Sunk hours into climbing to the top of Google only to see your spot poached by an AI Overview? You’re not alone.
Many SEO agency teams and business owners are facing the same frustration. But the good news is, you don’t have to lose out. By adapting your strategy, focusing on authority, structured data, and clear, helpful content, you can increase your chances of being featured in AI summaries and stay visible where it matters most, right at the top.
But before we get into how, let’s start from the beginning.
What is an AI overview?
AI overviews are your search engines’ new way of helping you find information faster and easier than ever before. It’s that (not so) little summary, generated by Google’s artificial intelligence, that appears at the top of search results. It provides users with a quick, consolidated answer to their query, often from multiple sources, and links directly to relevant web pages. It was first launched in the US in May 2024, and AI Overviews were rolled out to UK users in August 2024, giving people faster and at-a-glance insights before they dive deeper.
How it works:
- Query: A user enters a search query into Google Search.
- Information Synthesis: A large language model, like Google’s Gemini, then analyses the query and pulls out relevant information from various online sources.
- Generative AI: Through its training on huge datasets, the generative AI learns patterns and uses them to generate a unique summary that attempts to answer the user’s question.
- It creates a Summary: The information is presented as an AI overview, a concise and often visual snapshot of the most important information.
- It adds contextual Links: You’ll find, next to the content, there’s always a link to the website/source AI has used. This is good for users as it means that they can verify information, and also explore topics further, but also good for the website owners.
Why are AI overviews important for SEO’s?
AI Overviews are important for SEO’s because they’re reshaping how people interact with search results. With over 2 billion users now seeing AI-generated summaries, traditional rankings are being pushed even further down, meaning businesses risk losing visibility if they don’t adapt. Instead of clicking through multiple links, users often get direct answers from the overview, so your SEO needs to focus on optimising content for inclusion by strengthening topical authority, E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness), and structured data. Those adapting early are securing more visibility, traffic, and brand credibility while competitors struggle to catch up.
How can you optimise AI overviews for SEO?
While you can’t directly ‘control’ what shows up in AI Overviews, you can optimise your content and site signals to increase the chances of being referenced. Here’s a list of things we’ve compiled to help you optimise:
- Strengthen Topical Authority: Create high-quality content clusters around your niche so search engines recognise your expertise. Cover related subtopics in depth to signal authority.
- Focus on E-E-A-T: As mentioned above, you need to focus on E-E-A-T. You can do this by implementing clear author bios, credentials, references to trusted sources, and up-to-date information.
- Use structured Data & Schema: Mark up your content with schema (FAQs, HowTo, Product, Organisation, etc.) to help search engines understand context and relationships.
- Answer Questions Clearly: Since AI overviews summarise answers, you need to be writing concise, direct responses to common queries (ideally in the first few sentences of a section), and your webpage may be more likely to be on the list.
- Optimise for Conversational Queries: AI Overviews often surface for natural, long-tail, question-based searches. Include headings in question form and write in a conversational tone.
- Keep Content Fresh: Update your content regularly with new stats, examples, and insights. AI models favour recent, relevant information.
- Build authority through Links & Mentions: Earn backlinks and mentions from credible sources to strengthen trust signals that AI uses when choosing references.
While AI Overviews may seem like a threat to your business, catching onto them early enough can actually create growth opportunities rather than diminishing the hard work you’ve put into ranking at the top of search results.
A strong foundation in SEO is still essential. It not only supports your visibility in traditional search but also increases your chances of being featured in AI-generated results, giving your business an even broader reach. Need help navigating your spot on the search engine? Feel free to contact us, and we will secure your place.