optimised for mobiles, has secure HTTPS, quick page load times, and internal links will enable your site to be used on AI Overview and traditional search rankings, while also improving user experience to build credibility in your brand.
8. Build your site’s backlink profile
AI tools pull from trusted sources, and, online, trustworthiness is rated by the number of high-value websites linking to a specific site. In this way, backlinks act as digital recommendations, communicating to search engines that the content is credible, valuable and reputable.
Digital PR, if not already, should now play a key part in your AI strategy. Achieving backlinks through online media coverage, being mentioned by trusted sites, or placing authoritative thought leadership on high-value platforms will bolster your brand’s credibility in the eyes of AI Overview and increase your chances of being featured in AAI-generated responses.
Now is the time to optimise for AI!
The world of search is changing rapidly, and businesses need to keep up to avoid losing out and becoming obsolete.
Now is the time to future-proof your website for AI, focusing on high-value, expert content that is well structured, technically sound, and provides helpful responses to user queries.
Looking for a trusted digital PR and marketing agency to elevate your brand’s digital visibility and secure your AI ranking? Get in touch with Represent here.